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Women and Dramatic Production 1550 - 1700 (Longman Medieval and Renaissance Library)
by Alison Findlay Gweno (University Williams Stephanie (University WrightThere is a traditional view that women were absent from the field of dramatic production in the early modern period because of their exclusion from professional theatre. Women and Dramatic Production 1550-1700 challenges this view and breaks new ground in arguing that, far from writing in closeted retreat, a select number of women took an active part in directing and controlling dramatic self-representations. Examining texts from the mid-sixteenth century through to the end of the seventeenth, the chapters trace the development of a women-centred aesthetic in a variety of dramatic forms. Plays by noblewomen such as Mary Sidney, Elizabeth Cary, Mary Wroth, Rachel Fane and the women of the Cavendish family, form an alternative dramatic tradition centred on the household. The powerful directorial and performative roles played by queens in royal progresses and masques are explored as examples of women's dramatic production in the royal court. The book also highlights women's performances in alternative venues, such as the courtroom and the pulpit, arguing that the practices of martyrs like Margaret Clitherow or visionaries like Anna Trapnel call into question traditional definitions of theatre. The challenges faced by women who were admitted to the professional theatre companies after 1660 are explored in two chapters which deal with the plays of Katherine Philips, Elizabeth Polwhele, Aphra Behn, and Mary Pix, among others. By considering the theatrical dimensions of a wide range of early modern women's writing, this book reveals the breathtaking panorama of women's dramatic production and will be essential reading for students of women's writing and renaissance drama.
Women and Dramatic Production 1550 - 1700 (Longman Medieval and Renaissance Library)
by Alison Findlay Gweno (University Williams Stephanie (University WrightThere is a traditional view that women were absent from the field of dramatic production in the early modern period because of their exclusion from professional theatre. Women and Dramatic Production 1550-1700 challenges this view and breaks new ground in arguing that, far from writing in closeted retreat, a select number of women took an active part in directing and controlling dramatic self-representations. Examining texts from the mid-sixteenth century through to the end of the seventeenth, the chapters trace the development of a women-centred aesthetic in a variety of dramatic forms. Plays by noblewomen such as Mary Sidney, Elizabeth Cary, Mary Wroth, Rachel Fane and the women of the Cavendish family, form an alternative dramatic tradition centred on the household. The powerful directorial and performative roles played by queens in royal progresses and masques are explored as examples of women's dramatic production in the royal court. The book also highlights women's performances in alternative venues, such as the courtroom and the pulpit, arguing that the practices of martyrs like Margaret Clitherow or visionaries like Anna Trapnel call into question traditional definitions of theatre. The challenges faced by women who were admitted to the professional theatre companies after 1660 are explored in two chapters which deal with the plays of Katherine Philips, Elizabeth Polwhele, Aphra Behn, and Mary Pix, among others. By considering the theatrical dimensions of a wide range of early modern women's writing, this book reveals the breathtaking panorama of women's dramatic production and will be essential reading for students of women's writing and renaissance drama.
Woody Allen: A Casebook
by Kimball KingFirst Published in 2001. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.
Woody Allen: A Casebook
by Kimball KingFirst Published in 2001. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.
The World Encyclopedia of Contemporary Theatre: Volume 5: Asia/Pacific
This new paperback edition provides a unique examination of theatre in Asia and the Pacific and is written by leading experts from within the countries covered. Its far-reaching scope and broad interpretation of theatre (to include all types of performance) set it apart from any other similar publication. Entries on 33 Asian countries are featured in this volume, preceded by introductory essays on Asian Theatre, Theatre in the Pacific, History and Culture, Cosmology, Music, Dance, Theatre for Young Audiences, Mask Theatre and Puppetry.The volume contains approximately 300,000 words and includes national essays of up to 25,000 words each. The countries include:Afghanistan * Australia * Bangladesh * Bhutan * Brunei * Cambodia * India * Indonesia * Iran * Japan * Kazakhstan *Kirghizia * Laos * Malaysia * Myanmar * Mongolia * Nepal *New Zealand * Pakistan * Papua New Guinea * PhilippinesNew Zealand * Pakistan * Papua New Guinea * Philippines *Singapore * South Korea * South Pacific * Sri Lanka * Tadjikistan * Thailand * Turkmenistan * Vietnam
The World Encyclopedia of Contemporary Theatre: Volume 5: Asia/Pacific
by Don Rubin Chua Soo Pong Ravi Chaturvedi Ramendu Majumdar Minoru Tanokura Katherine BrisbaneThis new paperback edition provides a unique examination of theatre in Asia and the Pacific and is written by leading experts from within the countries covered. Its far-reaching scope and broad interpretation of theatre (to include all types of performance) set it apart from any other similar publication. Entries on 33 Asian countries are featured in this volume, preceded by introductory essays on Asian Theatre, Theatre in the Pacific, History and Culture, Cosmology, Music, Dance, Theatre for Young Audiences, Mask Theatre and Puppetry.The volume contains approximately 300,000 words and includes national essays of up to 25,000 words each. The countries include:Afghanistan * Australia * Bangladesh * Bhutan * Brunei * Cambodia * India * Indonesia * Iran * Japan * Kazakhstan *Kirghizia * Laos * Malaysia * Myanmar * Mongolia * Nepal *New Zealand * Pakistan * Papua New Guinea * PhilippinesNew Zealand * Pakistan * Papua New Guinea * Philippines *Singapore * South Korea * South Pacific * Sri Lanka * Tadjikistan * Thailand * Turkmenistan * Vietnam
The 'Year Of The Monkey' And Other Plays: The Year of the Monkey , Designs for Living , Sodom (Modern Plays)
by Claire DowieThe latest collection of plays from "the female counterpart to Quentin Crisp" (Evening Standard)The Year of the Monkey, originally written for BBC Radio 3, comprises Bonfire Night, in which a daughter takes her sweet revenge; Arsehammers, where a grandson is sure that his grandfather's strange disappearances reveal supernatural powers, The Allotment, in which a quiet community of pensioners create a radical, anarchic commune by mistake, and The Year of the Monkey, where a mother yearns for some bad behaviour to puncture the boredom of her middle-class life.Designs for Living is a modern love story, challenging conventions of identity and sexuality.Sodom reveals Old Testament morality alive and well in middle England."Claire Dowie is the supreme advocate of rebellion. She debunks conformity, non-conformity - or almost anything which can be defined" - The Stage"She makes you laugh as she kicks you in the teeth" - Guardian
The Yiddish Queen Lear: AND Woman on the Moon (Oberon Modern Plays Ser.)
by Julia PascalThe Yiddish Queen LearNew York in the late 1930s: a once-famous Yiddish actress gives her theatre business over to her three daughters. The Yiddish Queen Lear is a story of love, infedelity, betrayal and exile, which examines the moment when Jewish East European and American cultures mix, on the eve of the Holocaust. Both a free reworking of Shakespeare’s King Lear and a homage to the lost world of Yiddish theatre, The Yiddish Queen Lear is a vibrant, funny and tragic study of the clashes and connections between two very different worlds."This play is an affecting and electic treat." Evening Standard (The Yiddish Queen Lear)Woman In The MoonSet in the United States, England and Germany, between 1920 and 2001, Woman In The Moon is a dream play inspired by both the legend of Faust and the testimonies of French, Austrian and German survivors from Camp Dora. It explores the connections between the US space programme, the V1 and V2 bombers, and the slave labour in the Third Reich."Brave, intelligent and desperately moving." The Guardian (Woman In The Moon)
Zen and the Art of the Monologue
by Jay SankeyJay Sankey--stand-up comic, magician, and cartoonist--is back with another book for performers. Building on the success of his Zen and the Art of Stand-up Comedy, Jay is moving further into the uncharted wilds of solo performance.
Zen and the Art of the Monologue
by Jay SankeyJay Sankey--stand-up comic, magician, and cartoonist--is back with another book for performers. Building on the success of his Zen and the Art of Stand-up Comedy, Jay is moving further into the uncharted wilds of solo performance.
African American Performance and Theater History: A Critical Reader
by Harry J. Elam David KrasnerAfrican American Performance and Theater History is an anthology of critical writings that explores the intersections of race, theater, and performance in America. Assembled by two esteemed scholars in black theater, Harry J. Elam, Jr. and David Krasner, and composed of essays from acknowledged authorities in the field, this anthology is organized into four sections representative of the ways black theater, drama, and performance interact and enact continual social, cultural, and political dialogues. Ranging from a discussion of dramatic performances of Uncle Tom's Cabin to the Black Art Movement of the 1960s and early 1970s, articles gathered in the first section, "Social Protest and the Politics of Representation," discuss the ways in which African American theater and performance have operated as social weapons and tools of protest. The second section of the volume, "Cultural Traditions, Cultural Memory and Performance," features, among other essays, Joseph Roach's chronicle of the slave performances at Congo Square in New Orleans and Henry Louis Gates, Jr.'s critique of August Wilson's cultural polemics. "Intersections of Race and Gender," the third section, includes analyses of the intersections of race and gender on the minstrel stage, the plight of black female choreographers at the inception of Modern Dance, and contemporary representations of black homosexuality by PomoAfro Homo. Using theories of performance and performativity, articles in the fourth section, "African American Performativity and the Performance of Race," probe into the ways blackness and racial identity have been constructed in and through performance. The final section is a round-table assessment of the past and present state of African American Theater and Performance Studies by some of the leading senior scholars in the field--James V. Hatch, Sandra L. Richards, and Margaret B. Wilkerson. Revealing the dynamic relationship between race and theater, this volume illustrates how the social and historical contexts of production critically affect theatrical performances of blackness and their meanings and, at the same time, how African American cultural, social, and political struggles have been profoundly affected by theatrical representations and performances. This one-volume collection is sure to become an important reference for those studying black theater and an engrossing survey for all readers of African American literature.
Herakles (Greek Tragedy in New Translations)
by EuripidesIn Herakles, Euripides reveals with great subtlety and complexity the often brutal underpinnings of our social arrangements. The play enacts a thoroughly contemporary dilemma about the relationship between personal and state violence to civic order. Of all of Euripides' plays, this is his most skeptically subversive examination of myth, morality, and power. Depicting Herakles slowly going mad by Hera, the wife of Zeus, this play continues to haunt and inspire readers. Hera hates Herakles because he is one of Zeus' children born of adultery, and in his madness, Herakles is driven to murder his own wife and children and is eventually exiled, by his own accord, to Athens. This new volume includes a fresh translation, an updated introduction, detailed notes on the text, and a thorough glossary.
Shakespeare and the Arts of Language (Oxford Shakespeare Topics)
by Russ McDonaldOxford Shakespeare Topics provide students and teachers with short books on important aspects of Shakespeare criticism and scholarship. Each book is written by an authority in its field, and combines accessible style with original discussion of its subject. Notes and a critical guide to further reading equip the interested reader with the means to broaden research. For the modern reader or playgoer, English as Shakespeare used it can seem alien and puzzling: vocabulary and grammar are in transition, pronouns and verb-forms can seem unfamiliar. Moreover, the conventions of poetic drama may also pose an impediment. Shakespeare and the Arts of Language provides a clear and helpful guide to the linguistic and rhetorical dimensions of the plays and poems. Written in a lucid, non-technical style, the book starts with the story of how the English language changed throughout the sixteenth century. Subsequent chapters define Shakespeare's main artistic tools and illustrate their poetic and theatrical contributions: Renaissance rhetoric, imagery and metaphor, blank verse, prose speech, and wordplay. The conclusion surveys Shakespeare's multiple and often conflicting ideas about language, encompassing both his enthusiasm at what words can do for us and his suspicion of what words can do to us. Throughout, Russ McDonald helps his readers to appreciate a play's concerns and theatrical effects by thinking about its language in relation to other writings of the period. He also emphasizes pleasure in the physical properties of Shakespeare's words: their colour, weight, and texture, the appeal of verbal patterns, and the irresistible power of intensified language.
American Theatre: A Chronicle of Comedy and Drama, 1969-2000
by Thomas S. HischakVolume Four of the distinguished American Theatre: A Chronicle of Comedy and Drama series offers a thorough, candid, and fascinating look at the theater in New York during the last decades of the twentieth century.
Bakkhai (Greek Tragedy in New Translations)
by EuripidesRegarded by many as Euripides' masterpiece, Bakkhai is a powerful examination of religious ecstasy and the resistance to it. A call for moderation, it rejects the temptation of pure reason as well as pure sensuality, and is a staple of Greek tragedy, representing in structure and thematics an exemplary model of the classic tragic elements. Disguised as a young holy man, the god Bacchus arrives in Greece from Asia proclaiming his godhood and preaching his orgiastic religion. He expects to be embraced in Thebes, but the Theban king, Pentheus, forbids his people to worship him and tries to have him arrested. Enraged, Bacchus drives Pentheus mad and leads him to the mountains, where Pentheus' own mother, Agave, and the women of Thebes tear him to pieces in a Bacchic frenzy. Gibbons, a prize-winning poet, and Segal, a renowned classicist, offer a skilled new translation of this central text of Greek tragedy.
Out In The Open (Modern Plays)
by Jonathan HarveyThe brilliant new play from the writer of Beautiful Thing"What you don't know, don't hurt you"Tony's ready to live-it-large and love again. But his efforts to step back on to the scene are hampered by a secret his friends, Monica and Kevin, should have told him a long time ago.Out in the Open is a funny and caustic exploration of love and the limits of friendship set over a long, hazily hot summer weekend in London.Directed by Kathy Burke, Out in the Open premiered at London's Hampstead Theatre in March 2001 and transferred to Birmingham Rep.
Cyclops (Greek Tragedy in New Translations)
by EuripidesBased on the conviction that only translators who write poetry themselves can properly re-create the celebrated and timeless tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, the Greek Tragedy in New Translations series offers new translations that go beyond the literal meaning of the Greek in order to evoke the poetry of the originals. Under the general editorship of Peter Burian and Alan Shapiro, each volume includes a critical introduction, commentary on the text, full stage directions, and a glossary of the mythical and geographical references in the play. Brimming with lusty comedy and horror, this new version of Euripides' only extant satyr play has been refreshed with all the salty humor, vigorous music, and dramatic shapeliness available in modern American English. Driven by storms onto the shores of the Cyclops' island, Odysseus and his men find that the Cyclops has already enslaved a company of Greeks. When some of Odysseus' crew are seized and eaten by the Cyclops, Odysseus resorts to spectacular stratagems to free his crew and escape the island. In this powerful work, prize-winning poet Heather McHugh and respected classicist David Konstan combine their talents to create this unusually strong and contemporary tragic-comedy marked by lively lyricism and moral subtlety.
Electra (Greek Tragedy in New Translations)
by SophoclesBased on the conviction that only translators who write poetry themselves can properly recreate the celebrated and timeless tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, the Greek Tragedy in New Translations series offers new translations that go beyond the literal meaning of the Greek in order to evoke the poetry of the originals. Under the general editorship of Peter Burian and Alan Shapiro, each volume includes a critical introduction, commentary on the text, full stage directions, and a glossary of the mythical and geographical references in the play. Although it has been at times overshadowed by his more famous Oedipus Tyrannus and Antigone, Sophocles' Electra is remarkable for its extreme emotions and taut drama. Electra recounts the murders of Clytemnestra and Aegisthus by Clytemnestra's son Orestes, to avenge their murder of his father Agamemnon, commander of the Greeks at Troy, upon his return home. Sophocles' version is presented from the viewpoint of Electra, Orestes' sister, who laments her father, bears witness to her mother's crime, and for years endures her mother's scorn. Despite her overwhelming passion for just revenge, Electra admits that her own actions are shameful. When Orestes arrives at last, her mood shifts from grief to joy, as Orestes carries out the bloody vengeance. Sophocles presents this story as a savage though necessary act of vengeance, vividly depicting Electra's grief, anger, and exultation. This translation equals the original in ferocity of expression, and leaves intact the inarticulate cries of suffering and joy that fill the play.
Broadway Yearbook, 1999-2000: A Relevant and Irreverent Record (Broadway Yearbook)
by Steven SuskinBroadway Season 1999-2000 is a unique and detailed guide to the theatrical year presenting 46 different shows. The volume features a comprehensive discussion of every show that opened on Broadway during the 1999-2000 season as well as several non-Broadway productions of importance or general interest. Each entry is accompanied by credits and cast lists, scorecards summarizing overall critical reception for each show, and a recap of each show's financial performance. A new kind of theatre annual, this distinctive volume discusses what the shows are actually like (instead of merely relying on plot synopses or photographs). It is an interpretive record, featuring not only dates and names but also the stories behind the statistics. Opening night title pages illustrate each show discussion. Appendices include a roundup of the season's major awards, memorable performances of the year, obituaries, long run leaders, shows still running from prior seasons, scheduled shows that never reached Broadway, and a comprehensive index. Steven Suskin has provided a relevant and irreverent record of the year's memorable high points (and low points). Written from an insider's perspective, the book is knowledgeable, intriguing, provocative, and entertaining.
The Misanthrope, Tartuffe, and Other Plays (Oxford World's Classics)
by Molière'Why does he write those ghastly plays that the whole of Paris flocks to see? And why does he paint such lifelike portraits that everyone recognizes themselves?' Moliere, The Impromptu at Versailles This volume brings together four of Moliere's greatest verse comedies covering the best years of his prolific writing career. Actor, director, and playwright, Moliere (1622-73) was one of the finest and most influential French dramatists, adept at portraying human foibles and puncturing pomposity. The School for Wives was his first great success; Tartuffe, condemned and banned for five years, his most controversial play. The Misanthrope is his acknowledged masterpiece, and The Clever Women his last, and perhaps best-constructed, verse piece. In addition this collection includes a spirited attack on his enemies and a defence of his theatre, in the form of two sparkling short plays, The School for Wives Criticized and The Impromptu at Versailles. Moliere's prose plays are available in a complementary Oxford World's Classics edition, Don Juan and Other Plays. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.
Colonial Women: Race and Culture in Stuart Drama
by Heidi HutnerColonial Women examines the women-as-land metaphor in English colonial dramatic literature of the seventeenth century, and looks closely at the myths of two historical native female figures--Pocahontas of Virginia and Malinche of Mexico--to demonstrate how these two stories are crucial to constructions of gender, race, and English nationhood in the drama and culture of the period. Heidi Hutner's interpretations of the figure of the native woman in the plays of Shakespeare, Fletcher, Davenant, Dryden, and Behn reveal how the English patriarchal culture of the seventeenth century defined itself through representations of native women and European women who have "gone native." These playwrights use the figure of the native woman as a symbolic means to stabilize the turbulent sociopolitical and religious conflicts in Restoration England under the inclusive ideology of expansion and profit. Colonial Women uncovers the significance of the repeated dramatic spectacle of the native women falling for her European seducer and exploiter, and demonstrates that this image of seduction is motivated by an anxiety-laden movement to reinforce patriarchal authority in seventeenth-century England.
Acting: An International Encyclopedia of Traditional Culture (Arts Of Living Ser.)
by Mary Beth OsnesA groundbreaking, cross-cultural reference work exploring the diversity of expression found in rituals, festivals, and performances, uncovering acting techniques and practices from around the world.Acting: An International Encyclopedia explores the amazing diversity of dramatic expression found in rituals, festivals, and live and filmed performances. Its hundreds of alphabetically arranged, fully referenced entries offer insights into famous players, writers, and directors, as well as notable stage and film productions from around the world and throughout the history of theater, cinema, and television.The book also includes a surprising array of additional topics, including important venues (from Greek amphitheaters to Broadway and Hollywood), acting schools (the Actor's Studio) and companies (the Royal Shakespeare), performance genres (from religious pageants to puppetry), technical terms of the actor's art, and much more. It is a unique resource for exploring the techniques performers use to captivate their audiences, and how those techniques have evolved to meet the demands of performing through Greek masks and layers of Kabuki makeup, in vast halls or tiny theaters, or for the unforgiving eye of the camera.
A Most Ingenious Paradox: The Art of Gilbert and Sullivan
by Gayden WrenWritten more than a century ago and initially regarded even by their creators as nothing more than light entertainment, the fourteen operas of Gilbert & Sullivan emerged over the course of the twentieth century as the world's most popular body of musical-theater works, ranking second only to Shakespeare in the history of English-language theater. Despite this resounding popularity and proven longevity, most books written about the duo have focused on the authors rather than the works. With this detailed examination of all fourteen operas, Gayden Wren fills the void. His bold thesis finds the key to the operas' longevity, not in the clever lyrics, witty dialogue, or catchy music, but in the central themes underlying the characters and stories themselves. Like Shakespeare's comedies, Wren shows, the operas of Gilbert & Sullivan endure because of their timeless themes, which speak to audiences as powerfully now as they did the first time they were performed. Written out of an abiding love for the Savoy operas, this volume is essential reading for any devotee of these enchanting works, or indeed for anyone who loves musical theater.
Acting (Re)Considered: A Theoretical and Practical Guide
by Phillip B. ZarrilliActing (Re)Considered is an exceptionally wide-ranging collection of theories on acting, ideas about body and training, and statements about the actor in performance. This second edition includes five new essays and has been fully revised and updated, with discussions by or about major figures who have shaped theories and practices of acting and performance from the late nineteenth century to the present.The essays - by directors, historians, actor trainers and actors - bridge the gap between theories and practices of acting, and between East and West. No other book provides such a wealth of primary and secondary sources, bibliographic material, and diversity of approaches. It includes discussions of such key topics as:* how we think and talk about acting* acting and emotion* the actor's psychophysical process* the body and training* the actor in performance* non-Western and cross-cultural paradigms of the body, training and acting.Acting (Re)Considered is vital reading for all those interested in performance.
Acting (Re)Considered: A Theoretical and Practical Guide
by Phillip B. ZarrilliActing (Re)Considered is an exceptionally wide-ranging collection of theories on acting, ideas about body and training, and statements about the actor in performance. This second edition includes five new essays and has been fully revised and updated, with discussions by or about major figures who have shaped theories and practices of acting and performance from the late nineteenth century to the present.The essays - by directors, historians, actor trainers and actors - bridge the gap between theories and practices of acting, and between East and West. No other book provides such a wealth of primary and secondary sources, bibliographic material, and diversity of approaches. It includes discussions of such key topics as:* how we think and talk about acting* acting and emotion* the actor's psychophysical process* the body and training* the actor in performance* non-Western and cross-cultural paradigms of the body, training and acting.Acting (Re)Considered is vital reading for all those interested in performance.