Kategoria BISAC: Performing Arts >> Theater - History & Criticism

An outline of dramatic history which marks the great turning points in the development of theatre. A delineation of the conventions which various playwrights invented, and of the societies in which they wrote. The author intends to explain what has happened in the history of the stage, why it happened, and what it means.

Because of its contemporary coverage, this volume is particularly interesting and useful. . . . Reference collections that deal with theater questions could find it a good source even without its two predecessor volumes, but the set as a whole is recommended. Choice

An outstanding reference collection is completed with the publication of Durham's American Theatre Companies, 1931-1986, an indispensable guide to an aspect of American theatre not covered elsewhere. The American theatre has undergone a process of decentralization and the focus has shifted from...

Collective theatres are collectively organized and run performing groups, usually socially conscious and politically oriented, often aligned with the people's theatre movement. This book examines collectivization as a way of successfully challenging the hierarchy and ideology of traditional theatre and of society. It asserts that the collective process is a vibrant and accessible method of creating theatre, of representing a variety of cultures in the United States and of providing a supportive environment for the creative artist. The study offers a general theory of the process of...

This fascinating work will prove valuable for collections in film, theater history, and Shakespearean production. . . . The book includes fascinating production photos and helpful notes in which the original acts and scenes are identified, thus showing the extent to which Welles rearranged Shakespeare by shuffling acts and scenes, dropping characters, and by merging related narratives. . . . Recommended for all libraries. "Choice"

This volume contains the fully annotated playscripts of Orson Welles' celebrated adaptations of three Shakespearean plays. Texts for the "Voodoo Macbeth" and...

Giving equal space to the sanctity of script and the artistic freedom of directors, this book addresses the difficulties encountered by playwrights and directors as they bring a script to the stage. Inspired directors can help a writer of genius turn his play into exciting theatre, but playwrights find that giving directors leeway to interpret and modify text can result in directors' overriding authorial intentions. This book presents the best that has been written by literary theorists on the current definitions of text and attempts to depart from quick rule-of-thumb assessments of the...

Founded at Yale University by Robert Brustein, the American Repertory Theatre (A.R.T.) became one of America's most progressive and provocative regional theatres. During the Brustein era, the A.R.T was distinctive for being one of the few regional theaters to maintain a resident company, perform in rotating repertory, and tour internationally. The A.R.T. has always focused on new interpretations of the classics, the presentation of little-known work, and the development of new American plays. This, in addition to Brustein's modernist aesthetic, has attracted some of the world's most...

This volume considers prewar theatre in Hitler's Germany, a previously neglected subject in theatre history. An extended introduction sets the theatre scene of 1933 and charts the major theatre regulations and organizations formed that year. The initial essay examines the unified folk community used to achieve power and served by purged and revived German art. Plays that achieved great success in Nazi Germany--Die endlose Strasse by Sigmund Graff and six works by Eberhard Wolfgang Moller--are considered. In essays devoted to specific theatres, the work examines how Reinhardt's...

A comprehensive directory of more than 600 entries, this detailed ready reference features professional, semi-professional, and academic stage organizations and theatres that have been in the forefront in pioneering most of the advances that African Americans have made in the theatre. It includes groups from the early 19th century to the dawn of the revolutionary Black theatre movement of the 1960s. It is an effort to bring together into one volume information that has hitherto been scattered throughout a number of different sources. The volume begins with an illuminating foreword by Errol...

The Thatcher administration of 1979 to 1990 had a profound and apparently lasting effect on British theatre and drama. It is now roughly a decade since the fall of Margaret Thatcher and, with the benefit of hindsight, it has become possible to disentangle fact from fantasy concerning her effect on the British theatre. During her administration, there was a significant cultural shift which affected drama in Britain. While some critics have argued that the theatre was simply affected by financial cutbacks in arts subsidies, this volume challenges that view. While it looks at the economic...

In a career that spanned more then four decades and four countries, Michel Saint-Denis-actor, director, teacher, and theorist-was a major force in twentieth-century theatre. Baldwin chronicles his life and career, which was characterized by frequent beginnings, triumphs, and disasters. Although the times, the artistic currents, and the places changed, Saint-Denis's ambition remained consistent: to create a permanent company dedicated to theatrical experiment coupled with school. While this aspiration was never fully realized, the result of his failure was to have a more lasting effect on...

Divided into three parts, this brief, chronologically-organized, fully-integrated drama anthology offers a global emphasis and extensive critical and historical material of 23 indispensable plays. No other anthology offers such a richly varied selection from the traditional Western canon, Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean. This anthology contains many examples of rituals, ceremonies, and folk customs. The role of the storyteller is examined and chronicled to illustrate the impulses that have prompted humans to create theater. Center Stage Essays present...

Frontline Drama 5 by Giles Havergal, Mark Wheatley and Michael Boyd

A celebration of the 25th anniversary of the Bush Theatre

Two new plays, Mackerel Sky by Hilary Fannin and Caravan by Helen Blakeman, are accompanied by highlights and reminiscences from Bush writers, actors and directors including Alan Plater, Dominic Dromgoole, Simon Callow, Victoria Wood, David Edgar, Philip Ridley, Snoo Wilson, Robert Holman, Jonathan Harvey, Conor McPherson, Kevin Elyot and Catherine Johnson.
"The West End may be starved of new work, but real drama flourishes at the Bush" Michael...

A major study of the work of one of Britain's best-known dramatists

Peter Barnes was one of the UK's most significant, prolific and enduring playwrights. This book offers a major critical appraisal of the canon of Barnes' work, including a detailed study of his best-known plays, The Ruling Class, Bewitched, Laughter , Red Noses, and Dreaming, as well as a selection of his television and radio plays which illuminate his thematic concerns, and offer key insights into his dramatic methods.

Through this examination, Brian Woolland shows that many of Barnes' plays have remarkable...