From the 1920s through the 1950s, two individuals, Joseph Urban and Norman Bel Geddes, did more, by far, to create the image of "America" and make it synonymous with modernity than any of their contemporaries. Urban and Bel Geddes were leading Broadway stage designers and directors who turned their prodigious talents to other projects, becoming mavericks first in industrial design and then in commercial design, fashion, architecture, and more. The two men gave shape to the most quintessential symbols of the modern American lifestyle, including movies, cars, department stores, and nightclubs,...

This work aims to provide primary sources which document one of the key movements in modern theatre. The author has selected three writers to exemplify the movement, and six plays in particular: Henrik Ibsen - A Dolls House and Hedda Gabler; Anton Chekhov - The Seagull and The Cherry Orchard; and George Bernard Shaw - Mrs Warren's Profession and Heartbreak House. Themes include: the representation of women; significant contemporary issues; and the links between theory, play writing and stage practice.

Since Hedda Gabler exploded on to European and American stages in the 1890s, the play and its title character have troubled and transfixed audiences, performers and critics the world over. This sourcebook balances essential reprinted texts with incisive commentary to: set the play within the contexts of Norwegian nationalism, the women's movement and the cultural movement of Naturalism; examine and emphasize the links between the performance and criticism of the play, from 1890 onwards; offer a guide to key passages in the play, showing how a knowledge of the play's contexts, performance...

A revised and updated version of Modern British Drama, 1890-1990, is the first one-volume analysis of English playwriting over the twentieth century. Through detailed discussions of major dramatists and plays, Christopher Innes traces the evolution of modernism from Bernard Shaw to the present as well as theatrical developments over the period. The text includes information on the social and political environment surrounding the plays, first productions and critical reception, and chronology and illustrations from key performances, lists of playwrights and works, and selective bibliographies....

Peter Brook is regarded as one of the most important and influential directors today. In this fascinating study, Albert Hunt and Geoffrey Reeves chronicle Brook's development beginning with his earliest productions and concluding with some of his most recent and innovative work. The book also focuses on Brook outside the theater including the film version of his Mahabharata and work for the opera house. The book will be of interest to theater practitioners, students and scholars as well as to the general reader. It includes a chronology of Brook's theater career and is illustrated with rare...

This is the first book in English on Italy's leading director, Giorgio Strehler. For the past half century, Strehler has been an influential and integral part of European theatrical life as founder of Italy's leading repertory theater, the Piccolo Teatro in Milan, director of the Paris-based Theatre de l'Europe, and through his opera and theater productions. This detailed study evaluates the particular qualities that typify Strehler's work: the lyrical realism that has become the hallmark of his mature style and his gift of interpretation and production. Hirst traces this unique style through...

This detailed study evaluates the particular qualities which typify Strehler's work: the lyrical realism which has become the hallmark of his mature style and his gift of interpretation and production.

Robert Wilson, the leading American avant-garde theatre director, revolutionised the stage by making visual communication more important than words. His productions cut across the boundaries that traditionally have defined theatre, dance, opera and the visual arts to create a total work of art. This book, the first comprehensive study of Wilson, traces the evolution of the director's astonishing career as well as his complex relationship to language and his visual rhetoric. It explains how he renovated the stage and describes in detail major productions such as: Deafman Glance, Einstein on...

The Cambridge Companion to George Bernard Shaw is an indispensable guide to one of the most influential and important dramatists of the theater. The volume offers a broad-ranging study of Shaw with essays by a team of leading scholars. The Companion covers all aspects of Shaw's drama, focusing both on the political and theatrical context, while the extensive illustrations showcase productions from the Shaw Festival in Canada. In addition to situating Shaw's work in its own time, the Companion demonstrates its continuing relevance, and applies some of the newest critical approaches.

A revised and updated version of Modern British Drama, 1890-1990, is the first one-volume analysis of English playwriting over the twentieth century. Through detailed discussions of major dramatists and plays, Christopher Innes traces the evolution of modernism from Bernard Shaw to the present as well as theatrical developments over the period. The text includes information on the social and political environment surrounding the plays, first productions and critical reception, and chronology and illustrations from key performances, lists of playwrights and works, and selective bibliographies....