- Table View
- List View
The Threepenny Opera (Student Editions)
by Bertolt Brecht Kurt WeillOne of Bertolt Brecht's best-loved and most performed plays, The Threepenny Opera was first staged in 1928 at the Theater am Schiffbauerdamm, Berlin (now the home of the Berliner Ensemble). Based on the eighteenth-century The Beggar's Opera by John Gay, the play is a satire on the bourgeois society of the Weimar Republic, but set in a mock-Victorian Soho. With Kurt Weill's music, which was one of the earliest and most successful attempts to introduce the jazz idiom into the theatre, it became a popular hit throughout the western world.This new edition is published here in John Willett and Ralph Manhein's classic translation with commentary and notes by Anja Hartl.
To Be A Playwright (Routledge Revivals)
by Janet NeiprisOriginally published in 2005, To Be A Playwright is an insightful and detailed guide to the craft of playwriting. Part memoir and part how-to guide, this useful book outlines the tools and techniques necessary to the aspiring playwright. Comprised of a collection of memoirs and lectures which blend seamlessly to deliver a practical hands-on guide to playwriting, this book illuminates the elusive challenges confronting creators of dynamic expression and offers a roadmap to craft of playwrighting.
To Be A Playwright (Routledge Revivals)
by Janet NeiprisOriginally published in 2005, To Be A Playwright is an insightful and detailed guide to the craft of playwriting. Part memoir and part how-to guide, this useful book outlines the tools and techniques necessary to the aspiring playwright. Comprised of a collection of memoirs and lectures which blend seamlessly to deliver a practical hands-on guide to playwriting, this book illuminates the elusive challenges confronting creators of dynamic expression and offers a roadmap to craft of playwrighting.
Tony Harrison Plays 6: Hecuba; Fram; Iphigenia in Crimea
by Tony HarrisonTony Harrison's sixth collection includes a foreword by Lee Hall. The book contains Harrison's translation of Euripides's Hecuba, which inaugurated the modern amphitheatre of Delphi in 2005; the remarkable Fram, which opened at the National Theatre in 2008; and Iphigenia in Crimea, after Euripides, which premiered on BBC Radio 3 to mark Tony Harrison's eightieth birthday in 2016.'Tony is that incredibly rare beast: as great a playwright as he is a poet.' Lee Hall 'I am convinced that Tony Harrison is one of the truly great poets writing in English today.' Melvyn BraggHecuba 'Harrison's urgent translation never lets us forget the aching topicality of Euripides' study of the powerful and the powerless.' Guardian Fram'Harrison brings gloriously rich life to the stage, by turns funny and rending. His couplets are a feast for rhyme junkies.' Financial Times'As visually resplendent a piece of theatre as you will see all year. The words more than hold their own, however, expressing in rhymes to be relished that poetry might yet, if not lead us out of the darkness, at least make us feel ashamed we're still stuck in it.' Sunday Times Iphigenia in Crimea Set in Sebastapol, 1854, inthe midst of the Crimean war, a lieutenant decides to stage an all-male production of Euripides's tragedy. After initial raucous incredulity, the atmosphere changes as the men commit themselves to the drama until, as it draws to a close, ancient and modern worlds collide and warfare resumes in earnest.
Tshepang: The Third Testament (Oberon Modern Plays Ser.)
by Lara Foot Newton‘And besides, nothing ever happens here. Nothing. Niks.’Outside a South African town a silent woman, Ruth, goes through her self-imposed rituals, a child’s crib strapped to her back. An observer, Simon, who has loved Ruth since childhood, tells her story. Tshepang was inspired by the horrifying rape in 2001 of a nine month-old child. The child, Tshepang, gave her name to Lara Foot Newton’s award-winning play, though it is also ‘based on twenty thousand true stories’ - the number of child rapes estimated to occur in South Africa each year. Having premiered in Amsterdam in June 2003, Tshepang opened at the Gate Theatre, London, in September 2004.Winner of the Fleur du Cap Award for Best New South African Play 2003
The Two Noble Kinsmen (The\malone Society Reprints Ser. #No. 169)
by William Shakespeare Peter SwaabConsidered by Thomas de Quincey to be 'perhaps the most superb work in the language', The Two Noble Kinsmen is set in Athens and was co-written by Shakespeare with John Fletcher. This Penguin Shakespeare edition is edited by N. W. Bawcutt with an introduction by Peter Swaab.'Once, he kissed me. I loved my lips the better ten days after'When Theseus, Duke of Athens, learns that the ruler of Thebes has killed three noble kings he swears to take revenge. But after Athens triumphs over the rival city, Theseus is struck by the bravery of two Theban cousins and orders his surgeons to attend to them. Soon, the cousins' lifelong friendship is threatened, as both become overwhelmed with love for the duke's beautiful sister.This book contains a general introduction to Shakespeare's life and Elizabethan theatre, a separate introduction to the play, a chronology, suggestions for further reading, an essay discussing performance options on both stage and screen, and a commentary.
Undressed for Success: Beauty Contestants and Exotic Dancers as Merchants of Morality (Palgrave Studies in Theatre and Performance History)
by B. FoleyUsing the tools of performance studies, gender theory, and cultural history, Brenda Foley explores the striking similarities between beauty pageantry and striptease. For example, women in both project a 'normal' femininity and adhere to a strict hierarchy (Miss America contestants look down upon Miss Universe contestants, while theatrical 'burlesque artists' saw themselves as far above mere carnival strippers). Undressed for Success collects extensive primary source research - newspapers, journals, trade publications, photography collections, press releases, memoirs, and interviews with both strippers and pageant contestants - and employs a wide array of gender, feminist, and performance theory to analyze them.
Utopia in Performance: Finding Hope at the Theater
by Jill Dolan"Jill Dolan is the theatre's most astute critic, and this new book is perhaps her most important. Utopia in Performance argues with eloquence and insight how theatre makes a difference, and in the process demonstrates that scholarship matters, too. It is a book that readers will cherish and hold close as a personal favorite, and that scholars will cite for years to come." ---David Román, University of Southern California What is it about performance that draws people to sit and listen attentively in a theater, hoping to be moved and provoked, challenged and comforted? In Utopia in Performance, Jill Dolan traces the sense of visceral, emotional, and social connection that we experience at such times, connections that allow us to feel for a moment not what a better world might look like, but what it might feel like, and how that hopeful utopic sentiment might become motivation for social change. She traces these "utopian performatives" in a range of performances, including the solo performances of feminist artists Holly Hughes, Deb Margolin, and Peggy Shaw; multicharacter solo performances by Lily Tomlin, Danny Hoch, and Anna Deavere Smith; the slam poetry event Def Poetry Jam; The Laramie Project; Blanket, a performance by postmodern choreographer Ann Carlson; Metamorphoses by Mary Zimmerman; and Deborah Warner's production of Medea starring Fiona Shaw. While the book richly captures moments of "feeling utopia" found within specific performances, it also celebrates the broad potential that performance has to provide a forum for being human together; for feeling love, hope, and commonality in particular and historical (rather than universal and transcendent) ways.
Villette (Oberon Modern Plays)
by Charlotte Brontë Lisa Evans, Charlotte BrontëA new life beckons for Lucy Snowe. Leaving England and her past behind, she arrives in the French town of Villette, equipped only with a sharp tongue, a lively imagination and an independent spirit. She soon finds work as a teacher, coping with a fierce headmistress and a classroom of unruly coquettish schoolgirls. But Villette has even greater challenges in store. Lisa Evan's fast moving adaptation of Charlotte Bronte's sensational, gothic tale features fire, storms, ghosts, unrequited love and an intimate portrait of a bold and inspirational heroine. Production opened at SJT in October 2005.
Way to Heaven (Oberon Modern Plays Ser.)
by David Johnston Juan MayorgaThe heart of Europe. 1942. Children playing, lovers’ tiffs, a deserted train station and a ramp rising towards a hangar. This is what you can see, but what should the Red Cross Representative’s report say?
What We Did to Weinstein (Oberon Modern Plays)
by Ryan Craig‘NO! We can't change the subject! This is the subject! There is no other subject. Not for us.'Sickened by the everyday arguments and compromises he saw around him in his native London, the idealistic Josh has moved to Israel and joined the army. There, however, he finds himself in a situation with a Palestinian terror suspect which seems to challenge his most strongly held beliefs.Deftly cutting between different locations and time periods, Ryan Craig's play lets us see unexpected connections between disparate events, as well as bringing together people with apparently nothing in common. A wryly humorous, sometimes hilarious, look at a serious issue, What We Did to Weinstein moves between London life and the world of the intifada, creating a portrait of a society where idealism too easily becomes extremism and pragmatism hypocrisy.
Wild East
by April de AngelisFrank's got the interview; it's his big break. He just has to convince two formidable women from the corporation and he'll have his chance to get back to Russia. But somehow, history is working against them all.Wild East premiered at the Royal Court Theatre, London, in February 2005.
The Woman Before (Oberon Modern Plays)
by David Tushingham Roland Schimmelpfennig‘You swore that you’d love me for ever’Frank doesn’t recognise the woman at the door. She’s come to remind him of a promise he made twenty years before. A darkly humorous study of modern relationships and the things we say that may come back to haunt us. The Woman Before opened at the Royal Court Theatre in May 2005.
Women's Theatre Writing in Victorian Britain
by K. NeweyWomen's Theatre Writing in Victorian Britain is the first book to make a comprehensive study of women playwrights in the British theatre from 1820 to 1918. It looks at how women playwrights negotiated their personal and professional identities as writers, and examines the female tradition of playwriting which dramatises the central experience of women's lives around the themes of home, the nation, and the position of women in marriage and the family. The book also includes an extensive Appendix of authors and plays, which will be a useful reference tool for students and scholars in nineteenth-century studies and theatre historians.
World-wide Shakespeares: Local Appropriations In Film And Performance (PDF)
by Sonia MassaiDrawing on debates around the global/local dimensions of cultural production, an international team of contributors explore the appropriation of Shakespeare’s plays in film and performance around the world. In particular, the book examines the ways in which adapters and directors have put Shakespeare into dialogue with local traditions and contexts. The contributors look in turn at ‘local’ Shakespeares for local, national and international audiences, covering a range of English and foreign appropriations that challenge geographical and cultural oppositions between ‘centre’ and ‘periphery’, and ‘big-time’ and ‘small-time’ Shakespeares. Responding to a surge of critical interest in the poetics and politics of appropriation, World-Wide Shakespeares is a valuable resource for those interested in the afterlife of Shakespeare in film and performance globally.
World-wide Shakespeares: Local Appropriations In Film And Performance
by Sonia MassaiDrawing on debates around the global/local dimensions of cultural production, an international team of contributors explore the appropriation of Shakespeare’s plays in film and performance around the world. In particular, the book examines the ways in which adapters and directors have put Shakespeare into dialogue with local traditions and contexts. The contributors look in turn at ‘local’ Shakespeares for local, national and international audiences, covering a range of English and foreign appropriations that challenge geographical and cultural oppositions between ‘centre’ and ‘periphery’, and ‘big-time’ and ‘small-time’ Shakespeares. Responding to a surge of critical interest in the poetics and politics of appropriation, World-Wide Shakespeares is a valuable resource for those interested in the afterlife of Shakespeare in film and performance globally.
World-Wide Shakespeares: Local Appropriations in Film and Performance
by Sonia MassaiDrawing on debates around the global/local dimensions of cultural production, an international team of contributors explore the appropriation of Shakespeare’s plays in film and performance around the world. In particular, the book examines the ways in which adapters and directors have put Shakespeare into dialogue with local traditions and contexts. The contributors look in turn at ‘local’ Shakespeares for local, national and international audiences, covering a range of English and foreign appropriations that challenge geographical and cultural oppositions between ‘centre’ and ‘periphery’, and ‘big-time’ and ‘small-time’ Shakespeares. Responding to a surge of critical interest in the poetics and politics of appropriation, World-Wide Shakespeares is a valuable resource for those interested in the afterlife of Shakespeare in film and performance globally.
World-Wide Shakespeares: Local Appropriations in Film and Performance
by Sonia MassaiDrawing on debates around the global/local dimensions of cultural production, an international team of contributors explore the appropriation of Shakespeare’s plays in film and performance around the world. In particular, the book examines the ways in which adapters and directors have put Shakespeare into dialogue with local traditions and contexts. The contributors look in turn at ‘local’ Shakespeares for local, national and international audiences, covering a range of English and foreign appropriations that challenge geographical and cultural oppositions between ‘centre’ and ‘periphery’, and ‘big-time’ and ‘small-time’ Shakespeares. Responding to a surge of critical interest in the poetics and politics of appropriation, World-Wide Shakespeares is a valuable resource for those interested in the afterlife of Shakespeare in film and performance globally.
Year 10 (Modern Plays)
by Simon VinnicombeGripping drama of teenage struggle by talented new writer'I walk to parks and stare into space...just stand there and sometimes I cry, so much that I feel I might not ever stop . . . I stand in the parks with all the fruit bowls, drinking Special Brew and talking to themselves, I'm like a disappointed old man and I'm fifteen years old...'In the suburbs of south London, Jack moves to a new school where he is confronted by aggression, violence and anger. He dreams that time would speed up and hurry by, but then he meets Jamie. And suddenly she makes him wish time could just slow down and stop. An emotionally-charged, bruising yet tender story of the journey of a year in the life of a fifteen year old boy.'captures all the frustration, anger and fear of the introspective, put-upon teenager, and the helplessness of parents and teachers . . . I believed every word. Which is truly terrifying' Lyn Gardner, Guardian
A Young Man's Passage
by Julian ClaryThis is Julian Clary's story, in his own words - the tale of an awkward schoolboy who became a huge worldwide success on stage and screen.After a sheltered suburban upbringing, Julian was sent to St Benedict's, where beatings from 'holy' men gave him some brutal life lessons, and other 'unholy' boys his first awakenings of sexuality. He had just one true friend and ally, Nick - to his other school peers, Julian's aloof demeanour made him an enigma or simply a figure of ridicule. In school he was just another pained adolescent, but inside Julian was a new Jean Genet or Quentin Crisp bursting to get out.Leaving St Benedict's thankfully behind him, Julian went on to college where he found his true vocation as an entertainer with a peculiar comic brand of smut and glamour. At the same time, he was finding as much sex as he could, sometimes with remarkably less-than-glamorous characters.Periods in community theatre and the singing telegram industry followed before Julian hit the big time with cabaret co-star Fanny the Wonder Dog as The Joan Collins Fan Club. Soon, the world was his oyster. But fame came at a price, as Julian struggled not only with the reality of being a high-profile gay man in the 1980s but also the pain of losing his lover to terminal illness.Far more than just another celebrity autobiography or 'funny book', this is a touching, beautifully written and wryly witty account of a unique progression from shy child to comedy icon.
Yr Ysbryd (Dramâu'r Drain)
by Caryl LewisDrama fywiog yng nghyfres Dramâu'r Drain; delfrydol i ysgolion, ac ar gyfer myfyrwyr yn eu harddegau. Drama yw hon am Ioan, bachgen deng mlwydd oed, sy'n cael ei fwlio gan Gareth. Cymeriadau eraill yn y ddrama yw rhieni Ioan, a Miss Ifans, Athrawes yr Ysgol Gynradd. [A lively drama in the Dramâu'r Drain series; ideal for schools, and for teenagers. Ioan, a ten year old, is the main character, and he gets bullied by Gareth. Other characters in the drama are Ioan's parents, and Miss Ifans, techer at the Primary School.] *Datganiad hawlfraint Gwneir y copi hwn dan dermau Rheoliadau (Anabledd) Hawlfraint a Hawliau mewn Perfformiadau 2014 i'w ddefnyddio gan berson sy'n anabl o ran print yn unig. Oni chaniateir gan gyfraith, ni ellir ei gopïo ymhellach, na'i roi i unrhyw berson arall, heb ganiatâd.
Shakespeare Goes to Paris
by John PembleIt has sometimes been assumed that the difficulty of translating Shakespeare into French has meant that he has had little influence in France. Shakespeare Goes to Paris proves the opposite. Virtually unknown in France in his lifetime, and for well over a hundred years after his death, Shakespeare was discovered in the first half of the eighteenth century, as part of a growing French interest in England. Since then, Shakespeare's impact in France has been enormous. Writers, from Voltaire to Gide, found themsleves baffled, frustrated, mesmerised but overawed by a playwright who broke all the rules of French classical theatre and challenged the primacy of French culture. Attempts to tame and translate him alternated with uncritical idolisation, such as that of Berlioz and Hugo. Changing attitudes to Shakespeare have also been an index of French self-esteem, as John Pemble shows in his sparkingly written book
Oh Joy! Oh Rapture!: The Enduring Phenomenon of Gilbert and Sullivan
by Ian BradleyIn Oh Joy! Oh Rapture! expert and enthusiast Ian Bradley explores the world of Gilbert and Sullivan over the last four and a half decades, looking at the way this "phenomenon" is passed from generation to generation. Taking as his starting point the expiry of copyright on the opera libretti at the end of 1961 and using fascinating hitherto unpublished archive material, Bradley reveals the extraordinary story of the last years of the old D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, the guardian of Savoy tradition for over a hundred years, and the troubled history of its successor. He explores the rich vein of parodies, spoofs, and spin-offs of the songs, as well as their influence on twentieth century lyricists and composers. He analyzes professional productions across the world, looks at the unique place of G&S in schools, colleges, and universities, and lovingly explores the culture of amateur performance. He also uncovers the largely male world of the obsessive fans, those collecting memorabilia, the myriad magazines, journals, websites, and festivals devoted to G&S, and the arcane interests of some of the faithful "inner brotherhood."
Three Plays
by EuripidesOne of the greatest playwrights of Ancient Greece, the works of Euripides (484-406 BC) were revolutionary in their depiction of tragic events caused by flawed humanity, and in their use of the gods as symbols of human nature. The three plays in this collection show his abilities as the sceptical questioner of his age. Alcestis, an early drama, tells the tale of a queen who offers her own life in exchange for that of her husband; cast as a tragedy, it contains passages of satire and comedy. The tragicomedy Iphigenia in Tauris melodramatically reunites the ill-fated children of Agamemnon, while the pure tragedy of Hippolytus shows the fatal impact of Phaedra's unreasoning passion for her chaste stepson. All three plays explore a deep gulf that separates man from woman, and all depict a world dominated by amoral forces beyond human control.
Acting for Singers: Creating Believable Singing Characters
by David F. OstwaldWritten to meet the needs of thousands of students and pre-professional singers participating in production workshops and classes in opera and musical theater, Acting for Singers leads singing performers step by step from the studio or classroom through audition and rehearsals to a successful performance. Using a clear, systematic, positive approach, this practical guide explains how to analyze a script or libretto, shows how to develop a character building on material in the score, and gives the singing performer the tools to act believably. More than just a "how-to" acting book, however, Acting for Singers also addresses the problems of concentration, trust, projection, communication, and the self-doubt that often afflicts singers pursuing the goal of believable performance. Part I establishes the basic principles of acting and singing together, and teaches the reader how to improvise as a key tool to explore and develop characters. Part II teaches the singer how to analyze theatrical work for rehearsing and performing. Using concrete examples from Carmen and West Side Story, and imaginative exercises following each chapter, this text teaches all singers how to be effective singing actors.