Broadway Bookshelf — For Actors

How to Succeed in Musical Theatre Without Really Dying: The Actor's Guide to Booking Work and Building a Career That Lasts

(3/3/2026)

Many musical theatre actors confuse competence with excellence. We mistake arriving in NYC with a well-trained voice, a pricy headshot, and general show biz acumen for being ready to work where Broadway happens. Then, when too many auditions end up no-gos, we assume it’s not meant to be and book a one-way ticket back home. If only a fairy godmother had told them the truth: Show business has more to do with business than show. Building a lucrative and lifelong career in musical theatre is far ...

Bring the House Down

(7/8/2025)

Alex Lyons always has his mind made up by the time the curtain comes down at a performance—the show either deserves a five-star rave, or a one-star pan. Anything in between is meaningless. On the opening night of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, he doesn’t deliberate over the rating for Hayley Sinclair’s show, nor does he hesitate when the opportunity presents itself to have a one-night stand with the struggling actress. Unaware that she’s gone home with the theater critic who’s just...

Actors' and Performers' Yearbook 2022: Essential Contacts for Stage, Screen and Radio

(12/16/2021)

New version of this annual book includes newly commissioned interviews conducted by Polly Bennett and Joan Iyiola (co-founders of The Mono Box) with theatre industry professionals including Cherrelle Skeete, Hazel Holder, Ned Bennett and Tom Ross Williams; a new foreword by Polly Bennett; updated listings covering training and working in theatre, film, radio, TV and comedy, it contains invaluable resources such as a casting calendar and articles on a range of topics from your social media profi...

The Best New Ten-Minute Plays, 2021

(11/15/2021)

Thirty new ten-minute plays. This volume is ideal for theatre enthusiasts looking for new and compelling short pieces from some of the finest playwrights of our time.

She Persisted: One Hundred Monologues from Plays by Women over Forty

(11/1/2021)

Collection of monologues from plays by members of Honor Roll!, an advocacy group of women over forty.

100 Playwriting Challenges

(4/20/2021)

What resources are out there for playwrights to “stay in shape” with their writing? Is there anything out there to help these theatermakers focus, practice, and tell stories? 100 Playwriting Challenges features a collection of exercises and prompts designed to jumpstart imagination and kick that daunting blank page to the curb. From challenges on character to scene-starters to revisions, this book will provide the tools and resources playwrights need to kick-start their next creative advent...

The Best Women's Monologues from New Plays, 2020

(4/15/2021)

Approximately 100 women’s monologues for actors to use for auditions and in class, all from recently produced plays ... by both well-known playwrights such as Don Nigro, Saviana Stanescu, and Len Jenkin and future stars such as Lia Romeo, Steven Hayet, Lori Fischer, Will Arbery, and Carey Crim. 184 pages.

The Best Men's Monologues from New Plays, 2020

(4/15/2021)

Approximately 100 men's monologues for actors to use for auditions and in class, all from recently produced plays ... by both well-known playwrights such as Don Nigro, Theresa Rebeck, Rob Ackerman, Len Jenkin, Stephen Belber, and Tim Blake Nelson, and future stars such as David MacGregor, Reina Hardy, Chris Daftsios, Frank Basloe, and Will Arbery. 184 pages.

Finding Tulsa

(9/22/2020)

"Stan Grozniak, the once-rising star of 1990s gay cinema, shares how he almost self-sabotaged a prestigious directing gig after casting his rediscovered teenage summer stock crush. While still haunted by the death of Rick Dacker, the sexy star of his cult favorite action trilogy, Stan attempts a romance with actor Lance Holtzer, his 'Tulsa' from a small town Ohio production of the musical Gypsy."

Kathleen Turner on Acting: Conversations about Film, Television, and Theater

(6/11/2019)

Few actors have had a career as dynamic as that Kathleen Turner's; success has followed her from the television screen to major blockbusters, from indie films to the theater stage. Over her 40-year career, Turner has developed an instinctual knowledge of what it takes to be a successful actor, and, in her conversations with esteemed film professor Dustin Morrow, she shares these lessons with the world. With her iconic wit on full display, Turner dazzles listeners with her shrewd insights on ...

Waiting in the Wings: How to Launch Your Performing Career on Broadway and Beyond

(4/23/2019)

The definitive guide to making a career in theater?to Broadway and beyond Tiffany Haas knows how to make it on Broadway. After 72 rejections in a row?72 auditions and 72 rejections?she finally landed a role in Broadway?s long-running smash hit Wicked and later became ?Glinda the Good.? Now she wants to share her advice for starting and nurturing a career in the theater. Waiting in the Wings is the essential guide for anyone who wants to have a theatrical career, whether they?re complete newb...

Getting Off: Lee Breuer on Performance

(3/19/2019)

"Since the nineteen-sixties and seventies, New York's experimental-theatre scene has toned down its wild-man character, but Lee Breuer is the grand old man of the movement."?The New Yorker Since he first arrived on the New York art/theatre/performance scene in 1970, Lee Breuer has been at the forefront of the American theatrical avant-garde, creating challenging works both independently and with Mabou Mines, the company he co-founded with JoAnne Akalaitis, Philip Glass, Ruth Maleczech and Da...

The Ultimate Musical Theater College Audition Guide: Advice from the People Who Make the Decisions

(2/1/2019)

In The Ultimate Musical Theatre College Audition Guide, author, acting teacher, and musical theatre program director Amy Rogers offers an honest, no-nonsense guide to the musical theatre audition. Written for high school students and their parents, teachers, and mentors, the book demystifies what can be an overwhelming process with step-by-step explanations of audition checkpoints to answer every student's question, "where do I begin?" Chapters explore degree types, summer programs and intensi...

Clues to Acting Shakespeare (Third Edition)

(10/23/2018)

“A workhorse of a book! Beautifully conceived and executed. Clues to Acting Shakespeare is a no-brainer purchase for acting collections in all libraries.” ?Library Journal Clues to Acting Shakespeare has become a popular guide for actors, directors, teachers and Shakespeare enthusiasts, selling over 15,000 copies of previous editions. This third edition retains the second edition’s unique solutions to challenges that face directors and actors at advanced levels and is expanded to inclu...

Gmorning, Gnight!: Little Pep Talks for Me & You Hardcover – October 23, 2018

(10/23/2018)

From the creator and star of Hamilton, with beautiful illustrations by Jonny Sun, comes a book of affirmations to inspire readers at the beginning and end of each day. Good morning. Do NOT get stuck in the comments section of life today. Make, do, create the things. Let others tussle it out. Vamos! Before he inspired the world with Hamilton and was catapulted to international fame, Lin-Manuel Miranda was inspiring his Twitter followers with words of encouragement at the beginning and end ...

The Oberon Anthology of Contemporary American Plays: Volume Two

(9/30/2018)

The second volume in this series brings together some of the best new writing from contemporary American playwrights. Each play is introduced by critically acclaimed writers themselves. The volume includes: THE EDGE OF OUR BODIES by Adam Rapp, Introduced by AM Homes THE COWARD by Nick Jones, Introduced by Marsha Norman THE BOOK OF GRACE by Suzan-Lori Parks, Introduced by Oskar Eustis WHAT ONCE WE FELT by Ann Marie Healy, Introduced by Paula Vogel

Kathleen Turner on Acting

(9/18/2018)

Few actors have had a career as dynamic as that Kathleen Turner's; success has followed her from the television screen to major blockbusters, from indie films to the theater stage. Over her forty-year career, Turner has developed an instinctual knowledge of what it takes to be a successful actor, and, in her conversations with esteemed film professor Dustin Morrow, she shares these lessons with the world. With her iconic wit on full display, Turner dazzles readers with her shrewd insights on...

The Essentials of Theater: A Guide to Acting, Stagecraft, Technical Theater, and More

(9/4/2018)

A friendly and practical guide to the stage, The Essentials of Theater will prepare actors and crew for their next show. Perfect for college students in theater programs, as well as community theater troupes, this book covers all the bases?from a brief history on theater over the centuries and basic terminology to tips on interpreting scripts, developing characters, and utilizing props. Lisa Mulcahy’s helpful explanations and examples take readers on a backstage tour, introducing the tasks an...

Broadway Sensations Paper Dolls

(8/24/2018)

The spotlight shines on Broadway! This special book by Cory Jensen celebrates eight show-stopping Broadway Sensations with superb acting ability, fabulous style and powerhouse vocal talent! Whether a demure secretary longing for recognition or a witch defying gravity and demanding justice, these paper dolls represent women who are pop culture icons. With a combined total 35 Tony nominations and 15 wins, this book features Julie Andrews, Barbra Streisand, Patti Lupone, Bernadette Peters, Hea...

The Language Archive and Other Plays

(7/3/2018)

From whimsical comedies to nail-biting chillers, Julia Cho is one of the most versatile playwrights in the contemporary theatre scene. For the past fifteen years, her stunning plays have been performed all over the country. Contained in this new anthology is a captivating sampling of her widely-lauded work featuring The Language Archive and including Aubergine, Office Hour, The Piano Teacher, and Durango.

Mary Jane (TCG Edition)

(4/24/2018)

Armed with medicines, feeding tubes, and various medical accoutrement, Mary Jane is a single mother and a one-woman army when it comes to the care of her chronically ill son. A moving new play about the stalwart endurance of a devoted mother, Mary Jane by acclaimed playwright Amy Herzog demonstrates the prevailing strength of human will when fueled by unconditional love.

100 Plays for the First Hundred Days

(4/3/2018)

Known for her distinctive lyrical dialogue and powerful sociopolitical themes, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Suzan-Lori Parks is one of the most innovative and ambitious playwrights in the contemporary theatre world. In reaction to the extraordinary events of the first 100 days of the presidency of Donald J. Trump, one of America’s most distinguished artists has created a unique and highly personal response to one of the most tumultuous times in our history. For each day, Parks created a ...

The Actor Uncovered

(3/6/2018)

The Actor Uncovered is certainly not a set of rigid rules advocating one "method" or one singular "truth." Departing from the common guidebook format, Michael Howard uses a unique approach to teaching acting, reflecting on his own history and sharing his own experiences as an actor, director, and teacher. How he writes about the process and craft of acting is at once intensely personal and relatable by others. Readers are invited to participate as though present in this master teacher's clas...

Abigail's Party: 40th Anniversary Edition

(2/27/2018)

40th anniversary edition with a new introduction by Mike Leigh. Forty years on from its first performance at the Hampstead Theatre and original screening on BBC1 soon after, Mike Leigh's Abigail's Party - telling of two marriages spectacularly unravelling at an awkward neighbourhood drinks party - remains a pinnacle of British theatre. Here is the original script, complete with a new introduction by Mike Leigh describing the play's unlikely genesis, how it came to be made and where he believes ...

The Kite Runner

(2/6/2018)

The script for the stage production of Khaled Hosseini's first and internationally bestselling novel, The Kite Runner, as adapted by playwright Matthew Spangler. The unforgettable, heartbreaking story of the unlikely friendship between a wealthy boy and the son of his father's servant, The Kite Runner is a beautifully crafted novel set in a country that is in the process of being destroyed. Now adapted for the stage, the story is about the power of reading, the price of betrayal, and the po...

A Thousand Splendid Suns

(2/6/2018)

Born a generation apart and with very different ideas about love and family, Mariam and Laila are two women brought jarringly together by war, by loss, and by fate. As they endure the ever-escalating dangers around them--in their home, as well as in the streets of Kabul--they come to form a bond that makes them both sisters and mother-daughter to each other, and that will ultimately alter the course not just of their own lives but of the next generation. With heart-wrenching power and suspense,...

Queers: Eight Monologues

(10/31/2017)

Eight monologues for male and female performers cover major events – such as the Wolfenden Report of 1957, the HIV/AIDS crisis, and the debate over the age of consent – through deeply affecting and personal rites-of-passage stories. Commissioned to mark the anniversary of the 1967 Sexual Offences Act and broadcast on BBC Four and BBC America. They were also staged at The Old Vic in London. The Man on the Platform by Mark Gatiss, The Perfect Gentleman by Jackie Clune, Safest Spot in Town by ...

Bash--acting edition

(12/15/2015)

BASH, a collection of three darkly brilliant one-act plays, forms a trio of unforgettable personal accounts. In MEDEA REDUX, a woman tells of her complex and ultimately tragic relationship with her junior high school English teacher; in IPHIGENIA IN OREM, a Utah businessman confides in a stranger in a Las Vegas hotel room, confessing a most chilling crime; and in A GAGGLE OF SAINTS, a young Mormon couple separately recounts the violent events of an anniversary weekend in New York City. All thre...

Broadway Swings: Covering the Ensemble in Musical Theatre

(10/22/2015)

In this textbook for performers, the position of a Swing-an Understudy for the Ensemble-on Broadway is examined from every angle, showing just how vital Swings are to the success of any musical theatre production. Authors J. Austin Eyer and Lyndy Franklin Smith draw on their own experiences as performers, and gather first-hand stories from other Swings about the glories and hardships of their industry. The book features interviews with over 100 Broadway pros-Swing veterans, Stage Managers, Cas...

Best Monologues from The Best American Short Plays, Volume Three

(5/5/2015)

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me. Really? Words can break spirits, destroy confidence. They can also build hope and incite great acts of heroism. Playwrights know this, and so do theater audiences. Otherwise, why go? Words matter and carry clout every bit as dangerous as a hammer or crowbar. This, too, playwrights know. The monologues in this volume are full of such blows, striking at our imaginations and our memories, generating responses such as joyful laught...

So You Want to Be a Dancer: Practical Advice and True Stories from a Working Professional

(3/9/2015)

Matthew Shaffer’s more than twenty years as a performer, choreographer, director, Broadway collaborator, writer, and producer has allowed him opportunities to work with celebrities like Megan Mullally, Ben Stiller, and the elite competition team of Dance Moms. So You Want to Be a Dancer is the ultimate book for anyone who has to fight the urge to sashay down grocery store aisles or school hallways. Shaffer discusses everything from how to break into the industry to practical advice—from how...

Acting in Musical Theatre: A Comprehensive Course

(2/28/2015)

Acting in Musical Theatre: A Comprehensive Course offers a complete guide to mastering this highly specialized area of acting. Packed with practical tips, useful exercises and advice from professionals, this book offers step-by-step instruction for an integrated performance, looking at: the fundamentals of acting how to analyze the script and score for clues to developing your character how to make a song come to life staging a performance acting in different styles and genres of...

Studying Musical Theatre: Theory and Practice

(12/4/2014)

The ideal accompaniment to any study of musical theatre, this lively textbook provides a comprehensive overview of the history, theory and practice of this popular theatre form. Bringing critical theory and musical theatre together, Millie Taylor and Dominic Symonds explore the musical stage from a broad range of theoretical perspectives, including narrative theory, orientalism, gender theory and globalization. Focusing on opera as well as musical theatre, Studying Musical Theatre considers ...

Acting Through Song: Techniques and Exercises for Musical-Theatre Actors

(11/25/2014)

An impassioned and invaluable guide for actors and students of musical theatre. In Acting Through Song, ? Paul Harvard takes the techniques of modern actor training – including the theories of Stanislavsky, Brecht, Meisner and Laban, amongst others – and applies them to the fundamental component of musical theatre: singing. With dozens of exercises to put these theories into practice, and numerous examples from a broad range of musicals, the result is a comprehensive and rigorous acti...

Evita, Inevitably: Performing Argentina's Female Icons Before and After Eva Perón

(10/23/2014)

Evita, Inevitably sheds new light on the history and culture of Argentina by examining the performances and reception of the country’s most iconic female figures, in particular, Eva Perón, who rose from poverty to become a powerful international figure. The book links the Evita legend to a broader pattern of female iconicity from the mid-nineteenth century onward, reading Evita against the performances of other female icons: Camila O’Gorman, executed by firing squad over her affair with a ...

So You Want to Sing Music Theater: A Guide for Professionals

(5/2/2014)

In some ways, the successor of vaudeville and an extension of the opera and operetta, the stage musical has evolved into a worldwide juggernaut. Musicals are staged not only across the globe but are offered in a variety of settings, from the high school stage and major theater to the big screen. The stage musical has become a staple for the professional singer and the object of close study by students of singing. In So You Want to Sing Music Theater: A Guide for Professionals, singer and schola...

The Producer's Perspective Top 100: The Most Read Blogs on TheProducersPerspective.com

(4/18/2014)

Have you ever wanted to know what it's like to be a Tony-Award winning Broadway Producer? Ken Davenport, one of Broadway and Off-Broadway's youngest Producers (Mothers and Sons, The Bridges of Madison County, Kinky Boots, Macbeth, Godspell, Chinglish, Oleanna, You're Welcome America, Speed-the-Plow, Blithe Spirit, 13, Altar Boyz, The Awesome 80s Prom, My First Time, and Miss Abigail's Guide to Dating, Mating & Marriage), and one of Crain's "40 Under Forty," shares the secrets of his success in ...

Hey,So You Want To Be In Show Business: a quick and easy guide to getting started for kids,teens and adults

(4/11/2014)

HEY! THIS IS THE NEWLY UPDATED VERSION FOR 2014!This guide is your reference for getting started in commercials,Tv,film,voiceovers and modeling.Includes:how to find an agent,tips for becoming a good actor,information on training,photographers for headshots,how to do a resume,how to become an extra and much more!

Stanislavski Never Wore Tap Shoes: Musical Theater Acting Craft

(4/7/2014)

Finally, a book about acting on the musical stage! Ask any director who stages musicals at any level, and you will hear the same: acting is the musical theater gold standard, the skill hardest to find in the audition room. Acting facility almost always separates leading player from ensemble, and, frequently, employed from unemployed. In film or on the dramatic stage, great acting stands in the spotlight. It has its own dressing room. It’s paid top dollar and walks the red carpet. Yet in the m...

12 Steps to Broadway (Could This Really Be Broadway?)

(4/4/2014)

Many have a dream of performing on Broadway and a vision to make this dream a reality. As Broadway Moms, we have experienced this with our own children and have gained knowledge in the Broadway arena that we want to share with others.

Inside Act: How Ten Actors Made It-And How You Can Too

(4/1/2014)

Why do some actors make it and others don't? Ken Womble sets out to find the answer to this question, one that has fascinated and tormented him for years, in his new book, INSIDE ACT: How Ten Actors Made it and How You Can Too. INSIDE ACT: How Ten Actors Made it and How You Can Too identifies what sets successful actors apart. For Womble it's about the inner choices, the inside acts of working actors acts that have propelled them to thriving careers in one of the most competitive professi...

Shakespeare for American Actors and Directors

(4/23/2013)

Fear grips many American actors and directors faced with the opportunity to perform Shakespeare live. Their tongues twist at the first trauma: To Brit or not to Brit, that is the question. Whether tis nobler to stick to the kings English, or opt out and go all US. The thought of using verse for hours makes them dizzy. Iambic pentameter: Its not to fight, but to welcome. Its the God-given inherent beat of spoken Englishoops, American. And they go into a psychogenic trauma just considering the is...

Lincoln: The Screenplay

(2/13/2013)

A decade-long collaboration between three-time Academy Award® winner Steven Spielberg and Pulitzer Prize winner Tony Kushner, Lincoln is a revealing drama that focuses on the 16th President’s tumultuous final months in office. Having just won re-election in a country divided, Lincoln pursues a course of action designed to end the war, unite the country and abolish slavery. With the moral courage and fierce determination to succeed, his choices during this critical moment will change the fate...

Cool Side of the Pillow

(2/13/2013)

Zachery Kleinmann lives in the elite world of New Canaan, Connecticut and has left his accounting job four years earlier to be a modern stay-at-home father. But as his son is starting pre-school, his wife is passionately involved in her own career, and Zach is knocking on forty years old, he begins to wonder how he will find his own serenity and define himself moving forward. Enter Ginger Charman, an older, eccentric, free living actress who has dedicated her life to bringing joy to childre...

The Anarchist

(2/5/2013)

Theatre Communications Group (TCG) is pleased to announce the publication of the newest play by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright David Mamet: The Anarchist. Just having completed its world premiere on Broadway under the direction of the playwright and starring Patti LuPone and Debra Winger, Mr. Mamet’s work is also currently represented on Broadway with the revival of his award-winning Glengarry Glen Ross starring Al Pacino and Bobby Cannavale. “Mamet remains the American theatre’s m...

Collaborators

(1/15/2013)

Taking its inspiration from historical fact, Collaborators explores the intense, paradoxical, and ultimately deadly friendship between the dissident writer Mikhail Bulgakov and Josef Stalin, centering around a play which Bulgakov was forced to write to commemorate Stalin's sixtieth birthday. Stalin has been in power for 16 years and his purges are at their zenith. Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita is lying unpublished in a desk drawer, and his latest play Molière has been banned followi...

Elliot, A Soldier’s Fugue

(11/20/2012)

Melding a poetic dreamscape with a stream-of-consciousness narrative, Elliot, A Soldier's Fugue takes us on an unforgettable journey across time and generations. Lyrically tracing the legacy of war on a single Puerto Rican family, this Pulitzer Prize finalist is the first installment in Quiara Alegria Hudes' The Elliot Trilogy. Quiara Alegría Hudes wrote the book for the Broadway musical In the Heights, which received the 2008 Tony Award for Best Musical, a Tony nomination for Best Book of ...

The Chamber Plays of August Strindberg

(10/30/2012)

The five Chamber Plays of August Strindberg, written in 1907 and newly translated by Paul Walsh, including "Storm," "Burned House," "The Ghost Sonata,: "The Pelican," and "Black Glove." Strindberg began writing his chamber plays early in 1907 for a group of young actors embarking on a new endeavor: to open a small theater in the center of Stockholm dedicated to the Strindberg plays. The theater would be called Intima Teatern (The Intimate Theater), and it would explore the possibilities of a new...

The Oberon Anthology of Contemporary American Plays: Volume One

(10/23/2012)

Theatre Communications Group (TCG) is pleased to announce the U.S. release of The Oberon Anthology of Contemporary American Plays: Volume One edited by Mark Subias, published by Oberon Books (London). This new volume brings together plays from four of the best young artists on the contemporary American playwriting scene. Volume One is introduced by Andr Bishop, Artistic Director of the Lincoln Center Theater, and each play is introduced by well-known and critically acclaimed writers. The...

Water by the Spoonful

(10/16/2012)

Quiara Alegría Hudes is the author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Water by the Spoonful, the Tony Award-winning musical In the Heights and the Pulitzer Prize finalist Elliot, A Soldier’s Fugue. Her other works include Barrio Grrrl!, a children’s musical; 26 Miles; Yemaya’s Belly and The Happiest Song Plays Last, the third piece in her acclaimed trilogy.

So You Wanna Be a Superstar?: The Ultimate Audition Guide

(10/2/2012)

Geared toward hopeful musical theater, show choir, a cappella, and glee club singers, as well as all shower singers that want to improve their skills, this enthusiastic and practical guide can help anyone’s inner superstardom make a public appearance. Full of straightforward, well-organized advice for every step of the process, this book will help you train your vocal cords, pick the right audition material, and become comfortable with the spotlight. Interactive quizzes, helpful sidebars, and ...

READY?...SET?...ACT!

(9/27/2012)

“Ready? Set? Act!” is for the working actor who desires to move to the next level in film, TV and theater and who wants to set reachable goals that will sustain his or her career for many years to come. It is for the actor who has been discouraged by his progress so far and wants to know what to do to get ahead! It is for every actor who needs to combine the business aspects of having a career with the creative drive that made him choose to be an actor, in the first place. Joan Sittenfie...

The Veil

(8/14/2012)

One of Ireland's leading playwrights, Conor McPherson sets his latest play around a house hemmed in by a restive, starving populace in rural Ireland. In May 1822, the defrocked Reverend Berkeley arrives at the once-glorious Mount Prospect House to accompany seventeen-year-old Hannah to England, where she is to be married off in order to absolve her mother's debts. But compelled by the peculiar voices that haunt his enchanting young charge and a fascination with the spirits that pervade the house...

His

(7/1/2012)

With 40 monologues for men chosen from plays written in the last 10 years, this collection offers a variety of compelling one-person pieces. Commentary from a theater professional who has worked on the play is included with each monologue, along with the context from the play in which the piece is taken. Offering characters that can be richly brought to life, this volume provides a useful tool for professional and amateur actors, acting students, and drama coaches.

Theatre and the Politics of Space

(6/30/2012)

This collection considers what is at stake when a theatrical space is created and when a performance takes place, asking under which circumstances the topology of theatre becomes political. The book focuses on this issue from various angles, taking theatre as a cultural paradigm for political dimensions of space in its respective historical context. From its very beginnings, theatre has been both an art and a public space shared by actors and spectators, and as a result its entity and history i...

The Second City Unscripted

(6/30/2012)

Since its modest beginning in 1959, The Second City in Chicago has become a world-renowned bastion of hilarity. A training ground for many of today’s top comedic talents—including Alan Arkin, Dan Aykroyd, Stephen Colbert, Tina Fey, Bill Murray, and Amy Sedaris— it was an early blueprint for improv-based sketch revues in North America and abroad. Its immeasurable influence also extends to television, film, and the Broadway stage. Mike Thomas interviewed scores of key figures who have contr...

Acting in Real Time

(6/28/2012)

Boleros for the Disenchanted and Other Plays

(6/26/2012)

Three new works from José Rivera, a writer known for his lush language, open heart, and stylistic flirting with the surreal. Boleros for the Disenchanted is the moving story of the playwrights own parents: their sweet courtship in 1950s Puerto Rico, and then forty years later in more difficult times in America. With Brainpeople, Rivera explores the troubled minds of three women in a post-apocalyptic setting who feast on a freshly slaughtered tiger. In School of the Americas, he imagines Che Gue...

Theatre for Change

(6/19/2012)

Providing an international overview of the latest work and thinking in Drama and Education, and featuring interviews with a worldwide variety of leading practitioners and theorists, this book explores how Educational Theatre, Applied Theatre and Drama Therapy facilitate change within schools, community centres, prisons, and theatres.

Garrison Keillor and the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra

(6/19/2012)

Garrison Keillor and Philip Brunelle have performed together with a long list of great orchestras: the New York Philharmonic, Boston Symphony, Chicago, L.A. Philharmonic, Cleveland, St. Louis, Minnesota Orchestra, Seattle, and San Francisco. After years on the road, they brought the show home to St. Paul, the Fitzgerald Theater, and the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra. As always, Keillor served as amiable host and narrator, Brunelle as guest conductor. The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra was the f...

Chinglish

(6/12/2012)

Theatre Communications Group (TCG) is pleased to announce the publication of Chinglish, an uproarious new comedy by two-time Pulitzer finalist David Henry Hwang (M. Butterfly, Yellow Face). Chinglish received its world premiere at Chicago’s Goodman Theatre in 2011 before transferring to Broadway later that year. Declared the “Best American Play of 2011” by Time magazine, Chinglish will be adapted for an upcoming film by director-producer Justin Lin with a screenplay by Hwang. Springing...

Peter and the Starcatcher: The Annotated Script of the Broadway Play [

(6/5/2012)

The hilarious script for the Broadway play Peter and the Starcatcher is presented along with commentary by the playwright, the directors, the composer, the set designer, and our own Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson. Filled with behind-the-scenes information and photos of the cast and crew, this annotated script will enchant and entertain fans of the book and the play alike.

David Mamet

(6/5/2012)

Starting Your Career as a Theatrical Designer

(5/1/2012)

In the first book of its kind to be published in twenty years, ten award-winning and current Broadway designers—five set designers, four lighting designers, and one projection designer—discuss the business aspects of the theatre world, sharing relevant insider information and strategies that will prove invaluable to aspiring and seasoned theatrical designers alike. Culled from years of experience, the information offered in these enlightening conversations will strengthen readers’ underst...

Chinese Theatre

(4/30/2012)

Many colorful theatrical activities can be found throughout China. The best known and most unique of these is perhaps traditional Chinese opera, which has a history of over 800 years. However, since the early twentieth century, following increased contact with the West, drama without music has also become popular in China. The development and prosperity of modern drama has created a new landscape for Chinese theater, which, as a whole, has become more diverse. In this illustrated introduction F...

Voice and the Young Actor

(4/15/2012)

There are thousands of students enrolled in school drama classes in yet very often young actors cannot be heard, are culturally encouraged to trail off at the ends of sentences, and habitually use only the lowest pitches of the voice. Drama teachers, frequently ask, “How can I get my students to speak up, to be clear, to articulate?” Voice and the Young Actor is written for the school actor, is inviting in format, language and illustration and offers clear and inspiring instructions. An...

Mojo and Other Plays

(4/3/2012)

TCG is proud to present Mojo and Other Plays, a new collection of plays by the author of the Tony Award-nominated Jerusalem. One of Britain’s most compelling and original playwrights, Butterworth follows up the publication of that critically acclaimed play with this collection of six early works. The volume includes the Olivier Award-winning Mojo, as well as an interview between the playwright and Nick Hern, founder of Nick Hern Books.

The Hole in the Top of the World

(3/15/2012)

Before the Rehearsal Begins

(3/15/2012)

The work of an outstanding Georgian theatre director and teacher Mikhail Tumanishvili (1921-1996) was first published in Georgia in 1976 and is now made available for the first time in an English translation. Before the Rehearsal Begins is a precise and demanding exploration of the director's creative process. The book is richly illustrated with diagrams and drawings sketched by the author and is inspiring in its simplicity and imaginative freedom. Tumanishvili is acknowledged worldwide as a...

Reflections

(3/1/2012)

The piano music of Maurice Ravel is among the most thrilling, the most colorful, and, for pianists, the most challenging of the repertoire. This book is about how performers and listeners can discover it and relate to it - how it sounds and feels under the fingers and within the receptive imagination. But to write about those experiences, to explore the background, influences, and impulses behind Ravel's music, is to be engaged in a form of biography. Discovering the delicate melancholy of the ...

Illuminating Childhood: Portraits in Fiction, Film, and Drama

(2/28/2012)

"A brilliant and daring book on how art reveals life, how it illuminates childhood beyond what the sciences of development can tell us." ---Jerome Bruner, University Professor, New York University "Combining the surgical precision of a psychoanalytically informed critic with the oracular eloquence of a brilliant close reader, Ellen Handler Spitz reads our cultural fortunes about childhood and parenting through works of art. Moving us (in both senses of the term) from the serene plenitude of...

La Mothe le Vayer

(2/28/2012)

The Lettre sur la Comédie de l'Imposteur is the only work of any length which does full justice to comedy in the seventeenth century as a serious dramatic form. It is an important document in its own right and because it is inseparable from the historical context of Molière's Le Tartuffe ou l'Imposteur and the circumstances which influenced its development.

Andrei Droznin's Physical Actor Training

(2/17/2012)

Droznin is remarkable and valuable for his ability to combine serious and historically contextualised reflection on the body, psychology and human behaviour with an incorporated and systematic exploration of these ideas in practice.' Paul Allain Andrei Droznin’s Physical Actor Training presents a unique introduction to the master teacher behind a programme of stage movement training that is taught all over the world. Droznin’s influence on the way biomechanical principals and the relatio...

Performing Captivity, Performing Escape

(2/15/2012)

The concentration camp and Jewish ghetto at Terezín, or Theresienstadt, in what is now the Czech Republic, was a site of enormous suffering, fear, and death; but in the midst of this was a thriving and desperately vibrant cultural life. While the children’s drawings and musical pieces created in the ghetto have become justly famous, the prisoners’ theatrical works, though a lesser-known aspect of their artistic endeavors, deserves serious attention as well. Performing Captivity collect...

Russians in Britain

(1/18/2012)

From Komisarjevsky in the 1920s, to Cheek by Jowl’s Russian ‘sister company’ almost a century later, Russian actor training has had a unique influence on modern British theatre. Russians in Britain, edited by Jonathan Pitches, is the first work of its type to identify a relationship between both countries’ theatrical traditions as continuous as it is complex. Unravelling new strands of transmission and translation linking the great Russian émigré practitioners to the second and thi...

The Brecht Yearbook

(1/15/2012)

The Brecht Yearbook is a venue for discussion about aspects of theater and literature that were of particular interest to Bertolt Brecht, especially the politics of literature and the politics of theater in a global context. The Volume Brecht in / and Asia contains twenty-six essays based on presentations given at “Brecht in/and Asia,” the thirteenth Symposium of the International Brecht Society (IBS), which was held at the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa in 2010. Themes covered inclu...

The Twentieth Century Theatre

(1/11/2012)

Darkening Mirrors

(1/6/2012)

In Darkening Mirrors, Stephanie Leigh Batiste examines how African Americans participated in U.S. cultural imperialism in Depression-era stage and screen performances. A population treated as second-class citizens at home imagined themselves as empowered, modern U.S. citizens and transnational actors in plays, operas, ballets, and films. Many of these productions, such as the 1938 hits Haiti and The "Swing" Mikado recruited large casts of unknown performers, involving the black community not on...

Like Clouds or Mists: Studies and Translations of No Plays of the Genpei War

(12/31/2011)

Billy the Kid and Other Plays

(12/10/2011)

While award-winning author Rudolfo Anaya is known primarily as a novelist, his genius is also evident in dramatic works performed regularly in his native New Mexico and throughout the world. Billy the Kid and Other Plays collects seven of these works and offers them together for the first time. Like his novels, many of Anaya’s plays are built from the folklore of the Southwest. This volume opens with The Season of La Llorona, in which Anaya fuses the Mexican legend of the dreaded “crying...

Love Town

(11/19/2011)

Comedy 5m, 3f, Possible Cast Expansion / Interior Sea Spray is a charming beach town, perfect for romantic getaways and cliff-side proposals. While tourists walk around with stars in their eyes, the locals take their lumps and watch their relationships fray and fizzle. Karl is a self-professed good guy who bought the little village dream for his wife, only to have her run off with the town aromatherapist. Now he's stuck with a quaint souvenir shop he never wanted, and the vengeful impulse ...

Theatre for Beginners

(11/15/2011)

Theater is the room where performance happens. Where people sit and watch other people. The moment to moment event that unfolds hinges on our imperfect-ness. . . . Theatre for Beginners is a manual for the actor based in the belief that the person is interesting before the performing happens, and the essence of good stage work is rooted in a constant state of beginning. Richard Maxwell, the downtown writer and director with a deadpan aesthetic and an ever-innovative body of work, has written ...

Bringing the Body to the Stage and Screen: Expressive Movement for Performers

(11/15/2011)

As stage and screen artists explore new means to enhance their craft, a new wave of interest in expressive movement and physical improvisation has developed. And in order to bring authenticity and believability to a character, it has become increasingly vital for actors to be aware of movement and physical acting. Stage and screen artists - including dancers, clowns, puppeteers, singers, and other performers who combine acting with their art - must now call upon physical presence, movement on st...

Exercises for Rebel Artists: Radical Performance Pedagogy

(10/25/2011)

In Exercises for Rebel Artists, Guillermo Gomez-Pena and Roberto Sifuentes use their extensive teaching and performance experience with La Pocha Nostra to help students and practitioners to create ‘border art’. Designed to take readers right into the heart of radical performance, the authors use a series of crucial practical exercises, honed in workshops worldwide, to help create challenging theatre which transcends the boundaries of nation, gender, and racial identity. The book featur...

Tribes

(10/18/2011)

In Tribes, Billy, who is deaf, is the only one who actually listens in his idiosyncratic, fiercely argumentative bohemian family. But when he meets Sylvia, who is going deaf, he decides he finally wants to be heard. With excoriating dialogue and sharp, compassionate insights, Nina Raine crafts a penetrating play about belonging, family and the limitations of communication.

Theatre in Pieces: Politics, Poetics and Interdisciplinary Collaboration

(10/11/2011)

Theatre in Pieces: politics, poetics and interdisciplinary collaboration is an innovative compilation of seven highly acclaimed productions by key practitioners of non-playwright-driven theatre. Each playtext is reproduced in full and accompanied by extensive notes from members of the original producing theatre. A substantial introduction by Anna Furse provides an overview of the works and contextualizes their reading by revealing how a script can emerge from or provoke a collaborative devising ...

Broadway Nights

(10/1/2011)

It’s been said (actually, it’s been sung), that when a Broadway baby says goodnight, it’s early in the morning. But what about those Broadway nights? The thrill of being on stage, the adulation, the applause, the stage door fanatics… Stephen Sherrin has no such life. Sure, he dallies on the Great White Way, but when he does have a job it’s beneath the stage, subbing in the orchestra pit. Other parts of his life are the pits, too—including his love life. Why does he always date men wh...

Singer and Actor: Acting Technique and the Operatic Performer

(10/1/2011)

Current market forces in the performing arts, such as aging audiences, electronic media, and HD broadcasts, have changed the operatic landscape. Young opera singers entering the workforce find themselves navigating difficult and highly competitive waters. Previously ignored skill sets become assets - and, in many cases, requirements - in casting. But most singers graduate from college having never taken a formal acting class and knowing little about acting technique as it pertains to their craft...

Creating Pantomime

(10/1/2011)

Pantomime is a much-loved institution, but how is it created? What tools and processes are used? Working from purely a title, this practical book explains how scripts and a design can develop together through the creative processes to culminate in the wonder and excitement of a unique production on opening night.

Interpreting the Play Script: Contemplation and Analysis

(9/27/2011)

The starting point for virtually all theatre is studying the play script, but what does this involve? Interpreting the Play Script: Contemplation and Analysis argues that one type of analysis cannot fit every play, nor does one method suit every theatre artist or collaborative team. The first text to combine traditional and non-traditional models, it gives students a range of tools with which to approach different kinds of performance. Supported by pragmatic questions, practical exercises an...

Acting for Animators

(9/20/2011)

Ed Hooks' indispensable acting guidebook for animators has been fully updated and improved! Hooks uses basic acting theory to explain everything from character movement and facial expressions to interaction and scene construction. Just as acting on film and on stage are very different disciplines, so is the use of acting theory in creating an animated character, scene or story. Acting for Animators is full of essential craft tips from an acting master. New to this Routledge edition: - ...

The Vermont Plays: Four Plays

(9/13/2011)

With her quartet of plays set in small-town Vermont, twenty-nine-year-old Annie Baker is making a big impact on the American theater. Circle Mirror Transformation, which takes place in a summer acting class and alternates between theater exercises and moments between classmates, shares the 2010 OBIE Award for Best Play with The Aliens, Baker's "gentle and extraordinarily beautiful new play" (The New York Times) that explores weighty topics of love and death through the easy banter of the slacker...

Self and Space in the Theater of Susan Glaspell

(9/13/2011)

Founding member of the Provincetown Players, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, best-selling novelist and short story writer Susan Glaspell (1876-1948) was a great contributor to American literature. An exploration of eleven plays written between the years 1915 and 1943, this critical study focuses on one of Glaspell’s central themes, the interplay between place and identity. This study examines the means Glaspell employs to engage her characters in proxemical and verbal dialectics with the fo...

The Face of America: Plays for Young People

(9/2/2011)

The world of young people in the United States today is exhilaratingly global, enriched by the influences of many various cultures. With that, however, comes the need for children to retain confidence in their own heritage while empathizing with people who might seem very different from them. The protagonists of these four plays—written for the world-renowned Children’s Theatre Company of Minneapolis—strive to achieve that balance with determination, love, and humor. The richness and re...

Freeing the Actor: An Actor's Desk Reference

(9/1/2011)

Freeing the Actor is the seventh in a series of acting books by Eric Morris, which explain and describe his unique system of acting. In this book, which is totally aimed at the instrument, Eric has implemented a complete approach to eliminating the obstacles, dependencies, traps, and habits that plague and block actors from functioning from an authentic, organic place. By teaching actors how not to act, Eric leads them to understand that they must experience in reality what the character is expe...

Drama Games: For Those Who Like To Say No

(9/1/2011)

Encourages reluctant participants to engage, collaborate, and develop not just skills for drama but skills for life. Following the ninety games and exercises aimed at developing core skills, the book offers scenarios for a series of improvisational challenges that test participants' abilities in mediation, communication, negotiation, assertiveness, and managing emotions.

Stage Fright: Modernism, Anti-Theatricality, and Drama

(8/18/2011)

Grounded equally in discussions of theater history, literary genre, and theory, Martin Puchner's Stage Fright: Modernism, Anti-Theatricality, and Drama explores the conflict between avant-garde theater and modernism. While the avant-garde celebrated all things theatrical, a dominant strain of modernism tended to define itself against the theater, valuing lyric poetry and the novel instead. Defenders of the theater dismiss modernism's aversion to the stage and its mimicking actors as one more for...

Disaster Capitalism: Or, Money Can't Buy You Love - Three Plays

(8/15/2011)

Disaster capitalism is an increasingly popular critical paradigm for contextualizing and understanding life in the twenty-first century. This book includes three full-length plays by award-winning dramatist Rick Mitchell: Shadow Anthropology, a dark comedy about the US occupation of Afghanistan; Through the Roof, a Faustian trip through the social history of natural disaster in New Orleans; and Celestial Flesh, a sacrilegious romp through the 1980s sanctuary movement. Placing the plays in histor...

The Routledge Companion to Actors' Shakespeare

(8/10/2011)

The Routledge Companion to Actors’ Shakespeare is a window onto how today’s actors contribute to the continuing life and relevance of Shakespeare’s plays. The process of acting is notoriously hard to document, but this volume reaches behind famous performances to examine the actors’ craft, their development and how they engage with playtexts. Each chapter relies upon privilieged access to its subject to offer an unparalleled insight into contemporary practice. This volume explores ...

Auditioning On Camera: An Actor's Guide

(8/3/2011)

To win a screen role, an actor must learn to contend with an on-camera audition. Understanding how to make the crucial adjustments to one’s craft that this kind of audition requires is vital to the career of any screen actor. Auditioning On Camera sets out the key elements of a successful on-camera audition and explains how to put them into practice. Joseph Hacker draws on 35 years of acting experience to guide the reader through the screen auditioning process with an engaging and undaunti...