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Acting Women: Images of Women in Theatre (Women in Society: A Feminist List)
by Lesley FerrisFerris's book is as colourful and entertaining as it is informative... her revisionist study is a valuable contribution to the young but growing and crucial area of feminist approaches to theatre'. Gail Finney, University of California, Theatre Journal '...a highly readable account of cross-dressing on the stage from Ancient Greek times to the present day. The book is a thoroughly researched academic history but also includes her own analysis and commentary. This is a well written and informative analysis which deserves to attract a great deal of attention'. Keith Taylor, The Journal of National Drama
Acting with Grotowski: Theatre as a Field for Experiencing Life
by Zbigniew Cynkutis‘Zbigniew Cynkutis’ writings constitute invaluable testimony of his work with Jerzy Grotowski during the ‘theatre of productions’ phase and beyond. Cynkutis’ insights elucidate aspects of the Laboratory Theatre’s praxis and provide a unique perspective on the questions most often asked about Grotowski. Authored by one of the Laboratory Theatre’s most accomplished actors, this book draws on long-term theatre research and deep knowledge of the craft of acting to offer practical advice indispensable to the professional and aspiring actor alike. The volume offers the English-speaking reader an unprecedented richness of primary source material, which sheds new light on the practical work of one of the most influential theatre directors of the 20th century. Cynkutis’ voice is sincere and direct, and will continue to inspire new generations of theatre practitioners.’ – Dominika Laster, Yale University Acting with Grotowski: Theatre as a Field for Experiencing Life explores the actor-director dynamic through the experience of Zbigniew Cynkutis, one of Polish director Jerzy Grotowski’s foremost collaborators. Cynkutis’s work as an actor, combined with his later work as a director and theatre manager, gave him a visionary overview based on precise embodied understanding. Cynkutis’s writings yield numerous insights into the commitment needed to make innovative, challenging theatre. A central component of Acting with Grotowski is his distinctive approach to training: ‘Conversations with the Body’ includes a range of techniques and approaches to warming up, rehearsing and creating work from a physical starting point, beautifully illustrated by Bill Ireland. The book comprises reflections and practical suggestions on a range of subjects – theatre and culture, improvisation, ethics, group dynamics, and Cynkutis’s vision for the Wrocław Second Studio. It contains visual and textual materials from Cynkutis’s own private archive, such as diary entries and letters. Acting with Grotowski demonstrates the thin line that separates life and art when an artist works with extreme commitment in testing political and social conditions.
Acting with Grotowski: Theatre as a Field for Experiencing Life
by Zbigniew Cynkutis‘Zbigniew Cynkutis’ writings constitute invaluable testimony of his work with Jerzy Grotowski during the ‘theatre of productions’ phase and beyond. Cynkutis’ insights elucidate aspects of the Laboratory Theatre’s praxis and provide a unique perspective on the questions most often asked about Grotowski. Authored by one of the Laboratory Theatre’s most accomplished actors, this book draws on long-term theatre research and deep knowledge of the craft of acting to offer practical advice indispensable to the professional and aspiring actor alike. The volume offers the English-speaking reader an unprecedented richness of primary source material, which sheds new light on the practical work of one of the most influential theatre directors of the 20th century. Cynkutis’ voice is sincere and direct, and will continue to inspire new generations of theatre practitioners.’ – Dominika Laster, Yale University Acting with Grotowski: Theatre as a Field for Experiencing Life explores the actor-director dynamic through the experience of Zbigniew Cynkutis, one of Polish director Jerzy Grotowski’s foremost collaborators. Cynkutis’s work as an actor, combined with his later work as a director and theatre manager, gave him a visionary overview based on precise embodied understanding. Cynkutis’s writings yield numerous insights into the commitment needed to make innovative, challenging theatre. A central component of Acting with Grotowski is his distinctive approach to training: ‘Conversations with the Body’ includes a range of techniques and approaches to warming up, rehearsing and creating work from a physical starting point, beautifully illustrated by Bill Ireland. The book comprises reflections and practical suggestions on a range of subjects – theatre and culture, improvisation, ethics, group dynamics, and Cynkutis’s vision for the Wrocław Second Studio. It contains visual and textual materials from Cynkutis’s own private archive, such as diary entries and letters. Acting with Grotowski demonstrates the thin line that separates life and art when an artist works with extreme commitment in testing political and social conditions.
Acting Up
by David HareIn 1997 the 50-year-old playwright David Hare decided to visit the 50-year-old state of Israel and write a play - Via Dolorosa - about the conflict. He then chose to become the actor of his own play and set about learning to act the monologue for an uninterrupted 95 minutes on stage. Acting Up is a diary of the ups and downs of that learning curve as well as an insight into what it is actors, directors, producers and stage staff actually do in rehearsals. Hare's hilarious diary of his experience on both sides of the Atlantic tells of his difficulties in coming to terms with his terrifying change of career, but also grapples with more serious questions about the nature of acting itself.
Acting the Essence: The Performer's Work on the Self
by Giuliano CampoActing the Essence examines the theory, practice, and history of the art of the performer from the perspective of its inner nature as work on oneself, within, around, and beyond the pedagogy of the actor. Ref lecting primarily on the legacy of Jerzy Grotowski, this book is composed of a series of ref lections on the Stanislavskian lineage of practitioners and related authors, in an attempt to revive awareness of the original path traced by the Russian master and to refine certain ambiguities in contemporary training. In a new media age of image and sound, accompanied by a proliferation of new technologies and means to communicate, emphasised by the COVID-19 crisis, a classic question comes to be asked of us again: What is the essence and the principal objective of the work of the performer? Is performing art still necessary? While proposing a theoretical advancement of the discipline and an historical overview of the relevant practices, this book provides tools for a better understanding of the traditional function of the performer’s practice as work on the self, for its ecological renaissance through a conscient use of trance, attention, and altered states of consciousness. This book offers insight for students in drama, theatre, and performance courses studying acting and performance at university.
Acting the Essence: The Performer's Work on the Self
by Giuliano CampoActing the Essence examines the theory, practice, and history of the art of the performer from the perspective of its inner nature as work on oneself, within, around, and beyond the pedagogy of the actor. Ref lecting primarily on the legacy of Jerzy Grotowski, this book is composed of a series of ref lections on the Stanislavskian lineage of practitioners and related authors, in an attempt to revive awareness of the original path traced by the Russian master and to refine certain ambiguities in contemporary training. In a new media age of image and sound, accompanied by a proliferation of new technologies and means to communicate, emphasised by the COVID-19 crisis, a classic question comes to be asked of us again: What is the essence and the principal objective of the work of the performer? Is performing art still necessary? While proposing a theoretical advancement of the discipline and an historical overview of the relevant practices, this book provides tools for a better understanding of the traditional function of the performer’s practice as work on the self, for its ecological renaissance through a conscient use of trance, attention, and altered states of consciousness. This book offers insight for students in drama, theatre, and performance courses studying acting and performance at university.
Acting, Spectating and the Unconscious: A psychoanalytic perspective on unconscious mechanisms of identification in spectating and acting in the theatre. (Routledge Advances in Theatre & Performance Studies)
by Maria Grazia TurriFrom Aristotle’s theory of tragic katharsis onwards, theorists of the theatre have long engaged with the question of what spectatorship entails. This question has, directly or indirectly, often been extended to the investigation of acting. Acting, Spectating, and the Unconscious approaches the unconscious aspects of spectatorship and acting afresh. Interweaving psychoanalytic descriptions of processes such as transference, unconscious phantasy, and alpha-function with an in-depth survey of theories of spectating and acting from thinkers such as Brecht, Diderot, Rousseau and Plato, Maria Grazia Turri offers a significant insight into the emotions inherent in both the art of the actor, and the spectator’s experience. A compelling investigation of the unconscious communication between spectators and actors, this volume is a must-read for students and scholars fascinated by theatre spectatorship.
Acting, Spectating and the Unconscious: A psychoanalytic perspective on unconscious mechanisms of identification in spectating and acting in the theatre. (Routledge Advances in Theatre & Performance Studies)
by Maria Grazia TurriFrom Aristotle’s theory of tragic katharsis onwards, theorists of the theatre have long engaged with the question of what spectatorship entails. This question has, directly or indirectly, often been extended to the investigation of acting. Acting, Spectating, and the Unconscious approaches the unconscious aspects of spectatorship and acting afresh. Interweaving psychoanalytic descriptions of processes such as transference, unconscious phantasy, and alpha-function with an in-depth survey of theories of spectating and acting from thinkers such as Brecht, Diderot, Rousseau and Plato, Maria Grazia Turri offers a significant insight into the emotions inherent in both the art of the actor, and the spectator’s experience. A compelling investigation of the unconscious communication between spectators and actors, this volume is a must-read for students and scholars fascinated by theatre spectatorship.
Acting Shakespeare is Outrageous!: Playing the Bard for Beginners
by Herb ParkerPerforming the work of William Shakespeare can be daunting to new actors. Author Herb Parker posits that his work is played easier if actors think of the plays as happening out of outrageous situations, and remember just how non-realistic and presentational Shakespeare's plays were meant to be performed. The plays are driven by language and the spoken word, and the themes and plots are absolutely out of the ordinary and fantastic - the very definition of outrageous. With exercises, improvisations, and coaching points, Acting Shakespeare is Outrageous! helps actors use the words Shakespeare wrote as a tool to perform him, and to create exciting and moving performances.
Acting Shakespeare is Outrageous!: Playing the Bard for Beginners
by Herb ParkerPerforming the work of William Shakespeare can be daunting to new actors. Author Herb Parker posits that his work is played easier if actors think of the plays as happening out of outrageous situations, and remember just how non-realistic and presentational Shakespeare's plays were meant to be performed. The plays are driven by language and the spoken word, and the themes and plots are absolutely out of the ordinary and fantastic - the very definition of outrageous. With exercises, improvisations, and coaching points, Acting Shakespeare is Outrageous! helps actors use the words Shakespeare wrote as a tool to perform him, and to create exciting and moving performances.
Acting Shakespeare (Routledge Library Editions: Shakespeare in Performance)
by Bertram Leon JosephHow did the actors for whom Shakespeare wrote his plays make his characters come to life, how did they convey his words? Can modern directors, actors, and even library readers of Shakespeare learn from them? Creating character and making the Elizabethan playwright’s poetry compelling for the audience is a problem which has seldom been resolved in modern times. This book demonstrates the hard course a modern actor must follow to make real and truthful the words he speaks, and the action and emotion underlying them. With examples and simple exercises, this book helps with the preparation for the great task – providing the actor with a combination that unlocks the Bard's English. Starting with how theatrical speech was understood in Renaissance England, it looks at figures of speech, the powers of persuasion, and the passion and rhythm inherent in the language.
Acting Shakespeare (Routledge Library Editions: Shakespeare in Performance)
by Bertram Leon JosephHow did the actors for whom Shakespeare wrote his plays make his characters come to life, how did they convey his words? Can modern directors, actors, and even library readers of Shakespeare learn from them? Creating character and making the Elizabethan playwright’s poetry compelling for the audience is a problem which has seldom been resolved in modern times. This book demonstrates the hard course a modern actor must follow to make real and truthful the words he speaks, and the action and emotion underlying them. With examples and simple exercises, this book helps with the preparation for the great task – providing the actor with a combination that unlocks the Bard's English. Starting with how theatrical speech was understood in Renaissance England, it looks at figures of speech, the powers of persuasion, and the passion and rhythm inherent in the language.
Acting Reframes: Using NLP to Make Better Decisions In and Out of the Theatre
by Robert BartonActing Reframes presents theatre and film practitioners with a methodology for using Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) as a tool to aid their practice. Author Robert Barton uses the NLP approach to illustrate a range of innovative methods to help actors and directors, including: • reducing performance anxiety • enabling clearer communication • intensifying character analysis • stimulating imaginative rehearsal choices. The author also shows how NLP can used alongside other basic training systems to improve approaches to rehearsal and performance. The book shows the use of NLP to the reader in a playful, creative and easily accessible style that is structured to enable solo study as well as group work. The text offers a range of engaging exercises and extensive analysis of language patterns used in performance. It is a source for enhancing communication between all theatre practitioners in training, productions, and daily life outside the theatre. Acting Reframes gives actors a richly rewarding approach to help them develop all aspects of their craft.
Acting Reframes: Using NLP to Make Better Decisions In and Out of the Theatre
by Robert BartonActing Reframes presents theatre and film practitioners with a methodology for using Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) as a tool to aid their practice. Author Robert Barton uses the NLP approach to illustrate a range of innovative methods to help actors and directors, including: • reducing performance anxiety • enabling clearer communication • intensifying character analysis • stimulating imaginative rehearsal choices. The author also shows how NLP can used alongside other basic training systems to improve approaches to rehearsal and performance. The book shows the use of NLP to the reader in a playful, creative and easily accessible style that is structured to enable solo study as well as group work. The text offers a range of engaging exercises and extensive analysis of language patterns used in performance. It is a source for enhancing communication between all theatre practitioners in training, productions, and daily life outside the theatre. Acting Reframes gives actors a richly rewarding approach to help them develop all aspects of their craft.
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.
Acting Queer: Gender Dissidence and the Subversion of Realism
by Conrad AlexandrowiczThis book is situated at the intersection of queer/gender studies and theories of acting pedagogy and performance. It explores the social and cultural matrix in which matters of gender are negotiated, including that of post-secondary theatre and drama education. It identifies the predicament of gender dissident actors who must contend with the widespread enforcement of realist paradigms within the academy, and proposes a re-imagining of the way drama/theatre/performance are practised in order to serve more fairly and effectively the needs of queer actors in training. This is located within a larger project of critique in reference to the art form as a whole. The book stimulates discussion among practitioners and scholars on matters concerning various kinds of diversity: of gender expression, of approaches to the teaching of acting, and to the way the art form may be imagined and executed in the early years of the 21st Century, in particular in the face of the climate crisis. But it is also an aid to practitioners who are seeking new theoretical and practical approaches to dealing with gender diversity in acting pedagogy.
Acting Professionally: Raw Facts about Careers in Acting
by Robert Cohen James CalleriThis vital resource will steer you through the hugely competitive industry of stage, film and TV acting, offering wise advice on everything from writing an eye-catching résumé to finding an agent. It will give you a clear understanding of how acting careers are built and sustained, and how actors must position themselves in an environment overseen by directors, agents, casting directors and acting unions. Praised for its honest and critical understanding of the industry, the text has retained its status as the leading book in its field since the first edition published in 1972. Acclaimed industry professional authors Robert Cohen and James Calleri offer vast insight and experience as professors, directors, playwrights and casting directors, making the text essential reading for all students and lecturers of Acting at universities, drama schools and conservatories, as well as anyone interested in pursuing and developing their career in acting.
Acting Presidents: 100 Years of Plays about the Presidency (The Evolving American Presidency)
by B. AltschulerThis book seeks to fill a major gap in the literature about fictional representations of presidents by studying more than 40 plays, written since 1900, which have had prominent productions on or off-Broadway or in another major city.
Acting on Cultural Policy: Arts Practitioners, Policy-Making and Civil Society (New Directions in Cultural Policy Research)
by Jane WoddisThis book investigates the role of arts practitioners in cultural policy-making, challenging the perception that arts practitioners have little or no involvement in policy and seeking to discover the extent and form of their engagement. Examining the subject through a case-study of playwriting policy in England since 1945, and paying particular attention to playwrights’ organisations and their history of self-directed activity, the book explores practitioners’ participation in cultural policy-making, encompassing both “invited” and “uninvited” interventions that also weave together policy activity and creative practice. It discusses why their involvement matters, and argues that arts practitioners and their organisations can be understood as participants in civil society whose policy activity contributes to the maintenance and enlargement of democratic practices and values.
Acting is Your Business: How to Take Charge of Your Creative Career (Introductions to Theatre)
by Wendy S. KurtzmanAfter training and studying for years, you've earned a degree: now what? How to get a job and have a career as an actor is the number one question facing emerging artists and one which this book answers for you.While performing arts schools do a great job of teaching how to act, most don't teach you how to launch and sustain a career. This book addresses this fundamental aspect of your creative journey, delivering a precise formula to help you organize the next chapter of your life. It helps you to find work and proactively build a career by providing the tools you'll need to connect with working professionals within the industry.If acting is your business, you must run it as a business. Positioning you as CEO of your own company, this book uses a boardroom table as a visual model. At that table are 7 key positions, each representing an area of action and expertise that you must understand to build a successful career. With worksheets and tools, supplemented throughout with interviews with industry professionals from North America, the UK and Europe, and Australia, and further supported by a companion website, this action plan will empower and equip you to achieve your career goals.
Acting is Your Business: How to Take Charge of Your Creative Career (Introductions to Theatre)
by Wendy S. KurtzmanAfter training and studying for years, you've earned a degree: now what? How to get a job and have a career as an actor is the number one question facing emerging artists and one which this book answers for you.While performing arts schools do a great job of teaching how to act, most don't teach you how to launch and sustain a career. This book addresses this fundamental aspect of your creative journey, delivering a precise formula to help you organize the next chapter of your life. It helps you to find work and proactively build a career by providing the tools you'll need to connect with working professionals within the industry.If acting is your business, you must run it as a business. Positioning you as CEO of your own company, this book uses a boardroom table as a visual model. At that table are 7 key positions, each representing an area of action and expertise that you must understand to build a successful career. With worksheets and tools, supplemented throughout with interviews with industry professionals from North America, the UK and Europe, and Australia, and further supported by a companion website, this action plan will empower and equip you to achieve your career goals.
Acting in the Academy: The History of Professional Actor Training in US Higher Education
by Peter ZazzaliThere are over 150 BFA and MFA acting programs in the US today, nearly all of which claim to prepare students for theatre careers. Peter Zazzali contends that the curricula of these courses represent an ethos that is as outdated as it is limited, given today’s shrinking job market for stage actors. Acting in the Academy traces the history of actor training in universities to make the case for a move beyond standard courses in voice and speech, movement, or performance, to develop an entrepreneurial model that motivates and encourages students to create their own employment opportunities. This book answers questions such as: How has the League of Professional Theatre Training Programs shaped actor training in the US? How have training programmes and the acting profession developed in relation to one another? What impact have these developments had on American acting as an art form? Acting in the Academy calls for a reconceptualization of actor training the US, and looks to newly empower students of performance with a fresh, original perspective on their professional development.
Acting in the Academy: The History of Professional Actor Training in US Higher Education
by Peter ZazzaliThere are over 150 BFA and MFA acting programs in the US today, nearly all of which claim to prepare students for theatre careers. Peter Zazzali contends that the curricula of these courses represent an ethos that is as outdated as it is limited, given today’s shrinking job market for stage actors. Acting in the Academy traces the history of actor training in universities to make the case for a move beyond standard courses in voice and speech, movement, or performance, to develop an entrepreneurial model that motivates and encourages students to create their own employment opportunities. This book answers questions such as: How has the League of Professional Theatre Training Programs shaped actor training in the US? How have training programmes and the acting profession developed in relation to one another? What impact have these developments had on American acting as an art form? Acting in the Academy calls for a reconceptualization of actor training the US, and looks to newly empower students of performance with a fresh, original perspective on their professional development.
Acting in Real Time
by Paul BinnertsActing in Real Time by renowned Dutch director and acting teacher Paul Binnerts describes his method for Real-Time Theater, which authorizes actors to actively determine how a story is told---they are no longer mere vehicles for delivering the playwright's message or the director's interpretations of the text. This level of involvement allows actors to deepen their grasp of the material and amplify their stage presence, resulting in more engaged and nuanced performances. The method offers a postmodern challenge to Stanislavski and Brecht, whose theories of stage realism dominated the twentieth century. In providing a new way to consider the actor's presence on stage, Binnerts advocates breaking down the "fourth wall" that separates audiences and actors and has been a central tenet of acting theories associated with realism. In real-time theater, actors forgo attempts to become characters and instead understand their function to be storytellers who are fully present on stage and may engage the audience and their fellow actors directly. Paul Binnerts analyzes the ascendance of realism as the dominant theater and acting convention and how its methods can hinder the creation of a more original, imaginative theater. His description of the techniques of real-time theater is illuminated by practical examples from his long experience in the stage. The book then offers innovative exercises that provide training in the real-time technique, including physical exercises that help the actor become truly present in performance. Acting in Real Time also includes a broad overview of the history of acting and realism's relationship to the history of theater architecture, offering real-time theater as an alternative. The book will appeal to actors and acting students, directors, stage designers, costume designers, lighting designers, theater historians, and dramaturgs.