-A splendidly entertaining, definitive work.---Entertainment Weekly
In this first installment of his masterful biography, Simon Callow captures the chameleonic genius of Orson Welles as only an actor/director deeply rooted in the entertainment industry could. Here is Welles's prodigious childhood; his youth in New York, with its fraught partnership with John Houseman and the groundbreaking triumph of his all-black Macbeth; the pioneering radio work that culminated in the notorious 1938 broadcast of War of the Worlds; and finally, his work in Hollywood,...

"Unfailingly intelligent and well written . . . Vivid and three-dimensional."--Variety
The first volume of Simon Callow's magisterial biography of Orson Welles was praised as a "splendidly entertaining, definitive work" by Entertainment Weekly. Now, this eagerly anticipated second volume examines the years following Citizen Kane up to the time of Macbeth, in which Welles's Hollywood film career unraveled. In close and colorful detail, Callow offers a scrupulous analysis of the factors involved, revealing the immense and sometimes self-defeating...

This handbook for professional and amateur actors and directors is designed to train the imagination and body to quickly and effectively call up emotion, develop characters, and strengthen awareness.

Orson Welles' theatrical productions of Shakespeare for the W.P.A.'s Federal Theatre Project and Welles' own Mercury Theatre represent unique blending of high art and the politicized popular culture of the 1930s. This title contains the fully annotated playscripts of these adaptions, including the 'Voodoo' Macbeth, the modern-dress Julius Caesar, and Welles compilation of history plays, Five Kings. Richard France's general introduction provides invaluable background information that relates the three plays and their productions to the social, historical, political and economic climate from...

Winner, 2007University & College Designers Association Design Award"Nobody says Shakespeare is dead, "Antonio Fava tells us," but Commedia, they say, is dead. Why? "Because clearly, he goes on, we have Shakespeare's texts, but nobody knows what to do with the improvisation that is the basis of the Commedia dell'Arte, despite massive documentation. This book by Fava, one of the few living master teachers of Commedia dell'Arte, is the first aesthetic and methodological study of the traditional Italian theater form--the first to describe, in a precise and practical way, what Commedia is and what...

(Applause Acting Series). The art of acting in restoration comedy, the buoyant, often bowdy romps which celebrated the reopening of the English theatres after Cromwell's dour reign, is the subject of Simon Callow's bold investigation. There is cause again to celebrate as Callow, one of Britain's foremost actors, aims to restore the form to all its original voluptuous vigor. Callow shows the way to attain clarity and hilarity in some of the most delightful roles ever conceived for the theatre.

(Applause Books). Noted director Michael Blakemore is renowned for such Broadway successes as Joe Egg, Noises Off and City of Angels . In the introduction, Simon Callow says of Blakemore's book, "There have been remarkable novels of the theatre, but no other book has so truly depicted the creative anarchic excitement of acting. Next Season is the finest fictional celebration of the passionate craft of the actor ... about the demands and rewards of acting, what it takes from you, what it gives you back. Acting as work, work as possion " "An outstanding theatre novel ... extremely readable and...

This is the definitive biography of the young Orson Welles, from his prodigious childhood and youth and his triumphs with the Mercury Theatre, to the making of Citizen Kane.

A short biography of Charles Dickens by acclaimed actor and writer Simon Callow that offers a fresh perspective on one of the greatest novelists in the English language in a lively, highly readable account. "It has all the gusto that a popular biography of Dickens a man who could do nothing by halves should possess. . . .The best biography for Dickens newcomers and a wonderful read for all." Library Journal
Dickens was one of the first true celebrity authors. Thousands of fans in Britain and America eagerly awaited each new installment of his stories and flocked to see him on his...