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100 (monologues) by
This new collection by one of America's premier performers and most innovative and provocative artists includes 100 monologues from his acclaimed plays and solo shows including: Drinking in America; Men Inside; Pounding Nails in the Floor with My Forehead; Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll and more. Also included are additional pieces from Talk Radio and Notes from Underground.
Bafana republic and other satires: a collection of monologues and revues by
Bafana Republic and Other Satires is a selection of monologues from six one-person satirical revues by leading South African playwright Mike van Graan. Focusing with piercing humour on various issues facing democratic South Africa, the monologues can be used for exam purposes, as acting exercises for drama students, or as performance pieces.
Baroque Modernity: an aesthetics of theater by
A groundbreaking study on the vital role of baroque theater in shaping modernist philosophy, literature, and performance. Finalist for the Outstanding Book Award by the Association for Theatre in Higher Education, Honorable Mention for the Balakian Prize by the International Comparative Literature Association, Winner of the Helen Tartar Book Subvention Award by the American Comparative Literature Association, Finalist of the MSA First Book Prize by the Modernist Studies Association Baroque style--with its emphasis on ostentation, adornment, and spectacle--might seem incompatible with the dominant forms of art since the Industrial Revolution, but between 1875 and 1935, European and American modernists connected to the theater became fascinated with it. In Baroque Modernity, Joseph Cermatori argues that the memory of seventeenth-century baroque stages helped produce new forms of theater, space, and experience around the turn of the twentieth century. In response, modern theater helped give rise to the development of the baroque as a modern philosophical idea. The book focuses on avant-gardists whose writing takes place between theory and performance: philosophical theater-makers and theatrical philosophers including Friedrich Nietzsche, Stéphane Mallarmé, Walter Benjamin, and Gertrude Stein. Moving between page and stage, this study tracks the remnants of seventeenth-century theater through modernist aesthetics across an array of otherwise disparate materials, including modern opera, Bertolt Brecht's Epic Theater, poetic tragedies, and miracle plays. By reexamining the twentieth century's engagements with Gianlorenzo Bernini, William Shakespeare, Claudio Monteverdi, Calderón de la Barca, and other seventeenth-century predecessors, the book delineates an enduring tradition of baroque performance. Along the way, Cermatori expands our familiar narratives of "the modern" and traces a history of theatricality that reverberates into the twenty-first century. Baroque Modernity will appeal to readers in a wide array of disciplines, including comparative literature, theater and performance, art and music history, intellectual history, and aesthetic theory.
Critical Companion to Native American and First Nations Theatre and Performance by
This foundational study offers an accessible introduction to Native American and First Nations theatre by drawing on critical Indigenous and dramaturgical frameworks. It is the first major survey book to introduce Native artists, plays, and theatres within their cultural, aesthetic, spiritual, and socio-political contexts. Native American and First Nations theatre weaves the spiritual and aesthetic traditions of Native cultures into diverse, dynamic, contemporary plays that enact Indigenous human rights through the plays' visionary styles of dramaturgy and performance. The book begins by introducing readers to historical and cultural contexts helpful for reading Native American and First Nations drama, followed by an overview of Indigenous plays and theatre artists from across the century. Finally, it points forward to the ways in which Native American and First Nations theatre artists are continuing to create works that advocate for human rights through transformative Native performance practices.Addressing the complexities of this dynamic field, this volume offers critical grounding in the historical development of Indigenous theatre in North America, while analysing key Native plays and performance traditions from the mainland United States and Canada. In surveying Native theatre from the late 19th century until today, the authors explore the cultural, aesthetic, and spiritual concerns, as well as the political and revitalization efforts of Indigenous peoples. This book frames the major themes of the genre and identifies how such themes are present in the dramaturgy, rehearsal practices, and performance histories of key Native scripts.
Original Monologs That Showcase Your Talent by
- More than 60 new monologs that spotlight special abilities - Great for auditions as well as classrooms and scene study Versatile actors can now set themselves apart from the competition This collection of more than sixty fresh, serious, and comic pieces allows actors to show off their talents for stage dialects, tap dancing, singing, skateboarding, miming, baton twirling, and much more. Each monolog inOriginal Monologs That Showcase Your Talent is designed to show off a different specific vocal and physical gift. Thirty three-to-five-minute monologs plus thirty-three one-minute monologs, each one complete with synopses, character profiles, and prop lists, make this a great asset for actors and teachers.
Staging Discomfort: performance and queerness in contemporary Cuba by
This visionary volume examines how queer bodies are theatrically represented on the Cuban stage in ways that challenge one of the state's primary revolutionary tools, the categorization and homogenization of individuals. Bretton White critically analyzes contemporary performances that upset traditional understandings of performer and spectator, as well as what constitutes the ideal Cuban citizenry. Following the 1959 revolution, nonconformists were monitored and reported by local committees and punished or reformed by the government. Censorship was rampant, and Cuban art suffered as the state tried to control the national message. Through the lens of queer theory, White explores how the body has been central to the state's fear-based marginalization of gay life and looks at the ways these theatrical performances defuse that fear. She highlights the revolutionary model of masculinity and the role it plays in excluding people based upon visible queer difference. White finds that, through experimental performances of sexuality, actors create connections with audiences to evoke shared feelings of discomfort, intimacy, shame, longing, frustration, and failure, which echo the prevalence of these feelings in other Cuban spaces. By performing queerness, these plays question the state's narrative of heteronormativity and empower citizens to negotiate alternative understandings of Cuban identity.
Theatre: Its Art and Craft by
Theatre: Its Art and Craft is an introductory theatre text focusing on theatre practitioners and their processes. Using an accessible tone and a focused exploration of how theatre artists work, the book covers playwrights, directors, actors, designers of sets, costumes, props, lights, sound, and new technology, as well as the varying roles of scholars, critics, and dramaturgs. Appropriate for beginning theatre majors, minors, or non-majors, Theatre: Its Art and Craft helps students understand how theatre happens, who makes it, and what they do. Updated with new statistics, references, and photographs, the sixth edition now features an overhauled design section: the authors have divided the design chapter into two parts: one focused on the tactile elements of design (sets, costumes, props) and the second on the temporal elements (lights, sound, and new technologies).
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Actresses' Audition Speeches by
Finding good, interesting audition pieces is a demanding and difficult process for actresses. This revised edition of Actresses' Audition Speeches contains over 40 speeches and includes a wide selection of pieces taken from plays written or produced recently, such as Losing Louis, Whose Life is it Anyway? and His Dark Materials. There are speeches for a variety of accents and ages, taken from both classical and modern plays, to suit all audition requirements. There is also an introductory section containing advice from directors and casting directors on how to audition successfully.
All Theater Is Revolutionary Theater by
All Theater Is Revolutionary Theater is the first book to consider why, in the Western tradition (and only in the Western tradition), theatrical drama is regarded as its own literary or poetic type, when the criteria needed to differentiate drama from...
How to Run a Theatre: Creating, Leading and Managing Professional Theatre by
"All of us in the arts field are hungry to improve our skills in arts management. The grim tenor of the times makes this witty and fun guide even more valuable to us all!" Ben Cameron, Former Executive Director, Theater Communications Group "Dr. Jim Volz knows how to organize, how to manage, how to motivate, how to assign priorities. In short, he knows how to get the job done." Abe J. Bassett, Former Dean, Indiana University/Purdue University Jim Volz is one of America's leading theatre consultants with over three decades of work with theatre, dance, music, museum and arts center management. Now, Jim Volz brings his expertise to anyone who works in arts management, from novices to middle managers to executive directors. How to Run a Theater is a unique, dynamic, and savvy guide to building an arts institution that works. Drawing on more than 30 years of experience, here is practical advice on a variety of management skills: Financial Management; Personnel Management; Fundraising Development; Board of Trustees Communications; and Marketing & Audience Development. This new edition is thoroughly updated and revised and now includes a Board of Trustee Contract, new budget exercise with ticket income formulae and the use of social networking for marketing and fundraising.
Popular Theatre: a sourcebook by
Bertolt Brecht turned to cabaret; Ariane Mnouchkine went to the circus; Joan Littlewood wanted to open a palace of fun. These were a few of the directors who turned to popular theatre forms in the last century, and this sourcebook accounts for their attraction. Popular theatre forms introduced in this sourcebook include cabaret, circus, puppetry, vaudeville, Indian jatra, political satire, and physical comedy. These entertainments are highly visual, itinerant, and readily understood by audiences. Popular Theatre: A Sourcebook follows them around the world, from the bunraku puppetry of Japan to the masked topeng theatre of Bali to South African political satire, the San Francisco Mime Troupe's comic melodramas, and a 'Fun Palace' proposed for London. The book features essays from the archives of The Drama Review and other research. Contributions by Roland Barthes, Hovey Burgess, Marvin Carlson, John Emigh, Dario Fo, Ron Jenkins, Joan Littlewood, Brooks McNamara, Richard Schechner, and others, offer some of the most important, informative, and lively writing available on popular theatre. Introducing both Western and non-Western popular theatre practices, the sourcebook provides access to theatrical forms which have delighted audiences and attracted stage artists around the world.
Theory/Theatre by
Theory/Theatre: An Introduction provides a unique and engaging introduction to literary theory as it relates to theatre and performance. Mark Fortier lucidly examines current theoretical approaches, from semiotics, poststructuralism, to cultural materialism, postcolonial studies and feminist theory. Drawing upon examples from Shakespeare and Aphra Behn, to Chekhov, Artaud, Cixous and Churchill, the author examines the specific realities of theatre in order to come to a richer understanding of the relations between performance and cultural theory. Theory/Theatre: An Introduction is the only study of its kind and will be invaluable reading for new students and scholars of performance studies.
