Other performing arts Books
University of Chicago Press Drag Queens at the 801 Cabaret
Book SynopsisProviding a backstaatge pass into the lives of the 801 cabaret girls, this work is based on many interviews with more than a dozen drag queens. One of America's most overlooked subcultures is given a witty and poignant portrait in this work.
£30.43
The University of Chicago Press Sounding the Center History Aesthetics in Thai
Book SynopsisThis work investigates the power behind classical music and dance in Bangkok, the capital and sacred center of Buddhist Thailand. Focusing on the ritual of honouring teachers of music and dance, Deborah Wong reveals a complex network of connections among kings, teachers, knowledge and performance.
£76.00
The University of Chicago Press Sounding the Center
Book SynopsisThis work investigates the power behind classical music and dance in Bangkok, the capital and sacred center of Buddhist Thailand. Focusing on the ritual of honouring teachers of music and dance, Deborah Wong reveals a complex network of connections among kings, teachers, knowledge and performance.
£38.00
Firefly Books Ltd The Cheerleading Book
Book SynopsisA comprehensive guide for athletes and an effective teaching aid for coaches. More than three and a half million young athletes, female and male, participate in all-star cheerleading in North America. The Cheerleading Book is the go-to resource for anyone interested in participating in or coaching the sport of cheerleading.
£15.26
Palgrave MacMillan UK Performing SiteSpecific Theatre Politics Place Practice Performance Interventions
Book SynopsisThis book investigates the expanding parameters for site-specific performance to account for the form's increasing popularity in the twenty-first century. Leading practitioners and theorists interrogate issues of performance and site to broaden our understanding of the role that place plays in performance and the ways that performance influences itTrade Review'This excellent anthology provides a wide-ranging collection of essays on critical issues of place-based theatre. It includes articles that treat historical and contemporary themes from the perspectives of both theorists and practitioners in a variety of institutional contexts. As the best anthologies do, it both bolsters and challenges the discipline.' - Professor Laurie Beth Clark, University of Wisconsin Madison, USA 'This is a welcome addition to the developing literature on site-specific theatre and performance, whose chief virtue lies in providing a range of original essays testifying to the diversity and disparateness of contemporary site-based work.' - Steve Bottoms, New Theatre Quarterly 'Performing Site-Specific Theatre is an insightful collection of essays that presents an interesting examination of site-specific theory and practice. It is a welcome addition to a field still largely located in performance studies and art, here exploring its intersection with theatre... [The book] will be a useful book for researchers and teachers of site-specific performance, including its theories and practices.' - Kris Darby, Contemporary Theatre ReviewTable of ContentsList of Illustrations Acknowledgements Notes on Contributors The 'Place' and Practice of Site-Specific Theatre and Performance; J.Tompkins PART I: SITE-SPECIFICITY AND ECONOMICS Rethinking Site-Specificity: Monopoly, Urban Space, and the Cultural Economics of Site-specific Performance; M.McKinnie PART II: SITE-SPECIFICITY AND THE NARRATIVES OF HISTORY Rehearsing Across Space and Place: Rethinking A Masque Presented at Ludlow Castle; S.Bennett & J.Sanders Embodied Presence and Dislocated Spaces: Playing the Audience in Ten Thousand Several Doors in a Promenade, Site-specific Performance of John Webster's The Duchess of Malfi ; J.Collins Haunted House: Staging The Persians with the British Army; M.Pearson Toiling, Tolling and Telling: Performing Dissensus; K.Irwin PART III: SITE SPECIFITIY AND THE SLIPPAGE OF PLACE Beyond Site-specificity: Environmental Heterocosms on the Street; S.Haedicke Repetition and Performativity: Site-specific Performance and Film as Living Monument; A.Birch Contemporary Ekkeklemas in Site-specific Performance; L.Ferris 'Places, like property prices, go up and down': Site-specificity, Regeneration and The Margate Exodus; L.Owen PART IV: SITE-SPECIFICITY AND THEATRICAL INTIMACY Ambulatory Audiences and Animate Sites: Staging the Spectator in Site-specific Performance; K.Zaiontz Immersive Negotiations: Binaural Perspectives on Site-specific Sound; B.Barton & R.Windeyer My Sites Set on You: Site-specificity and Subjectivity in 'Intimate Theatre'; H.Iball PART V: SITE SPECIFICITY AND POLITICS Siting the People: Power, Protest and Public Space; S.Nield Bibliography Index
£94.99
Columbia University Press The Pop Musical Sweat Tears and Tarnished Utopias
Book SynopsisAlberto Mira offers a new account of how pop music revolutionized the Hollywood musical. He shows that while the Hollywood system ceased producing large-scale traditional musicals, different pop strains—disco, rock ’n’ roll, doo-wop, glam, and hip-hop—renewed the genre, giving it a new life.Trade ReviewAlberto Mira’s timely volume superbly fills a gap in writing on the musical, focusing with originality, flair and thorough scholarship on a significant variant of the genre. He demonstrates how the Pop musical has taken the genre into new directions, for instance making it even more socially aware, revising its folk discourse, and exploring questions of sexual identity. In his analysis of the star qualities of Ann-Margret, the changing impact of Elvis Presley, re-appraisal of films like Bye Bye Birdie and The Rocky Horror Picture Show or, more generally, the way Pop musicals draw on and diversify the traditions of the classical musical, Mira ensures that this exciting volume will be essential reading for devotees as well as for scholars of the film musical, and the aesthetics, cultural and socio-political contexts of popular cinema. -- Peter William Evans, Queen Mary University of LondonWhile much has been written on the change in the musical's cinematic language in the postclassical period, the “pop musical” itself has not been sufficiently identified, theorized, or historicized. In The Pop Musical, Alberto Mira addresses this gap, insisting that the genre’s unique relationship with pop music plays a determining role in how these films make meaning. -- Desirée Garcia, author of The Movie MusicalTable of ContentsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: The Hollywood Musical Is Dead. Long Live the Hollywood Musical!1. Hollywood and the Rise of Pop Music: The Age of Elvis2. Embracing Pop: Integrating the Pop Musical3. Looking Back: The Pop Musical and the PastConclusion: Qualified JoysNotesBibliographyIndex
£16.19
Columbia University Press Kill the Documentary
Book SynopsisIn Kill the Documentary, the award-winning director Jill Godmilow issues an urgent call for a new kind of nonfiction filmmaking. In place of the conventional documentary, she advocates for a “postrealist” cinema.Trade ReviewKill the Documentary is a brilliant, angry book. An honest book. A brave book. Guggenheim Fellow and award-winning filmmaker Jill Godmilow has written a stirring call to arms. -- Cynthia Close * Documentary Magazine *Creatively curious pages -- Ezra Winton * Cineaste *Jill Godmilow marshals a pantheon of hard-hitting, tough-minded films that refuse to be herded into the realist corral. Godmilow’s letter, or manifesto, like most manifestos, draws a line in the sand. Which side are you on becomes the question. Stay put and miss the point, or step on through to the other side and restore for yourself some of the nuance and subtlety that is foreign to the spirit of a manifesto. -- Bill Nichols, from the ForewordThis provocative and engaging book by acclaimed filmmaker Jill Godmilow raises important questions for anyone concerned about the future of political documentary. She maps out an original approach to “postrealist” documentary that champions moral engagement, social activism, aesthetic daring, historical grounding, and intersectional participation for bold twenty-first-century filmmaking. -- Deirdre Boyle, author of Ferryman of Memories: The Films of Rithy PanhIn her captivating and original Kill the Documentary, filmmaker and critic Jill Godmilow offers a plea—in the form of a letter, which is a manifesto, and forty propositions, and a tool kit—for making postrealist nonfiction, for making film useful and fruitful. In her scathing critique of “great” documentaries, and her offering up of her own counter-canon, she insists that filmmakers and viewers can begin again by refusing the pedigree, pornography, and cultural imperialism of the real, and by supporting postrealist strategies: interventionist and interactive, performative and formal. Honestly, I don’t agree with all she says, or every one of the 144 films she honors, and that’s her urgent book’s point and purpose: I can and should make my own. -- Alexandra Juhasz, Brooklyn College, CUNYKill the Documentary is a provocative manifesto for rethinking the documentary. Godmilow provides a shield against the tear-soaked sentimentality and nostalgia of the Ken Burns style of packaging history. A new tool in the film teacher's kit, this book is useful beyond discussions of documentary. The passion of her prose is infectious—a welcome relief for student reading assignments. -- DeeDee Halleck, professor emerita, University of California, San DiegoThis book will be a gold mine for any instructors putting together an “Introduction to Documentary Filmmaking” syllabus or for cinematic autodidacts hungry to experiment with alternative modes of nonfictional filmmaking. -- Jaimie Baron * Film Quarterly *Herein lies the specificity and refreshing nonconformity of [this] book: it pushes the reader not only to see through the ideological premises of conventional formats, but also to delve into the multiple configurations that generate subversive experiences . . . [Godmilow's] persistent faith in the importance of developing critical awareness and in the agency of art to intervene into reality despite the omnipresent ‘capitalist realism’ in the global neoliberal society radiates a compelling force. -- Stefanie Baumann * Radical Philosophy *Table of ContentsManifestly Radical: A Foreword, by Bill NicholsAcknowledgmentsI Call This Book a LetterIntroduction—a Letter to Filmmakers1. Abandon the Conventional Documentary—Reject Realism as the Only Authentic Nonfiction Form2. Take Action—Make Useful Postrealist Films3. Forty Postrealist Strategies to Learn from and Borrow4. The ToolkitNotes BibliographyIndex
£80.00
Columbia University Press Kill the Documentary A Letter to Filmmakers
Book SynopsisIn Kill the Documentary, the award-winning director Jill Godmilow issues an urgent call for a new kind of nonfiction filmmaking. In place of the conventional documentary, she advocates for a postrealist cinema.Trade ReviewKill the Documentary is a brilliant, angry book. An honest book. A brave book. Guggenheim Fellow and award-winning filmmaker Jill Godmilow has written a stirring call to arms. -- Cynthia Close * Documentary Magazine *Creatively curious pages -- Ezra Winton * Cineaste *Jill Godmilow marshals a pantheon of hard-hitting, tough-minded films that refuse to be herded into the realist corral. Godmilow’s letter, or manifesto, like most manifestos, draws a line in the sand. Which side are you on becomes the question. Stay put and miss the point, or step on through to the other side and restore for yourself some of the nuance and subtlety that is foreign to the spirit of a manifesto. -- Bill Nichols, from the ForewordThis provocative and engaging book by acclaimed filmmaker Jill Godmilow raises important questions for anyone concerned about the future of political documentary. She maps out an original approach to “postrealist” documentary that champions moral engagement, social activism, aesthetic daring, historical grounding, and intersectional participation for bold twenty-first-century filmmaking. -- Deirdre Boyle, author of Ferryman of Memories: The Films of Rithy PanhIn her captivating and original Kill the Documentary, filmmaker and critic Jill Godmilow offers a plea—in the form of a letter, which is a manifesto, and forty propositions, and a tool kit—for making postrealist nonfiction, for making film useful and fruitful. In her scathing critique of “great” documentaries, and her offering up of her own counter-canon, she insists that filmmakers and viewers can begin again by refusing the pedigree, pornography, and cultural imperialism of the real, and by supporting postrealist strategies: interventionist and interactive, performative and formal. Honestly, I don’t agree with all she says, or every one of the 144 films she honors, and that’s her urgent book’s point and purpose: I can and should make my own. -- Alexandra Juhasz, Brooklyn College, CUNYKill the Documentary is a provocative manifesto for rethinking the documentary. Godmilow provides a shield against the tear-soaked sentimentality and nostalgia of the Ken Burns style of packaging history. A new tool in the film teacher's kit, this book is useful beyond discussions of documentary. The passion of her prose is infectious—a welcome relief for student reading assignments. -- DeeDee Halleck, professor emerita, University of California, San DiegoThis book will be a gold mine for any instructors putting together an “Introduction to Documentary Filmmaking” syllabus or for cinematic autodidacts hungry to experiment with alternative modes of nonfictional filmmaking. -- Jaimie Baron * Film Quarterly *Herein lies the specificity and refreshing nonconformity of [this] book: it pushes the reader not only to see through the ideological premises of conventional formats, but also to delve into the multiple configurations that generate subversive experiences . . . [Godmilow's] persistent faith in the importance of developing critical awareness and in the agency of art to intervene into reality despite the omnipresent ‘capitalist realism’ in the global neoliberal society radiates a compelling force. -- Stefanie Baumann * Radical Philosophy *Table of ContentsManifestly Radical: A Foreword, by Bill NicholsAcknowledgmentsI Call This Book a LetterIntroduction—a Letter to Filmmakers1. Abandon the Conventional Documentary—Reject Realism as the Only Authentic Nonfiction Form2. Take Action—Make Useful Postrealist Films3. Forty Postrealist Strategies to Learn from and Borrow4. The ToolkitNotes BibliographyIndex
£21.25
Columbia University Press Radio for the Millions
Book SynopsisRadio for the Millions examines Hindi-Urdu radio during the height of its popularity from the 1930s to the 1980s, showing how it created transnational communities of listeners. Isabel Huacuja Alonso argues that despite British, Indian, and Pakistani politicians’ efforts to usurp the medium for state purposes, radio largely escaped their grasp.Trade ReviewRadio for the Millions is a fantastic work of radio history and South Asian historiography. It is meticulously researched, making use of an extensive range of archival collections across India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka, as well as oral-historical interviews with radio broadcasters. Focusing on radio as a medium and following radio waves across the national borders of South Asia, this book is an excellent contribution to the project of decolonizing sound studies and the project of denationalizing South Asian history. -- Amanda Weidman, author of Brought to Life by the Voice: Playback Singing and Cultural Politics in South IndiaThis pathbreaking study shows how an attentiveness to the political and cultural potency of radio sounds reframes our understandings of histories in South Asia. Huacuja Alonso illuminates the relationship between aurality and orality, inviting us to lend an ear to voices and sounds on the radio waves that transcend and complicate borders, states, identities, and cultures in South Asia. -- Kama Maclean, University of HeidelbergThis ambitious and wide-ranging book takes seriously radio as a medium and music as a central form of sensorial engagement that defied borders and communal affiliations. Spanning India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka from the colonial to the postcolonial periods, it explains how a subcontinental popular culture endured in spite of multiple partitions. -- Durba Ghosh, Cornell UniversityRadio for the Millions challenges neat historiographies often developed from and/or by state archives. Huacuja Alonso reminds us that the “oral” and “aural” are indeed messy and complicated yet necessary registers for understanding national, political turmoils. Hindi-Urdu broadcast radio has long been a site of both (state) nation-building and (community) place-making by listeners. Radio for the Millions is an exemplary study of why listening is such an integral component of history. -- Dolores Inés Casillas, author of Sounds of Belonging: U.S. Spanish-Language Radio and Public AdvocacyIsabel Alonso provides a captivating history of radio that sits at the intersection of sound studies, cultural history, and the politics of nationalism in modern South Asia. In this virtuosic tale, we read about the policymakers, artists, singers, political figures, and poets who inhabited a broader transnational space in South Asia. . . This book will benefit an expansive community of readers, including academic communities in the disciplines of history and ethnomusicology and specifically readers interested in the cultural history of sound and music -- Pouya Nekouei * Not Even Past *Skillfully and imaginatively highlights the place of [radio] in the broader historiographies of nation-building, language, and the public sphere. -- Faiz Ullah * The Book Review (India) *An original and truly fascinating work. * H-Soz-Kult *A fascinating story of the history of radio in South Asia. -- Mehru Jaffer * The Citizen *The book makes an important contribution, especially in unearthing and resurrecting liminal voices, which make up what I would call a kind of archaeology of Southasian media. * Himal Southasian *Table of ContentsList of FiguresNote on TransliterationIntroduction: Tuning In to a Radio HistoryPart I: Radio News And World War II1. News on the AIR2. Netaji’s “Quisling Radio”Part II: Music And Postindependence Radio3. The “Sound Standards” of a New India4. Radio Ceylon, King of the AirwavesPart III: Dramatic Radio and the 1965 Indo-Pakistan War5. Radio Pakistan’s Seventeen Days of Drama6. The AIR Urdu Service’s Letters of LongingConclusion: Call to Me. Where Are You?AcknowledgmentsNotesBibliographyIndex
£93.60
Columbia University Press Radio for the Millions
Book SynopsisRadio for the Millions examines Hindi-Urdu radio during the height of its popularity from the 1930s to the 1980s, showing how it created transnational communities of listeners. Isabel Huacuja Alonso argues that despite British, Indian, and Pakistani politicians’ efforts to usurp the medium for state purposes, radio largely escaped their grasp.Trade ReviewRadio for the Millions is a fantastic work of radio history and South Asian historiography. It is meticulously researched, making use of an extensive range of archival collections across India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka, as well as oral-historical interviews with radio broadcasters. Focusing on radio as a medium and following radio waves across the national borders of South Asia, this book is an excellent contribution to the project of decolonizing sound studies and the project of denationalizing South Asian history. -- Amanda Weidman, author of Brought to Life by the Voice: Playback Singing and Cultural Politics in South IndiaThis pathbreaking study shows how an attentiveness to the political and cultural potency of radio sounds reframes our understandings of histories in South Asia. Huacuja Alonso illuminates the relationship between aurality and orality, inviting us to lend an ear to voices and sounds on the radio waves that transcend and complicate borders, states, identities, and cultures in South Asia. -- Kama Maclean, University of HeidelbergThis ambitious and wide-ranging book takes seriously radio as a medium and music as a central form of sensorial engagement that defied borders and communal affiliations. Spanning India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka from the colonial to the postcolonial periods, it explains how a subcontinental popular culture endured in spite of multiple partitions. -- Durba Ghosh, Cornell UniversityRadio for the Millions challenges neat historiographies often developed from and/or by state archives. Huacuja Alonso reminds us that the “oral” and “aural” are indeed messy and complicated yet necessary registers for understanding national, political turmoils. Hindi-Urdu broadcast radio has long been a site of both (state) nation-building and (community) place-making by listeners. Radio for the Millions is an exemplary study of why listening is such an integral component of history. -- Dolores Inés Casillas, author of Sounds of Belonging: U.S. Spanish-Language Radio and Public AdvocacyIsabel Alonso provides a captivating history of radio that sits at the intersection of sound studies, cultural history, and the politics of nationalism in modern South Asia. In this virtuosic tale, we read about the policymakers, artists, singers, political figures, and poets who inhabited a broader transnational space in South Asia. . . This book will benefit an expansive community of readers, including academic communities in the disciplines of history and ethnomusicology and specifically readers interested in the cultural history of sound and music -- Pouya Nekouei * Not Even Past *Skillfully and imaginatively highlights the place of [radio] in the broader historiographies of nation-building, language, and the public sphere. -- Faiz Ullah * The Book Review (India) *An original and truly fascinating work. * H-Soz-Kult *A fascinating story of the history of radio in South Asia. -- Mehru Jaffer * The Citizen *The book makes an important contribution, especially in unearthing and resurrecting liminal voices, which make up what I would call a kind of archaeology of Southasian media. * Himal Southasian *Table of ContentsList of FiguresNote on TransliterationIntroduction: Tuning In to a Radio HistoryPart I: Radio News And World War II1. News on the AIR2. Netaji’s “Quisling Radio”Part II: Music And Postindependence Radio3. The “Sound Standards” of a New India4. Radio Ceylon, King of the AirwavesPart III: Dramatic Radio and the 1965 Indo-Pakistan War5. Radio Pakistan’s Seventeen Days of Drama6. The AIR Urdu Service’s Letters of LongingConclusion: Call to Me. Where Are You?AcknowledgmentsNotesBibliographyIndex
£30.00
Columbia University Press Storythinking
Book SynopsisThis book explains how and why our brains think in stories. Angus Fletcher, an expert in neuroscientific approaches to narrative, identifies this capacity as “storythinking.”Trade ReviewFletcher’s done it again. His polymathic erudition and word-wizardry elegance pull off the equivalent of a Copernican revolution in our understanding of storytelling—in all its resplendent iterations. With Storythinking he invites us on an extraordinary odyssey that enriches understanding of our deep, instinctive impulse to create stories as makers and transformers of our world. Storythinking is nothing less than a cosmological paradigm shift that puts story making and thinking at the center of all that we do. -- Frederick Luis Aldama, award-winning author and Jacob & Frances Sanger Mossiker Chair in the Humanities, UT AustinAngus Fletcher explains why effective narrative prioritizes the unique, shifts viewpoints, and encourages conflict. Not for their own sake. It makes a writer create and clarify more thoughtful ideas and leads readers to intuit and retain the message. Both revelatory and pragmatic, and so gracefully explained. -- Shane Greenstein, author of How the Internet Became Commercial: Innovation, Privatization, and the Birth of a New NetworkStorythinking is absolutely excellent: a much-needed reminder of and expansion on the transformative power of story, story as an enriched form of learning and as a valid epistemology. The book is a lovely, readable addition to academic and public life. I am eager to see the use of story resurrected! -- Lisa Miller, Ph.D., Professor & Founder, Spirituality Mind Body Institute, Teachers College, Columbia UniversityStory is a basic mental operation. Most of our experience, knowledge, and thinking is formed and organized by story: prediction, evaluation, planning, explanation, agents and actors, processes, goals. Story is an indispensable element of creativity. Human beings project from story to story and blend stories to create new concepts, new proposals, new science. How can we push the cognitive science of story forward? Fletcher, in this captivating and inspiring new book, leads the way. -- Mark Turner, author of The Literary Mind: The Origins of Thought and LanguageThe quickest way to elicit a scoff from 'serious thinkers' is to mention 'story'. But as someone who has built a career as a science communicator, who consistently straddles the line between art and science, and whose work is grounded in neuroscience, I know intuitively that storytelling is fundamental to how we think. Finally, Angus Fletcher brings his deep understanding of narrative together with his keen scientific mind to explain why we think in stories, why embracing story structure is the way forward, and how stories provide an architecture to thought as powerful and important as logic. Read this book. -- Indre Viskontas, Cognitive Neuroscientist, University of San Francisco[Storythinking] is a most unusual book, plumbing the depths of history to find where philosophy went off the rails, examining neurobiology for insight into creativity, and festooned with stories about great characters all the way through. I can honestly report I’ve never read anything like it. And that’s a good thing. * The Straight Dope *Table of Contents1. Story2. Story and Thinking3. The Origin of Story4. Why Our Schools Teach Logic, Not Story5. The Limits of Logic—or Why We Still Need Storythinking6. The Brain Machinery of Storythinking7. Improving Storythinking8. Storythinking for Personal Growth9. Storythinking for Social Growth10. Story’s Answer to the Meaning of LifeCoda: Conversations with a StorythinkerNotesIndex
£67.20
Penguin Books Ltd Circus of Mirrors
Book SynopsisDiscover the dazzling new historical novel from the author of That Green Eyed Girl and 73 Dove StreetPerfect for fans of City of Girls, Cabaret and Sunday Times bestseller, The Whalebone Theatre. ''Sexy, electrically stylish, and beautiful - a gorgeous story about sisterhood, and a glamorous, evocative passport to a period we all long to get lost in'' Daisy Buchanan, award-winning author of Insatiable''Julie''s best novel yet'' Georgina Moore, bestselling author of The Garnett GirlsWould you choose your sister or the love of your life? BERLIN, 1926After the death of their parents, sisters Leni and Annette only have each other.Desperate to support her younger sister, Leni finds work at a notorious cabaret: the Babylon Circus, a place where reality and fantasy merge. It's an overwhelming new world, and Leni is happiest hiding in the shadows. That is, until she meets the cabaret's resident pianist, Paul, beginning a tentative love affair that will play out over the next forty years and will change the course of their lives forever. In a city whose divisions will define a century, can a love born within the feverish walls of the Babylon Circus ever survive? And can the bond between Leni and Annette tugged in opposite directions of their own also endure?Praise for Circus of Mirrors: ''A tale of two sisters and a city, all three of them so vividly drawn, I felt I knew them. Superbly atmospheric, with convincingly flawed characters that just leap off the page'' Frances Quinn, author of The Bonesetter Woman ''An all-singing, all-dancing, moving and masterful book about two complex sisters living in incredibly complex times. Brilliant.'' Anna Mazzola, author of The Clockwork Girl ''Bold, brave and absorbing'' Elizabeth Buchan, author of Bonjour, Sophie ''With hints of Atonement, this is an epic novel' Louise Fein, author of Daughter of the Reich Praise for Julie Owen Moylan ''Touching, entertaining and hopeful'' Sunday Times ''Dazzling'' GOOD HOUSEKEEPING ''I was gripped from the first page'' SARA COX ''Psychologically astute and emotionally absorbing,'' DAILY MAIL ''A wonderfully evocative, immersive novel that brings 50s London to life, from the smog and the nightlife to attitudes towards women'' SUNDAY EXPRESS ''Emotional, immersive and utterly absorbing'' JENNIFER SAINT
£17.09
Lulu.com Feather Mysteries
Book Synopsis
£80.75
University of Illinois Press T.O.B.A. Time
Book SynopsisBlack vaudevillians and entertainers joked that T.O.B.A. stood for tough on black artists. But the Theater Owner's Booking Association (T.O.B.A.) played a foundational role in the African American entertainment industry and provided a training ground for icons like Cab Calloway, Bessie Smith, Ethel Waters, Sammy Davis Jr., the Nicholas Brothers, Count Basie, and Butterbeans and Susie. Michelle R. Scott's institutional history details T.O.B.A.'s origins and practices while telling the little-known stories of the managers, producers, performers, and audience members involved in the circuit. Looking at the organization over its eleven-year existence (19201931), Scott places T.O.B.A. against the backdrop of what entrepreneurship and business development meant in black America at the time. Scott also highlights how intellectuals debated the social, economic, and political significance of black entertainment from the early 1900s through T.O.B.A.'s decline during the Great Depression. ClearTrade Review"Clarifies the important role African American entrepreneurs played in promoting entertainment by and for Black people during a transitional period in American show business history. . . .T.O.B.A. Time is an excellent addition to [the University of Illinois Press] catalogue." --NewCity Lit"In clear and precise prose Scott chronicles the coalescence of Black vaudeville and how T.O.B.A. helped establish and nurture the initial flowering of what became the incalculably influential Black entertainment industry. Readers who enjoyed Entertaining Raceby Michael Eric Dyson and Little Devil in America by Hanif Abdurraqib will find Scott’s unique history compelling. " --Booklist"Michelle R. Scott's T.O.B.A. Time: Black Vaudeville and the Theatre Owners' Booking Association in Jazz-Age America is a scholarship of the highest order. It provides an in-depth analysis of an organization that played an important role in providing a space for entrepreneurs and talented individuals to forge an independent role for themselves in segregated America. Scott effortlessly combines the minutiae of a multifaceted activity such as vaudeville with the broader currents which were operating in America in the early decades if the twentieth century." --British Journal of Industrial Relations“Scott’s meticulously researched and exquisitely detailed account reveals the broad impact of the T. O. B. A. circuit and the complexities of its organization and operations. The discussions of individual performers--famous and obscure--and their experiences as they worked the circuit are riveting. This is a benchmark book in theater studies and the definitive account of this fascinating institution.”--Allyson Nadia Field, author of Uplift Cinema: The Emergence of African American Film & The Possibility of Black Modernity Table of ContentsPreface AcknowledgmentsIntroduction: They Called It T.O.B.A. Chapter 1. “Whistling Coons” No More: Race Uplift & the Path to T.O.B.A. Chapter 2. Hebrew, Negro, and American Owners: Black Vaudeville and Interracial ManagementChapter 3. T.O.B.A Forms: The Interracial Business Plan for a New Negro BusinessChapter 4. The Multiple Meanings of T.O.B.A: The Performers’ PerspectiveChapter 5. A Responsibility to Community: Circuit Theaters and Black Regional AudiencesChapter 6. “Trouble in Mind": The End of T.O.B.A. TimeEpilogue: T.O.B.A.’s LegacyAppendixNotesBibliographyIndex
£77.35
Indiana University Press Sketch Comedy
Book SynopsisTrade Review"An excellent study of a long-neglected area in television/media studies and is part of a larger turn toward the centrality of comedy in post-war U.S. culture." Jeffrey Sconce, Northwestern University"—review"A stalwart of television since its earliest days, sketch comedy finally gets the in-depth critical attention it deserves. Nick Marx shows how sketch comedy has fit (and been constrained by) TV's industrial contexts, from live variety shows in its earliest days to movement across media in the era of multiple platforms. These case studies not only chart sketch comedy's past, they provide the theoretical and analytical tools to consider its future."—Ethan Thompson, Texas A&M University Corpus Christi, blurbTable of ContentsAcknowledgementsIntroduction: Sketch Comedy and Reflexive Flexibility1. From Radio Voices to Variety Choices: The Colgate Comedy Hour and Sketch Comedy in Early Television2. "and You're Not": Saturday Night Live in the Network Era and Beyond3. Brand X: MTV's The State and Generation X in the Multi-Channel Transition4. Sketch Comedy's Identity (Post-)Politics: Inside Amy Schumer, Key & Peele, and Comedy Central in the Post-Network EraConclusion: Sketch Comedy and Cultural CohesionBibliographyIndex
£59.40
Indiana University Press Sketch Comedy Identity Reflexivity and American
Book SynopsisTrade Review"An excellent study of a long-neglected area in television/media studies and is part of a larger turn toward the centrality of comedy in post-war U.S. culture." Jeffrey Sconce, Northwestern University"—review"A stalwart of television since its earliest days, sketch comedy finally gets the in-depth critical attention it deserves. Nick Marx shows how sketch comedy has fit (and been constrained by) TV's industrial contexts, from live variety shows in its earliest days to movement across media in the era of multiple platforms. These case studies not only chart sketch comedy's past, they provide the theoretical and analytical tools to consider its future."—Ethan Thompson, Texas A&M University Corpus Christi, blurbTable of ContentsAcknowledgementsIntroduction: Sketch Comedy and Reflexive Flexibility1. From Radio Voices to Variety Choices: The Colgate Comedy Hour and Sketch Comedy in Early Television2. "and You're Not": Saturday Night Live in the Network Era and Beyond3. Brand X: MTV's The State and Generation X in the Multi-Channel Transition4. Sketch Comedy's Identity (Post-)Politics: Inside Amy Schumer, Key & Peele, and Comedy Central in the Post-Network EraConclusion: Sketch Comedy and Cultural CohesionBibliographyIndex
£18.89
University of Texas Press PrettyFunny
Book SynopsisFocusing on star writer/performer comedians—Kathy Griffin, Tina Fey, Sarah Silverman, Margaret Cho, Wanda Sykes, and Ellen DeGeneres—Pretty/Funny demonstrates that women’s comedy has become a prime site of feminism in the twenty-first century.Trade Review"Can a woman comic be pretty and funny? This academic (but readable) feminist take on six transgressive women laugh-getters - DeGeneres, Sykes, Silverman, Griffin, Cho and Fey- shows how each challenges the conventional role the culture assigns them" - Ms. Magazine "Focuses on Katy Griffin, Tina Fey, Sarah Silverman, Maragert Cho, Wanda Sykes, and Ellen DeGeneres" - Chronicle of Higher Education "Pretty/Funny compiles six case studies of famous female comedians who write their own material - Fey, Kathy Griffin, Sarah Silverman, Margaret Cho, Wanda Sykes and Ellen DeGeneres. Particularly, it focuses on how each woman's comedy challenges the pretty/funny binary that has shape-shifted as women making their own comedy expands [...] Race and sexuality fittingly play a big role in the book's analyses as well, looking at how these comedians' writing challenge and poke fun at how gender appears in sexism, racism, anti-semitism and homophobia. Pretty/ Funny is a fun and revealing book fit for anyone interested in the academic underpinnings of the anti-authoritarian bastard children (lady comics) of a cultural bastard child (comedy)." - Columbus Alive! "In her new book Pretty Funny: Women Comedians and Body Politics, Linda Mizejewski - Professor of Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies at the Ohio State University in Columbus - rips apart the notion that there are no funny women, and pours scorn on the idea that funny women should be judged only by their appearance. Pretty/Funny is very accessible for the non-academic reader, and is an enjoyable stomp through the sexist battlefield of the comedy circuit." - What the Frock?Table of Contents Acknowledgments Introduction. Pretty/Funny Women and Comedy's Body Politics: Funniness, Prettiness, and Feminism Chapter One. Kathy Griffin and the Comedy of the D List Chapter Two. Feminism, Postfeminism, Liz Lemonism: Picturing Tina Fey Chapter Three. Sarah Silverman: Bedwetting, Body Comedy, and "a Mouth Full of Blood Laughs" Chapter Four. Margaret Cho Is Beautiful: A Comedy of Manifesto Chapter Five. "White People Are Looking at You!" Wanda Sykes's Black Looks Chapter Six. Ellen DeGeneres: Pretty Funny Butch as Girl Next Door Notes Bibliography Index
£40.50
MP-WIS Uni of Wisconsin Performing Brazil Essays on Culture Identity and
Book Synopsis
£27.96
Yale University Press Billy Waters is Dancing
Book Synopsis
£22.50
Hachette Books My Wonderful World Of Slapstick
Book SynopsisBuster Keaton''s autobiography is a view into the quirky mind behind the stoic face of the legendary film comedian.
£22.75
INGRAM PUBLISHER SERVICES US Godard On Godard
Book SynopsisJean-Luc Godard, like many of his European contemporaries, came to filmmaking through film criticism. This collection of essays and interviews, ranging from his early efforts for La Gazette du Cinéma to his later writings for Cahiers du Cinéma, reflects his dazzling intelligence, biting wit, maddening judgments, and complete unpredictability. In writing about Hitchcock, Welles, Bergman, Truffaut, Bresson, and Renoir, Godard is also writing about himself,his own experiments, obsessions, discoveries. This book offers evidence that he may be even more original as a thinker about film than as a director. Covering the period of 1950-1967, the years of Breathless, A Woman Is a Woman, My Life to Live, Alphaville, La Chinoise, and Weekend, this book of writings is an important document and a fascinating study of a vital stage in Godard''s career. With commentary by Tom Milne and Richard Roud, and an extensive new foreword by Annette Michelson that reassesses Godard in light of his later films, here is an outrageous self-portrait by a director who, even now, continues to amaze and bedevil, and to chart new directions for cinema and for critical thought about its history.Table of Contents* Introduction by Richard Roud * Early Texts: 1950-1952 * Return to Criticism and First Short Films: August 1956-January 1958 * The Year of A Bout de Souffle: January-July 1959 * Marginal Notes While Filming: August 1959-August 1967 * Commentary by Tom Milne
£14.39
Hachette Books Film As Film
Book SynopsisHere at last is an introduction to film theory and its history without the jargon. Noted film scholar V. F. Perkins presents criteria for expanding our understanding and enjoyment of movies. He employs common sense words like balance, coherence, significance, and satisfaction to develop his insightful support of the subtle approach and of the unobtrusive director. Readers will learn why a scene from the humbler movie Carmen Jones is a deeper realization of filmmaking than the bravura lion sequence in the classic Battleship Potemkin. Along the way Perkins invites readers to re-experience with clarity, directness, and simplicity other famous scenes by directors like Hitchcock, Eisenstein, and Chaplin. Perkins examines the origins of movies and embraces their use of both realism and magic, their ability to record as well as to create. In the process he seeks to discover the synthesis between these opposing elements. With the delight of the fan and the perception of the critic, Perkins
£20.57
Hachette Books Jazz Dance
Book SynopsisThe Story of American Vernacular DanceTable of Contents* Marshall Winslow Stearns: An Appreciation by James T. Maher * Prologue Prehistory * Africa and the West Indies * New Orleans and the South * The Pattern of Diffusion Beginnings * From Folk to Professional * Early Minstrelsy * Minstrel Dances and Dancers * Late Minstrelsy The Vernacular * Medicine Shows and Gillies * Carnivals, Circuses, and Negro Minstrels * Roadshows, T.O.B.A., and Picks * The Witman Sisters Tin Pan Alley and Song Lyrics * Ballroom Origins * The Song Writer: Perry BradfordI * The Song Writer: Perry BradfordII Broadway and the Reviewers * Williams and Walker and the Beginnings of Vernacular Dance on Broadway * Early Harlem * Shuffle Along * Broadway: The Early Twenties * Broadway: The Late Twenties * Choreography: Buddy Bradley Technique: Pioneers, Innovators, and Stylists * King Rastus Brown and the Time Step * Bill Robinson: Up on the Toes * Frank Condos: Wings and the Expanding Repertory * James Barton: Versatility * Harland Dixon and Character Dancing * John W. Bubbles and Rhythm Tap * Fred Astaire Specialties * Eccentric Dancing * Comedy Dancing * Russian Dancing Acrobatics * Straight Acrobatics * The New Acrobatics * The Flash Acts The Class Acts * The Original Stylists * The First Class-Act Team: Greenlee and Drayton * Pete Nugent and the Class Acts * Coles and Atkins: The Last of the Class Acts The Jitterbug * Harlem Background * The Savoy Ballroom * From Coast to Coast Requiem * Baby Laurence and the Hoffers Club * Groundhog * The Dying Breed * Epilogue
£16.14
Hachette Books Coppola
Book SynopsisBy 1982 Francis Ford Coppola had won five Academy Awards at the same time he was over 20 million in debt following the disastrous failure of One from the Heart. This astute biography critically examines Coppola''s singular vision and why it makes such paradoxes not only possible but prevalent in his long turbulent career. At the age of 32 Coppola became a superstar in Hollywood with The Godfather, which rapidly climbed to the top of the all-time box-office hits. Two years later he won the coveted Palme d''Or at the Cannes festival for The Conversation. His savage epic of the Vietnam War, Apocalypse Now, established him as the most daring, brilliant filmmaker of his generation. This book not only goes behind the cameras to track the creative and financial turmoil involved in his productions, but offers perceptive analyses of his films, including all three parts of The Godfather and the visually stunning remake of Dracula. Based on three years of research and exclusive intervTable of Contents* Introduction * The Italian Connection * The Studio Grind * Independence and the Dream of Zoetrope * The Godfather * Picking Up The Conversation * Back to Corleone * Lost in the Jungle * Blows to the Heart * Back to Back in Tulsa * Playing The Cotton Club * From Rip van Winkle to Peggy Sue * Tragedy and Revival * TuckerThe Dream Triumphant * Back to the Future * Filmography
£22.75
Hachette Books Underground Film
Book SynopsisParker Tyler (1904-1974), one of the few great American film critics, was intimate with and enormously respected by many of the underground and experimental filmmakers of his time. In this book, Tyler evaluated the Underground in general and the seminal films in particular, covering the history and scope of the genre with insight and verve. Like Tyler''s Screening of the Sexes: Homosexuality in the Movies is one of the masterpieces of cinema literature.Table of Contents* The Underground Taboo Versus the Taboo on Reality * The Exploding Peephole of the Underground * Toward Exhibition and Exhibitionism * Popularizing Peepshows: the Infantile Gimmick * No Establishment at All? * Underground Climb: from Exhibitionism to Art * Underground Infantilism: Surfacing Superstars * Superstar Space: the Playroom * Can the Technician Escape the Pad? * The Pad Can Be Commercialized * Performing Children, Performing Madmen * The ParanoiacCritical Kick * The Pads Predecessor: an Archetype * Underground Film Is Primitive Film * Where the Rub Is * The Abstractness of the Avant-Gardes * The Avant-Garde Laboratory * Dotting the Eyes of Distortion * Psychedelic Anamorphosis and Its Lesson * Dotting the Eye of History * Film Aesthetics: Rampant and Purist * The Plot Thickensbut Seriously * The Plastic Pulse Ticks On * In the Pad: Plastique versus Surplot * Hard-core History * The Esthetics of Film History * The Population Explosion and the Remedy * Basic Film Forms * Hisotyr and Manifesto * The Shape of Things to Come? * Coda
£15.29
Hachette Books Fellini On Fellini
Book Synopsis"One of the greatest Italian filmmakers, Federico Fellini (1920-1993) created such masterpieces as La Strada, La Dolce Vita, 8 1/2, Juliet of the Spirits, Satyricon, and Amarcord. His prodigious body o"Table of Contents* Rimini, My Home Town * Sweet Beginnings * Miscellany IIm a liar, but an honest one. * Letter to a Marxist Critic * Letter to a Jesuit Priest * Via Veneto: dolce vita * Notes On Censorship * The Bitter Lifeof Money * With 8 in Moscow * Miscellany IILike a puppet-master who falls in love with his puppets * Why Clowns? * Comic-Strip Heroes * Whom Do You Most Admire? * Miscellany IIII See No Dividing Line Between Imagination and Reality * The Birth of a Film
£20.57
Hachette Books The Orton Diaries
Book SynopsisTo be young, good-looking, healthy, famous, comparatively rich and happy is surely going against nature. When Joe Orton (1933-1967) wrote those words in his diary in May 1967, he was being hailed as the greatest comic playwright since Oscar Wilde for his darkly hilarious Entertaining Mr. Sloane and the farce hit Loot , and was completing What the Butler Saw but less than three months later, his longtime companion, Kenneth Halliwell, smashed in Orton''s skull with a hammer before killing himself. The Orton Diaries , written during his last eight months, chronicle in a remarkably candid style his outrageously unfettered life: his literary success, capped by an Evening Standard Award and overtures from the Beatles his sexual escapades,at his mother''s funeral, with a dwarf in Brighton, and, extensively, in Tangiers and the breakdown of his sixteen-year marriage to Halliwell, the relationship that transformed and destroyed him. Edited with a superb introduction by John Lahr, TheTable of ContentsThe Diaries * London December 1966May 1967 * Tangier MayJune 1967 * LondonAugust 1967 Appendices * The Edna Welthorpe Letters * Chronology * List of Published Work
£21.66
Hachette Books How I Made A Hundred Movies In Hollywood And
Book SynopsisIn these pages Roger Corman, the most successful independent filmmaker in Hollywood relates his experiences as the director and/or producer of such low-budget classics Attack of the Crab Monsters, The Little Shop of Horrors, The Raven, The Man with the X-ray Eyes, The Wild Angels, The Trip, Night Call Nurses, Bloody Mama, Piranha, and many others. He also discusses his distribution of the Bergman, Fellini, and Truffaut movies that later won Academy Awards in the Best Foreign Film category. Corman alumniJohn Sayles, Martin Scorsese, Jack Nicholson, Vincent Price, Francis Ford Coppola, Peter Bogdanovich, Peter Fonda, Joe Dante, and Jonathan Demme, among otherscontribute their recollections to give added perspective to Corman''s often hilarious, always informative autobiography.
£14.39
Hachette Books The Dark Side of the Screen
Book SynopsisFoster Hirsch''s Dark Side of the Screen is by far the most thorough and entertaining study of the themes, visual motifs, character types, actors, directors, and films in this genre ever published. From Billy Wilder, Douglas Sirk, Robert Aldrich, and Howard Hawkes to Martin Scorsese, Roman Polanski, and Paul Schrader, the noir themes of dread, paranoia, steamy sex, double-crossing women, and menacing cityscapes have held a fascination. The features that make Burt Lancaster, Joan Crawford, Robert Mitchum, and Humphrey Bogart into noir heroes and heroines are carefully detailed here, as well as those camera angles, lighting effects, and story lines that characterize Fritz Lang, Samuel Fuller, and Orson Welles as noir directors.For the current rediscovery of film noir, this comprehensive history with its list of credits to 112 outstanding films and its many illustrations will be a valuable reference and a source of inspiration for further research.Trade ReviewMartin Jackson, Cineaste "Wonderfully readable: Hirsch is clear, knowledgeable, and concise...[The Dark Side of the Screen] is a visual as well as literary pleasure." Philip French, The Observer (London) "There has been no extended work as good as Foster Hirsch's The Dark Side of the Screen, a well-written, imaginatively illustrated book that sees the brief, true heyday as between Wilder's Double Indemnity (1944) and his Sunset Boulevard (1950), but looks at the prelude and the aftermath, and sets the genre in its larger social and cultural context." Skyscraper, Spring 2009 "An important examination of what film noir is...The 264-page treatise is not a review source; rather, Hirsch's academic work delves deeply with a scholarly but not dry approach."
£18.00
Hachette Books How to Talk Dirty and Influence People
Book SynopsisDuring the course of a career that began in the late 1940s, Lenny Bruce challenged the sanctity of organized religion and other societal and political conventions he widened the boundaries of free speech. Critic Ralph Gleason said, So many taboos have been lifted and so many comics have rushed through the doors Lenny opened. He utterly changed the world of comedy.Although Bruce died when he was only forty, his influence on the worlds of comedy, jazz, and satire are incalculable. How to Talk Dirty and Influence People remains a brilliant existential account of his life and the forces that made him the most important and controversial entertainer in history.Trade ReviewPraise for How to Talk Dirty and Influence People "I read this book for the first time when I was twelve years old. It made me want to be in showbiz, have a lot of sex, and be Jewish. I've rethought that last one."--Penn Jillette, author of God No! "If there was a God, then he sent down Lenny Bruce to create the art form of modern stand-up comedy. He sought the truth fearlessly and hilariously until his tragically muffled First Amendment rights surely enabled his dying for our sins."--Richard Lewis, author of The Other Great Depression Playboy, 8/3/16 "Outside every American comedy club there ought to be a statue of Lenny Bruce--the type of big bronze statue that commemorates and immortalizes heroes...Bringing Bruce's ideas and stories to a new generation might just be the next best thing to erecting those bronze statues." Spectrum Culture, 10/11/16 "Sheds light on the mind behind some of the most controversial comedy routines of the mid-20th century."
£14.39
Hachette Books Digging Up Mother A Love Story
Book Synopsis
£10.99
Hachette Books This Is Not Fame A From What I ReMemoir
Book SynopsisThe follow-up to stand-up comedian Doug Stanhope's acclaimed memoir Digging Up Mother, This Is Not Fame is an unfiltered, uncensored, hilarious, and deeply obscene narrative of anecdotes from the down-and-dirty traveling comedy circuit.
£20.90
Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers Inc The Art Of Movement
Book SynopsisThe Art of Movement is an exquisitely designed, beautifully produced book that captures the movement, flow, energy, and grace of many of the most accomplished dancers in the world. These are the artists, from all walks of life, who are defining dance today. Here they are frozen in time in the most exquisite poses, and yet there''s a feeling of movement in every photograph that makes the appear to be dancing across the pages. Accompanying the photographs are intimate and inspiring words from the dancers, as well as from choreographers and artistic directors, on what dance means to them. Dance is experiencing an unprecedented moment in popular culture. The Art of Movement is the perfect book for newly avid fans, as well as long-time lovers of dance.
£46.75
Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers Inc Blue Man World
Book SynopsisAs entertaining and hilarious as the show itself, Blue Man World reveals everything you ever wanted to know about the Blue Men, but couldn''t get them to tell you. The first-ever Blue Man Group book, published on the occasion of their 25th anniversary, Blue Man World is a glorious combination of music, comedy, and state-of-the-art technology, Blue Man Group has evolved from its underground roots in New York City to one of the world''s most beloved events. The show has been seen by 35 million people worldwide and its fans includes kids and adults, ages 8 to 80.Blue Man World is a graphically rich, textually dynamic, cheekily clever deep dive into the world of the Blue Men, as well as a hilarious cultural satire. Including archival photographs, specially commissioned artwork, infographics, and interviews with Blue Man experts (both real and potentially not real), it asks and sometimes answers all the burning questions: Who are these Blue Men? Where do they come from? Why are there only three of them? What drives their curiosity? What do they want to accomplish? Blue Man Group is a global entertainment company best known for the award-winning Blue Man Group show. A dynamic combination of music, comedy, and technology, the show appeals to a broad ranges of age groups and cultural backgrounds. It is continually refreshed with new music, stories, custom instruments and state-of-the-art technology.
£19.80
Hachette Books The Literary Book of Answers
Book Synopsis
£16.99
Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group Inc Inherit the Wind
Book SynopsisA classic work of American theatre, based on the Scopes Monkey Trial of 1925, which pitted Clarence Darrow against William Jennings Bryan in defense of a schoolteacher accused of teaching the theory of evolutionThe accused was a slight, frightened man who had deliberately broken the law. His trial was a Roman circus. The chief gladiators were two great legal giants of the century. Like two bull elephants locked in mortal combat, they bellowed and roared imprecations and abuse. The spectators sat uneasily in the sweltering heat with murder in their hearts, barely able to restrain themselves. At stake was the freedom of every American. One of the most moving and meaningful plays of our generation. Praise for Inherit the WindA tidal wave of a drama.—New York World-Telegram And Sun“Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee were classic Broadway scribes who knew how to crank out serious plays for thinking Amer
£7.59
Farrar, Straus and Giroux The Electric Woman
Book Synopsis
£12.50
Crown I Love Lucy Book
Book SynopsisIn answer to countless requests from I Love Lucy fans around the world, Bart Andrews has revised, updated, and expanded his classic book on TV's most beloved series.B & W photographs throughout.
£19.08
Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group The Circus Fire
£14.41
WW Norton & Co The Street Where I Live
Book Synopsis“Lerner will always be remembered as a Broadway light, and one of the brightest.” —Tom Shales, The Washington PostTrade Review"Wonderful…If you haven’t read Lerner’s memoir, order it now. It’s urbane and witty, like the man himself." -- New York Post
£13.99
Penguin Putnam Inc Monologue What Makes America Laugh Before Bed
Book SynopsisJon Macks is one of the greatest comedy writers of all time.—Chris RockA hilarious, revealing look behind the history and culture of American late-night TV, by a longtime comedy writer for The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Ever since Johnny Carson first popularized the late-night talk show in 1962 with The Tonight Show, the eleven p.m. to two a.m. comedy time slot on network television has remained an indelible part of our national culture. More than six popular late-night shows air every night of the week, and with recent major shake-ups in the industry, late-night television has never been more relevant to our public consciousness than it is today. Jon Macks, a veteran writer for The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, takes us behind the scenes of this world for an in-depth, colorful look at what really makes these hosts the arbiters of public opinion. From the opening monologue—what’s funny, what’s dangerous, what’s untouchable—to the best vs. worst guests, Macks covers the landscape of late-night comedy and punctuates the narrative with hysterical personal anecdotes, shining the spotlight on some of the very best late night jokes, and drawing from more than half a million of his own jokes written over the span of twenty years. With an insider’s expertise and a laugh-out-loud voice, Macks explains how late-night TV redefines the news and events of any given day, reshapes public opinion, and even creates our national zeitgeist.
£13.60
Random House USA Inc Born a Crime
Book Synopsis
£22.50
Random House USA Inc Born a Crime Stories from a South African
Book Synopsis#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • More than one million copies sold! A “brilliant” (Lupita Nyong’o, Time), “poignant” (Entertainment Weekly), “soul-nourishing” (USA Today) memoir about coming of age during the twilight of apartheid “Noah’s childhood stories are told with all the hilarity and intellect that characterizes his comedy, while illuminating a dark and brutal period in South Africa’s history that must never be forgotten.”—Esquire Winner of the Thurber Prize for American Humor and an NAACP Image Award • Named one of the best books of the year by The New York Time, USA Today, San Francisco Chronicle, NPR, Esquire, Newsday, and Booklist Trevor Noah’s unlikely path from apartheid South Africa to the desk of The Daily Show began wi
£15.30
Random House USA Inc The Beautiful Ones
Book Synopsis#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The brilliant coming-of-age-and-into-superstardom story of one of the greatest artists of all time, in his own words—featuring never-before-seen photos, original scrapbooks and lyric sheets, and the exquisite memoir he began writing before his tragic deathNAMED ONE OF THE BEST MUSIC BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW AND ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE WASHINGTON POST AND THE GUARDIAN • NOMINATED FOR THE NAACP IMAGE AWARD Prince was a musical genius, one of the most beloved, accomplished, and acclaimed musicians of our time. He was a startlingly original visionary with an imagination deep enough to whip up whole worlds, from the sexy, gritty funk paradise of “Uptown” to the mythical landscape of Purple Rain to the psychedelia of “Paisley Park.” But his most ambitious creative act was turning Prince Rogers Nelson, born in Minnesota, into Prince, one of the greatest pop stars of any era. The Beautiful Ones is the story of how Prince became Prince—a first-person account of a kid absorbing the world around him and then creating a persona, an artistic vision, and a life, before the hits and fame that would come to define him. The book is told in four parts. The first is the memoir Prince was writing before his tragic death, pages that bring us into his childhood world through his own lyrical prose. The second part takes us through Prince’s early years as a musician, before his first album was released, via an evocative scrapbook of writing and photos. The third section shows us Prince’s evolution through candid images that go up to the cusp of his greatest achievement, which we see in the book’s fourth section: his original handwritten treatment for Purple Rain—the final stage in Prince’s self-creation, where he retells the autobiography of the first three parts as a heroic journey. The book is framed by editor Dan Piepenbring’s riveting and moving introduction about his profound collaboration with Prince in his final months—a time when Prince was thinking deeply about how to reveal more of himself and his ideas to the world, while retaining the mystery and mystique he’d so carefully cultivated—and annotations that provide context to the book’s images. This work is not just a tribute to an icon, but an original and energizing literary work in its own right, full of Prince’s ideas and vision, his voice and image—his undying gift to the world.
£18.88
Routledge Bread And Puppet Theatre Vol 1 v 1
£25.99
Taylor & Francis Ltd The Classical Hollywood Cinema
Book Synopsis''A dense, challenging and important book.'' Philip French Observer''At the very least, this blockbuster is probably the best single volume history of Hollywood we''re likely to get for a very long time.'' Paul Kerr City Limits''Persuasively argued, the book is also packed with facts, figures and photographs.'' Nigel Andrews Financial TimesAcclaimed for their breakthrough approach, Bordwell, Staiger and Thompson analyze the basic conditions of American film-making as a historical institution and consider to what extent Hollywood film production constitutes a systematic enterprise, in both its style and its business operations.Despite differences of director, genre or studio, most Hollywood films operate within a set of shared assumptions about how a film should look and sound. Such assumptions are neither natural nor inevitable; but because classical-style films have been the tyTrade Review`At the very least, this blockbuster is probably the best single volume history of Hollywood we're likely to get in a very long time.' - City Limits`Persuasively argued, the book is also packed with facts, figures and photographs.' - Financial Times`An exhaustive study of Hollywood cinema to 1960.' - Times Education Supplement`A dense, challenging and important book.' - The ObserverTable of ContentsAcknowledgements Preface Part One: The classical Hollywood style, 1917-60 1. An excessively obvious cinema 2. Story causality and motivation 3. Classical narration 4. Time in the classical film 5. Space in the classical film 6. Shot and scene 7. The bounds of difference Part Two: The Hollywood mode of production to 1930 8. The Hollywood mode of production: its conditions of existence 9. Standardization and differentiation: the reinforcement and dispersion of Hollywood's practices 10. The director system: management in the first years 11. The director-unit system: management of multiple-unit companies after 1909 12. The central producer system: centralized management after 1914 13. The division and order of production: the subdivision of the work from the first years through the 1920s Part Three: The formulation of the classical style, 1909-28 14. From primitive to classical 15. The formulation of the classical narrative 16. The continuity system 17. Classical narrative space and the spectator's attention 18. The stability of the classical approach after 1917 Part Four: Film style and technology to 1930 19. Technology, style and mode of production 20. Initial standardization of the basic tehnology 21. Major technological changes of the 1920s 22. The Mazda tests of 1928 23. The introduction of sound Part Five: The Hollywood mode of production, 1930-60 24. The labor-force, financing and the mode of production 25. The producer-unit system: management by specialization after 1931 26. The package-unit system: unit management after 1955 Part Six: Film style and technology, 1930-60 27. Deep-focus cinematography 28. Technicolor 29. Widescreen processes and stereophonic sound Part Seven: Historical implications of the classical Hollywood cinema 30. Since 1960: the persistence of the mode of film practice 31. Alternative modes of film practice Envoi Appendix A: The unbiased sample Appendix B: A brief synopsis of the structure of the United States film industry, 1896-1960 Appendix C: Principal Structures of the US film industry, 1894-1930 Appendix D: Lighting plots and descriptions Notes Select bibliography Photograph credits Index
£37.99
Taylor & Francis Ltd Popular Film and Television Comedy
Book SynopsisSteve Neale and Frank Krutnik take as their starting point the remarkable diversity of comedy''s forms and modes - feature-length narratives, sketches and shorts, sit-com and variety, slapstick and romance. Relating this diversity to the variety of comedy''s basic conventions - from happy endings to the presence of gags and the involvement of humour and laughter - they seek both to explain the nature of these forms and conventions and to relate them to their institutional contexts. They propose that all forms and modes of the comic involve deviations from aesthetic and cultural conventions and norms, and, to demonstrate this, they discuss a wide range of programmes and films, from Blackadder to Bringing up Baby, from City Limits to Blind Date, from the Roadrunner cartoons to Bless this House and The Two Ronnies. Comedies looked at in particular detail include: the classic slapstick films of Keaton, Lloyd, and Chaplin; HollyTrade Review`Few books have been written about comedy, and this one sets out to redress the balance, defining comedy and trying to understand what makes a particular comedy popular. From sitcoms to stand-up, all types of comedy come under scrutiny by Neale and Krutnik.' - Press and JournalTable of ContentsIntroduction 1 Section 1 1 Definitions, genres, and forms 2 Comedy and narrative 3 Gags, jokes, wisecracks, and comic events 4 Laughter, humour, and the comic 5 Verisimilitude Section 2 6 Hollywood, comedy, and The Case of Silent Slapstick 7 The comedy of the sexes Section 3 8 Comedy, television, and variety 9 Broadcast comedy and sit-com
£35.99
Taylor & Francis Ltd Musical Performance A Philosophical Study
Book SynopsisThis radical new evaluation of music making in the past and future will be essential reading for students of aesthetics, the philosophy of music, as well as musicologists and performance specialists.Table of ContentsIntroduction PART I Central aspects of performance 1 A model of musical performance 2 Skills and Guilds PART II Challenges to the model 3 Performances and musical works 4 Computers, ready-mades, and artistic agency 5 Experiments with musical agency 6 Artists, programs, and performance
£36.09
