Exit the King is a highly stylized, ritualized death rite unfolding the final hours of the once-great king Berenger the First. As he dies, his kingdom also dies. His armies suffer defeat, the young emigrate, the seasons change overnight, and his kingdom s borders shrink to the outline of his throne. At last, as the curtain falls, the king himself dissolves into a gray mist.

Based almost entirely on the author's personal experiences, this concise handbook follows a director's journey from the casting process to opening night, revealing the hidden or unspoken aspects of play and stage production that are rarely, if ever, described in theater manuals and textbooks. Mr. Marowitz discusses topics such as rehearsals, characterization, blocking, tempo-rhythm, dramaturgy, and actor-and-audience psychology, demystifying an art form that is often dealt with only in terms of concepts and ideology rather than the mundane, nitty-gritty nuts-and-bolts requirements of just...

(Applause Acting Series). In the same way that Shakespeare himself continued to meditate and transform his own ideas and the shape they took, Marowitz gives us license to continue that meditation in productions extrapolated from Shakespeare's work. Shakespeare becomes the greatest of all catalysts who stimulates a constant re-formulation of the fundamental questions of philosophy, history and meaning. Marowitz introduces us to Shakespeare as an active contemporary collaborator who strives with us to yield a vibrant contemporary theatre.

An innovative director and a dazzling classicist bring complementary viewpoints to bear as they delve into the collected works, illuminating the constantly changing nature and philosophic nuances of the various plays. The book's centrepiece consists of insights on such plays as Othello, Romeo and Juliet, Troilus and Cressida and Measure for Measure. They reveal the ideas behind Shakespeare's plays and the process of bringing them alive before an audience, and present no-holds barred discussion on such subjects as The Shakespeare Industry. The Boundaries of Interpretation, Dramaturgy and...

(Applause Books). The first 30 years of the 20th-century produced a theatrical explosion whose reverberations are still felt today. Stanislavsky, Meyerhold, Vakhtanghov, Michael Chekhov in Russia; Reinhardt, Piscator & Brecht in Germany; and Copeau, Barrault & Artaud in France collectively demolished the 19th-century aesthetic and, in their wake, created the modernity which is the hallmark of today's theatre. Most of these men have already been turned into modern icons; there is no shortage of bios on the pioneers of the Moscow Arts Theatre, and the achievements of the others are chronicled...