Theatre studies Books

Book SynopsisMitchell Greenberg is the Goldwin Smith Professor of Romance Studies at Cornell University, USA.Table of ContentsNotes on Contributors List of Illustrations List of Graphs Series Preface Introduction: Definitions and Understandings, Mitchell Greenberg (Cornell University, USA) 1. Forms and Media, Christian Biet (University of Paris Nanterre and Institut Universitaire de France, France) 2. Sites of Performance and Circulation, Jan Clarke (Durham University, UK) 3. Communities of Production and Consumption, Sylvaine Guyot (Harvard University, USA) and Clotilde Thouret (Lorraine University, France) 4. Philosophy and Social Theory, Jonathan Strauss (Miami University, USA) 5. Religion, Ritual and Myth, Juliette Cherbuliez (University of Minnesota) and Christopher Semk (Independent Scholar) 6. Politics of City and Nation, Julie Stone Peters (Columbia University, USA) 7. Society and Family, John D. Lyons (University of Virginia, USA) 8. Gender and Sexuality, Jennifer Row (University of Minnesota, USA) Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisMichael Gamer is Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of Pennsylvania, USA. Diego Saglia is Professor of English Literature at the University of Parma, Italy.Table of ContentsList of Illustrations Notes on Contributors Series Preface Introduction: The Nineteenth Century: ‘Tragedy in the World,’ Michael Gamer (University of Pennsylvania, USA) and Diego Saglia (University of Parma, Italy) 1. Forms and Media, Lissette Lopez Szwydky (University of Arkansas, USA) 2. Sites of Performance and Circulation, Katherine Newey (University of Exeter, UK) 3. Communities of Production and Consumption, Sharon Aronofsky Weltman (Louisiana State University, USA) 4. Philosophy and Social Theory, Jonathan Sachs (Concordia University, Canada) 5. Religion, Ritual, and Myth, Jeffrey Cox (University of Colorado Boulder, USA) 6. Politics of City and Nation, Michael Meeuwis (University of Warwick, UK) 7. Society and Family, Dana Van Kooy (Michigan Technological University, USA) 8. Gender and Sexuality, Cole Heinowitz (Bard College, USA) Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisJennifer Wallace is the author of Tragedy Since 9/11: Reading a World Out of Joint (Bloomsbury Academic, 2019) and the Director of Studies in English at Peterhouse, University of Cambridge, UK.Table of ContentsList of Illustrations Notes on Contributors Series Preface Editor's Acknowledgements Introduction: Tragedy Since 1920, Jennifer Wallace (University of Cambridge, UK) 1. Forms and Media, Ramona Mosse (Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany) 2. Sites of Performance, Drew Milne (University of Cambridge, UK) 3. Communities of Production and Consumption, Olga Taxidou (University of Edinburgh, UK) 4. Philosophy and Social Theory, David Kornhaber (The University of Texas at Austin, USA) 5. Religion, Ritual and Myth, Ben Quash (King's College London, UK) 6. Politics of City and Nation, Tony Fisher (The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, UK) 7. Society and Family, Kélina Gotman (King's College London, UK) 8. Gender and Sexuality, P.A. Skantze (Roehampton University, UK) Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisA CHORUS LINE FAQ:ALL THAT'S LEFT TO KNOW ABOUT BROADWAY'S SINGULAR SENSATION

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Book SynopsisHamlet calls death that undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns.But he''s wrong. Some do return.Each night after the applause dies, the curtain falls, the audience vanishes, the cleaners dust, and the lights are killed, great theatres become dark and silent places. But not always quite empty. That''s when the theatre ghosts make their entrance and strut and fret their hour upon the shadowed boards, illuminated only by the ghost light, the solitary lamp that is required to burn through the night on every Broadway stage.Many of Broadway''s busiest theatres continue to be just as busily haunted by spirits, some with well-known names and histories. Good Morning, Olive (named for one of the most beautiful and temperamental of Broadway''s ghosts) is about the ghosts that haunt theatres in New York and around the world.Broadway is the playground of stars, so it''s probably not surprising to learn that even its ghosts are stars. Me

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Book SynopsisWhen you sit down at a play, movie, or concertor even in front of the TV or scrollinl on youryou are taking part in one of the oldest and most mysterious forms of human behavior. Being part of an audience is an age-old experience that we all crave that has evolved from amphitheaters to screens. Right This Way is a pop history of audiences through the ages.Playbill editor Robert Viagas unfolds the unique aspects of what he calls audiencing with stories from the age of the Greeks to the world of Zoom. He walks through the different types of audiences and the history of their responses, what science has to say about how our brains respond to what they see and the reactions of the people around them, and why, during COVID-19, people risked a deadly virus to be part of a crowd. Right This Way explores what the audience experience brings us and how it may evolve in the 21st century.

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Book SynopsisThe book features chapters on Jean Ross and Christopher Isherwood ä the real people behind the singular characters of Sally Bowles and Clifford Bradshaw/Brian Roberts ä and includes background information on the original source material Isherwood''s ÊGoodbye to BerlinÊ stories and the first time Sally Bowles as portrayed by Julie Harris appeared onstage and on the big screen in John Van Druten''s ÊI Am a CameraÊ. It also explores the stories behind the figure of the outlandish Emcee as well as the actors who played him from Joel Grey to Alan Cumming. And it studies the famous musical score by John Kander and Fred Ebb and looks into the burlesque roots of director Bob Fosse in his native Chicago. Throughout the book the author makes connections and associations to ÊCabaretÊ by looking at such diverse topics as the first cabarets in Paris Cabaret Voltaire and Dada early Berlin cabarets during the Weimar Republic German expressionism the Bauhaus Marlene Dietrich and ÊThe Blue An

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Book SynopsisCAROUSEL: THE COMPLETE BOOK AND LYRICS OF THE BROADWAY MUSICAL

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Book SynopsisIn this fast-moving, candid, conversational, and entertaining memoir, Harold Prince, the most honoured director/producer in the history of the American theatre looks back over his seventy-year (and counting!) career. In 1974, Prince released his first book, Contradictions: Notes on Twenty-Six Years in the Theatre. Although Contradictions has since attained cult status among producers, directors, and actors alike, Prince, in hindsight, believes he wasn't ready to publish such a tome at that point in his career (in fact, doing so was an act of insane arrogance). Although he doesn't regret that effort, he is at last prepared to conclude it, to see where I was right in my assessments and where I was wrong. In Sense of Occasion, Prince returns to this seminal text, invigorating it with fresh insights cultivated through four decades of additional practice. Sense of Occasion gives an insider's recollection of the making of such landmark musicals as West Side Story, Fiddler on the Roof, Cabaret, Company, Follies, Sweeney Todd, Evita, and Phantom of the Opera, with Prince's perceptive comments about his mentor George Abbott and his many celebrated collaborators, including Leonard Bernstein, Jerome Robbins, Stephen Sondheim, John Kander, Boris Aronson, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Angela Lansbury, Zero Mostel, Carol Burnett, and Joel Grey. As well as detailing his titanic successes that changed the form and content of the American musical theatre, Prince even-handedly reflects on the shows that didn't work, most memorably and painfully Merrily We Roll Along. Throughout, he offers insights into the way business is conducted on Broadway, drawing sharp contrasts between past and present. This thoughtful, complete account of one of the most legendary and long-lived careers in theatre history, written by the man who lived it, is an essential work of personal and professional recollection.

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Book SynopsisThis is the definitive text on the radical contributions of Futurism in theatre, dance, radio, cinema, music, and scenography. It includes thirteen manifestos (such as "The Art of Noise," "The Futurist Synthetic Theatre") by Marinetti, Prampolini and Russolo, and forty-eight performance texts (sintesi) by Balla, Boccioni, Depero, Cangiullo, and Marinetti. Fifty-six photos.

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Book SynopsisMost modern scholars regard William Shakespeare and his repertory company as the pre-eminent theatre group of its day; Roslyn Lander Knutson contends that they were also practical entrepreneurs who both shaped and responded to current theatrical tastes and whose playhouse practices closely paralleled those of their competitors. In ""The Repertory of Shakespeare's Company"" Knutson demystifies Shakespeare and his company by providing a clear vision of the dynamics of play production and play-going in Shakespeare's England, taking Shakespeare and his company down from their lofty pedestal where Victorian scholars placed them. She argues that Shakespeare and his company should not be seen as privileged and apart from the playing companies of the period, but should be viewed exactly as they were: as the hard-nosed participants in the highly competitive world of English theatre. A reference guide and critical revaluation, ""The Repertory of Shakespeare's Company"" combines an array of factual information with a keen insight into not just Shakespearean ""masterpieces"" but also the seldom-read plays, to give an account of theatrical life in Shakespeare's London.

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Book SynopsisÊSpring's AwakeningÊ is a tragi-comedy of teenage sex. Its fourteen-year-old heroine Wendla is killed by abortion pills. The young Moritz terrorized by the world around him and especially by his teachers shoots himself. The ending seems likely to be the suicide of Moritz's friend Melchior but in a confrontation with a mysterious stranger (the famous Masked Man) he finally manages to shed his illusions and face the consequences.

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Book SynopsisPaperback Original

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Book SynopsisThe Teacher''s Guide which includes suggestions for further reading, in-class discussion topics, and sample exam questions.

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Book SynopsisWhether you are a professional, volunteer or student prop master for a play production, this book reviews what a demanding theatre tech position this is. There is a lot more to propping a show than many theatre people realise. The twelve chapters of this book provide clear definitions of the job in action. They tell how to build a props department, how to create props and how to work with the technical crew, designers, supervisors and performers. Until now there has been no comprehensive manual or guidebook like this to lead a prop master through the entire process. No prop master should work without this guide as a ready reference to solve many unexpected problems. The book is divided into twelve chapters: What Are Props?; The Prop Master; Interacting with Other People; A Successful Work Environment; The Prop Shop; Collections and Files; The First Steps of the Building Process; Start "Propping"; Rehearsals and Performances; Safety; Timeless Tips and Techniques; Basic Theatre Terminology. Amy Mussman has over ten years of experience working as prop master for professional theatre companies.

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Book SynopsisThe games and exercises in this book are designed to be used as warm-ups at the beginning of a theatre class. They have been used successfully with middle school students and they can easily be adapted for use with younger children, older teens and adults in various settings. The games are divided into thirteen sections: Easy Reference; Clowning; Co-operation & Teamwork; Focus & Concentration; Getting Ready; Improvisation; Listening; Name Games; Observation; Pantomime; Stretching & Relaxation; Stage Movement; Voice. The games have been adapted from many books, workshop and standard group activities. This is a comprehensive collection of tested games and exercises. A must book for every theatre library.

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Book SynopsisA sequel collection of winning monologues in the style and format of "100 Great Monologs" by the sane author. Rebecca Young knows how teenagers think and act -- and what they like to talk about. These monologues and duologues may be used for auditions, class assignments or contest competitions. With such a wide variety of topics, there is a monologue to fit any student''s personality. All of the monologues are non-theatrical in style -- they speak as teenagers live. Easy to stage.

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Book SynopsisThese scenes for two female actors are divided into two sections: comedy and drama. The comedy scenes will have audiences laughing at the outrageous yet believable scenarios. Comedy scenes include: On-line Love, Dirty Laundry, Marriage Phobia, New Best Friend Forever and more. The dramatic scenes will have the audience and actors thinking about the relevant topics. Dramatic scenes include: The Wishing Well, Night Storm, Broken Promises, The Red Dress and more. All scenes are entertaining and enjoyable. Actors will be challenged by each scene in this collection. Sets and costumes can be elaborate or simple. The length of every scene is perfect for the female dramatic duo competitions sponsored nationally. They may also be used for auditions, acting practice, or an evening of entertainment. Laurie Allen''s plays for teens have had great success in productions across the United States. Many of her competition pieces have advanced to national Speech and Forensics competitions.

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Book SynopsisWhat do the Dead Sea Scrolls and frog overlays have to do with performing Shakespeare? They're both part of Louis Fantasia's approach in Instant Shakespeare. Mr. Fantasia, the first American to direct at the Shakespeare Globe Centre and a distinguished member of the international theatre community, has developed a pragmatic and uniquely American performance technique. Expanded and refined in performances and workshops throughout the world, Instant Shakespeare allows performers, directors, and teachers of all cultures and levels of experience to demystify Shakespeare and perform his texts in ways that are clear, fresh, and unpretentious. Mr. Fantasia's methods are solidly grounded in a rigorous analysis of the text and structure of Shakespeare's plays, and enriched by his insight into Elizabethan performance practices gleaned from his intimate association with the reconstruction of the Globe. Through Instant Shakespeare, novices and professionals alike achieve the textual clarity, nuanced characters, and dynamic actions that drive the most vigorous Shakespearean performances. Mr. Fantasia's respectful but irreverent approach pinpoints the shortcomings of contemporary Shakespeare practice and training, particularly generic and postmodern interpretations, and confronts theatre artists with the importance of conscious personal responsibility for the creative process. Employing analogies from music and architecture, he insists upon the hard and sometimes tedious work that necessarily underlies solid artistic choices. Mr. Fantasia shows how to understand Shakespeare's vocabulary as well as the structure and essential dramatic event of each play. He provides exercise monologues, exercise scenes, and tools for textual analysis; explains correct breathing; and lays out his philosophies of training and performance.Trade ReviewPersuasive and interesting. -- Michael YorkAccessible to novices…and refreshing for veterans who enjoy viewing familiar matter from a novel perspective. * CHOICE *It is difficult to recall the last book that offered as much. * Foreword Reviews *This is a great book! Louis Fantasia makes Shakespeare (and all performing) as easy as Antony, Beatrice, Cleopatra! -- Joan Van ArkLouis Fantasia's lively guide is a manifesto of liberation for Shakespeare fans. -- Camille Paglia, University Professor and Professor of Humanities, University of the Arts, PhiladelphiaLouis Fantasia knows his Shakespeare, and knows how to make Shakespeare come alive in the theatre. -- Anthony B. Dawson, former president, Shakespeare Association of AmericaThe best that can be said for this book is, 'Try it'.... THIS BOOK WORKS! * Shakespeare Newsletter *Engaging and useful...particularly valuable to teachers. * Shakespeare Magazine *Table of ContentsPart 1 Prelude: Banging at Swords 3 Part 2 Introduction: The Absence of Presence 11 Part 3 PART ONE: PRE-PERFORMANCE— INSTANT SHAKESPEARE! Chapter 4 Know What the Words Really Mean— Dialogue 19 Chapter 5 The Histrionic Sensibility 39 Chapter 6 Whose Frog is it Anyway? 44 Chapter 7 Excercise Monologues 47 Chapter 9 Know the Rhythm and Sense of the Line— Character 63 Chapter 10 Know What the Play is About— The Central Event 78 Part 11 Interlude: More Banging at Swords: Encounters at Shakespeare's Globe, 1981-1997 95 Part 12 PART TWO: ASPECTS OF PERFORMANCE Chapter 13 Transitions from reading to Performance 107 Chapter 14 Scenes for Excercises 113 Chapter 15 Aspects of Performance: Breath and Impulse 120 Chapter 16 Aspects of Performance: A Practical Study of the Breath 128 Chapter 17 Isabella's Voice 142 Chapter 18 The Ephemeral Nature of the Theatrical Event 154 Chapter 19 A Philosophy of Training and Performance 161 Chapter 20 Presence and the Ontological Sensibility 172 Part 21 Epilogue: Still Banging at Swords— Optional Authenticity and Shakespeare's Globe, 1997-2001 187 Part 22 Acknowledgments 197 Part 23 A Note on Sources 199 Part 24 Index 203

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Book SynopsisWith Brecht and Meyerhold, Antonin Artaud was one of the great visionaries of twentieth-century theatre, best known perhaps for what he called the "Theatre of Cruelty." This revised and updated edition of Artaud on Theatre contains all of his key writings on theatre and cinema from 1921 to his death in 1948, including new selections which have never before appeared in English. Together with an Introduction, biographical notes, and commentary, the collection charts Artaud's work from his early association with surrealism, through his founding of the Théâtre Alfred Jarry, to the invocation of his compelling vision in his most famous manifesto, The Theatre and Its Double. Artaud's poetic and inspirational writings called for a fundamental regeneration of Western art. He wanted to return the theatre to its roots in ritual and to transform the audience through total emotional, psychic, and physical involvement. Anarchic and disruptive, he was misunderstood, silenced, and ostracized in his lifetime, but was later championed as an icon of the sixties counterculture. His ideas have inspired the work of Genet, Arrabal, The Living Theatre, Grotowski, Brook, and most of the experimental drama and performance work of recent decades. "One of the great daring mapmakers of consciousness in extremis."—Susan SontagTrade Review…Artaud deserves his place as one of theatre's foremost thinkers…. With cogent commentary by Claude Schumacher and Brian Singleton. * Book News, Inc. *A must for any serious academic scholar on theater, Artaud's work is also a...thought-provoking read on the serious critical nature of the medium itself. * The Bloomsbury Review *One of the great daring mapmakers of consciousness in extremis. -- Susan Sontag

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Book SynopsisWhile it is common knowledge that Jews were prominent in literature, music, cinema, and science in pre-1933 Germany, the fascinating story of Jewish co-creation of modern German theatre is less often discussed. Yet for a brief time, during the Second Reich and the Weimar Republic, Jewish artists and intellectuals moved away from a segregated Jewish theatre to work within canonic German theatre and performance venues, claiming the right to be part of the very fabric of German culture. Their involvement, especially in the theatre capital of Berlin, was of a major magnitude both numerically and in terms of power and influence. The essays in this stimulating collection etch onto the conventional view of modern German theatre the history and conflicts of its Jewish participants in the last third of the nineteenth and first third of the twentieth centuries and illuminate the influence of Jewish ethnicity in the creation of the modernist German theatre. The nontraditional forms and themes known as modernism date roughly from German unification in 1871 to the end of the Weimar Republic in 1933. This is also the period when Jews acquired full legal and trade equality, which enabled their ownership and directorship of theatre and performance venues. The extraordinary artistic innovations that Germans and Jews co-created during the relatively short period of this era of creativity reached across the old assumptions, traditions, and prejudices that had separated people as the modern arts sought to reformulate human relations from the foundations to the pinnacles of society. The essayists, writing from a variety of perspectives, carve out historical overviews of the role of theatre in the constitution of Jewish identity in Germany, the position of Jewish theatre artists in the cultural vortex of imperial Berlin, the role played by theatre in German Jewish cultural education, and the impact of Yiddish theatre on German and Austrian Jews and on German theatre. They view German Jewish theatre activity through Jewish philosophical and critical perspectives and examine two important genres within which Jewish artists were particularly prominent: the Cabaret and Expressionist theatre. Finally, they provide close-ups of the Jewish artists Alexander Granach, Shimon Finkel, Max Reinhardt, and Leopold Jessner. By probing the interplay between 'Jewish' and 'German' cultural and cognitive identities based in the field of theatre and performance and querying the effect of theatre on Jewish self-understanding, they add to the richness of intercultural understanding as well as to the complex history of theatre and performance in Germany.

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Book SynopsisAin't Nothing Like the Real Thing: How the Apollo Theater Shaped American Entertainment celebrates the seventy-five year history of the Apollo Theater, Harlem's landmark performing arts space and the iconic showplace for the best in jazz, blues, dance, comedy, gospel, R & B, hip-hop, and more since it opened its doors in 1934. This beautifully illustrated book is the companion volume to an exhibition of the same name, organized by the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture in collaboration with the Apollo Theater Foundation. It offers a sweeping panorama of American cultural achievement from the Harlem Renaissance to the present through the compelling story of a single institution.Ain't Nothing Like the Real Thing brings together a diverse group of twenty-four writers to discuss the theater's history and its intersection with larger social and political issues within Harlem and the nation. Featuring more than 300 photographs, this volume brings to life the groundbreaking entertainers in music, dance, and comedy—Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Smokey Robinson, Aretha Franklin, The Supremes, James Brown, Moms Mabley, Redd Foxx, Honi Coles, and Savion Glover, to name a few—who made the Apollo the icon that it is today. The Apollo Theater has been the setting for soaring achievement and creativity in the face of enormous challenges. In telling this truly American story, Ain't Nothing Like the Real Thing is a celebration of the lasting contributions of African Americans to the nation's cultural life.

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Book SynopsisA lively examination of the vitality and imagination of Yiddish Theatre during the Great DepressionTrade Review"One of the most interesting, lively and informative books that I have ever had the pleasure to read on subjects of Jewish-American culture and its connections with American popular culture." Paul Buhle, Brown University "A stylish, wry, and in-depth study of its subject. A very well-balanced blend of summary, excerpt, commentary, and reportage about critical responses of the day." Lawrence Bush, Editor, Jewish Currents "Schechter's passion for these long-forgotten works of Yiddish radicalism is contagious. Readers will be inspired to find out more about the rich tradition of Yiddish leftist theatre." The Jewish Daily Forward "[Schechter] has a wonderfully intuitive feeling for the material that only someone who has directed Yiddish plays (albeit in English) is likely to possess... [N]o review can do justice to Schechter's analysis of the plays and their meaning, but suffice it to say, a close reading of his book will prove delightful." Towards Freedom "Schechter tells the whole story of [Moise] Nadir and Artef (Arbeter Teater Farband, the collective of the workers' theater movement) with verve and elegance while never sacrificing scholarly standards... The book's photographs, cartoons, and illustrations are important references, and the bibliography is complete. This volume makes a significant contribution to the documentation of immigrant American culture. Summing Up: Highly recommended." Choice "Messiahs is well worth a perusal; the author writes with vigor and enthusiasm throughout, and his history is accompanied by witty comic strips, photographs and posters. Moreover, we can never have enough books about plays written in a tongue Isaac Bashevis Singer described as 'the wise and humble language of us all, the idiom of a frightened and hopeful humanity.'" -Moment Magazine, Nov/Dec 2008 "[Schechter] is at his best when describing individual plays and locating them in a social context...these [are] lively accounts." Association of Jewish Libraries Newsletter, February/March 2009 "It is rare that one reads an academic book telling a story that took place almost eighty years ago with a gasp of recognition at its relevance to contemporary experience... One of the book's undeniable strengths is its comparative nature. The author discusses parallels among Communist Yiddish theatres in the Soviet Union, England, and the United States, and he analyses the differences in the seemingly similar repertoires and even ideologies of Gosset, the Federal Theater Project, and Anglo-Jewish theatres... Schechter's study is the first of its kind to look carefully at the texts of the shund plays, now stored at the Rare Documents department of the Library of Congress. Looking at the content of these plays, he sees undeniable parallels with developments on Broadway and in Hollywood... I think that the main significance of the book is in its analysis of how an impoverished immigrant population used humour and satire in its mother tongue to cope with difficult economic circumstances in its new home. Time will tell whether the story told by Schechter repeats itself a hundred years later." Modern Drama, Fall 2009 "As a seasoned historian of politically subversive clowning and popular theatre, Schechter brings a unique perspective to Yiddish performance, filled as that story has been with tummlers, clowns, puppeteers, knockabout artists and other outrageous purveyors of sharply barbed satire. He succeeds in introducing readers to a side of Yiddish theatre they may not have been aware of." - Theatre Research International, July 2010Table of Contents1. Messiahs of 1933: How Playwright Moishe Nadir and Artef Led America Out of the Great Depression to a Future of Full Employment, Justice and Yiddish Satire for All; 2. Nadir's Rivington Street: The Lower East Side Arises; 3. Prayer Boxes as Precious as Diamonds: How Soviet Yiddish Satire Fared in America; 4. The Federal Theatre Project in Yiddish: "The Sorely Perplexed Society" Takes the Stage; 5. The Messiah of 1936: It Can't Happen Here in Yiddish; 6. Pinski's Prelude to a Golden Age: The Tailor Becomes a Storekeeper; 7. Menasha Skulnik Becomes a Bridegroom: Popular Yiddish Theatre Reconsidered; 8. Prosperity's Crisis on Stage: The Yiddish Puppetry of Maud and Cutler; 9. Leo Fuchs, Yiddish Vaudevillian in "Trouble"; 10. Yetta Zwerling's Comic Dybbuk; 11. Menachem Mendel's False Profits: Sholom Aleichem and the Communists; 12. The "Anti-Milkhome Zamlung" of 1937: The Yiddish Anti-War Catalogue Reconsidered; Conclusion: Still Waiting for the Messiah

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Book SynopsisHere is the story, told firsthand through electric, deeply engaged writing, of America’s living theater, high and low, mainstream and experimental. Drawing on history, criticism, memoir, fiction, poetry, and parody, editor Laurence Senelick presents writers with the special knack “to distill both the immediate experience and the recollected impression, to draw the reader into the charmed circle and conjure up what has already vanished.” Through the words of playwrights and critics, actors and directors, and others behind the footlights, the entertainments and high artistic strivings of successive eras come vividly, sometimes tumultuously, to life.Observers from Washington Irving and Fanny Trollope to Walt Whitman and Mark Twain evoke the world of the nineteenth-century playhouse in all its raucous vitality. Henry James confesses his early enthusiasm for playgoing; Willa Cather reviews provincial productions of Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Antony and Cleopatra. The increasing diversity and ambition of the American theater is reflected in Hutchins Hapgood’s account of New York’s Yiddish theaters at the turn of the century, Carl Van Vechten’s review of the Sicilian actress Mimi Aguglia, Alain Locke’s comments on the emerging African-American theater in the 1920s, and Ezra Pound’s response to James Joyce’s play Exiles and theatrical modernism. Enthusiasts for the New Stagecraft, such as Lee Simonson and Djuna Barnes, are matched by champions of pop culture such as Gilbert Seldes and Fred Allen. S. J. Perelman lampoons Clifford Odets; Edmund Wilson acclaims Minsky’s Burlesque; Harold Clurman explains Stanislavski’s Method; Gore Vidal dissects the compromises of commercial playwriting. A host of playwrights—among them Thornton Wilder, Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams, Lorraine Hansberry, Edward Albee, Wendy Wasserstein, David Mamet, and Tony Kushner—are joined by such renowned critics as Stark Young, George Jean Nathan, Brooks Atkinson, and Eric Bentley.LIBRARY OF AMERICA is an independent nonprofit cultural organization founded in 1979 to preserve our nation’s literary heritage by publishing, and keeping permanently in print, America’s best and most significant writing. The Library of America series includes more than 300 volumes to date, authoritative editions that average 1,000 pages in length, feature cloth covers, sewn bindings, and ribbon markers, and are printed on premium acid-free paper that will last for centuries.Trade Review“Even in a publishing series as uniformly superb as the invaluable Library of America, there are some books that stand out. This is, without question, one of the Library of America’s stellar contributions to American literature of the past few years—as well as one of the richest and most readable collections of writing on the American stage that you will ever come across.” —Buffalo News

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Book SynopsisThe importance of opera houses to the cultural and community life in nonmetropolitan areas of the country from the last quarter of the nineteenth century to the advent of motion pictures in the 1920s has seldom been documented. As both the civic and arts centre for the community, the local opera house was a venue for community meetings, political rallies, concerts, lectures, and theatrical entertainment.The stories the reader will encounter here - related with a healthy dose of humour - are based on historical facts, anecdotes, urban legends, and tall tales associated with three of the more than one hundred opera houses that existed in Michigan during this period. As there are similar stories about such structures throughout Michigan as well as in other Midwestern and Western states, this could be considered a storybook about the golden age of opera houses in many of America’s rural regions.Unfortunately, many of Michigan’s wonderful old jewel boxes have been razed or burned down. Whereas almost every town in the state once had a facility referred to as an opera house, few remain and, of those that do, few are open for business. The opera houses in Coldwater, Calumet, and Manistee are still in operation, however, and are still serving their communities as they have for over a hundred years.

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Book SynopsisFew people in recent memory have dedicated themselves as devotedly to the story of twentieth- century American music as Rob Kapilow, the composer, conductor, and host of the hit NPR music radio program, What Makes It Great? Now, in Listening for America, he turns his keen ear to the Great American Songbook, bringing many of our favorite classics to life through the songs and stories of eight of the twentieth century’s most treasured American composers—Kern, Porter, Gershwin, Arlen, Berlin, Rodgers, Bernstein, and Sondheim. Hardly confi ning himself to celebrating what makes these catchy melodies so unforgettable, Kapilow delves deeply into how issues of race, immigration, sexuality, and appropriation intertwine in masterpieces like Show Boat and West Side Story. A book not just about musical theater but about America itself, Listening for America is equally for the devotee, the singer, the music student, or for anyone intrigued by how popular music has shaped the larger culture, and promises to be the ideal gift book for years to come.Trade Review"[An] enlightening study.... Rob Kapilow may be contemporary America’s most passionate evangelist for the quaint discipline known as 'music appreciation'... a winning combination of Leonard Bernstein and Bill Nye the Science Guy, an infectiously enthusiastic explainer of the inner mechanical workings of music.... A nifty companion website for the book includes helpful, easy-to-grasp audible demonstrations and vocals, as does the e-book version. For me at least, this digital crib-sheet was a vital tool for appreciating Kapilow’s arguments.... It is a testament to the depth and catholicity of Kapilow’s knowledge that he can effortlessly compare the sweet-sour takes on love in Rodgers and Hart’s “I Wish I Were in Love Again” with Stephen Sondheim’s “Being Alive.” He writes engagingly of Irving Berlin’s astonishing journey from a Russian village and Manhattan’s Lower East Side to the heights of fame, [and] astutely surveys the radical changes in popular taste in the 1960s and ’70s that dislodged the Broadway musical.... But it is the analysis of the songs that is the meat of the book — and something like its soul as well.... [Kapilow] rewards those patient enough to hold his hand as he walks them through just what makes these songs great." -- Todd S. Purdum, New York Times Book Review"Infectiously readable.... A carefully thought-out act of selection that gives you a starting point for your journey through the Great American Songbook. Who could ask for anything more?" -- Terry Teachout, Wall Street Journal"[Kapilow] recounts the 20th-century history of American popular music in lyrical prose.... [his] melodious writing hums with the vibrant music of American history and American popular culture." -- Publishers Weekly [starred review]"[A] lively and highly informative look at what makes musical show tunes great.... A seamless blend of music, history, and biography." -- Kirkus Reviews"The Great American songbook is a national treasure, and in this engaging and instructive guide, composer, conductor, and music commentator Kapilow unlocks its riches. Sixteen gems by eight American masters of song.... are analyzed and set into historical and cultural context, resulting in a greater appreciation of these American musical masterpieces.... The songs selected for examination make for a musical theater fan’s ultimate playlist.... A treat for music fans and a great addition to any performing arts or popular culture collection." -- Carolyn Mulac, Booklist"Kapilow doesn’t just explore what makes these songs catchy and unforgettable—the author dives into how societal issues like race, immigration, sexuality, and cultural appropriation can intertwine themselves into the greatest theatrical masterpieces." -- Dan Meyer, Playbill.com"Impossible to resist.... [Kapilow’s] insight combined with the ability to share it easily will deepen your knowledge of the best that Broadway has to offer." -- Michael Giltz, broadwaydirect.com"Through the lens of musical theater, Rob Kapilow allows us to experience the unique sound and spirit of a changing America. I came away inspired and ready to write." -- Lynn Ahrens, Tony Award–winning lyricist of Ragtime"Listening for America is an impressive achievement and one of the finest contributions to the annals of musical theater." -- Robert Kimball, editor of The Complete Lyrics of Cole Porter" Praise for Rob Kapilow: Rob Kapilow leaps into the void dividing music analysis from appreciation and fills it with exhilarating details and sensations." -- New York Times"A wonderful guy who brings music alive!" -- Katie Couric"It’s a cheering thought that this kind of missionary enterprise did not pass from this earth with Leonard Bernstein. Robert Kapilow is awfully good at what he does. We need him." -- Boston Globe

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Book SynopsisThe essays in English Theatrical Anecdotes, 1660-1800 explore the theatrical anecdote’s role in the construction of stage fame in England’s emergent celebrity culture during the long eighteenth century, as well as the challenges of employing such anecdotes in theatre scholarship today. This collection showcases scholarship that complicates the theatrical anecdote and shows its many sides and applications beyond the expected comic punch. Discussing anecdotal narratives about theatre people as producing, maintaining, and sometimes toppling individual fame, this book crucially investigates a key mechanism of celebrity in the long eighteenth century that reaches into the nineteenth century and beyond. The anecdote erases boundaries between public and private and fictionalizing the individual in ways deeply familiar to twenty-first century celebrity culture.Table of ContentsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: Miniature Stages of Celebrity: English Theatrical Anecdotes, 1600–1800Heather Ladd and Leslie RitchiePART IACTING BADLY: MISBEHAVING PERFORMERS1 Killing Delane; or, Mimickry and the Anecdota obscuraLeslie Ritchie2 Violent Afterlives: The Anecdote in Eighteenth-Century Theater BiographiesMáire Macneill3 Samuel Foote, Esq.: Caricature, Class, and the Comic Theatrical AnecdoteHeather LaddPART IIANECDOTAL BODIES4 Pregnancy and the Late Stuart Stage, 1661–1702Chelsea Phillips5 “A High Treat to the Anecdote Hunters!”: The Body of Mrs. Sophia BaddeleyNevena Martinocvić6 A Bellyful of Nightingales: Seven Stories of Seven SingersMichael BurdenPART IIIACTING CAREERS AND THE PROFESSIONAL ANECDOTE7 Anecdote and the Regional Actress: A History of the Farren Family in Several AnecdotesFiona Ritchie8 Neither Confirmed nor Refuted: The Anecdotal Elizabeth BarrySeth WilsonPART IVANECDOTES’ AFTERLIVES: SCHOLARLY ENCOUNTERS9 Anecdotal Origin Stories: Mary Ann Yates’s Trip to Drury LaneElaine Mcgirr10 The Vanishing Subject in “Anecdotal” Abridgments of Theatrical BiographiesAmanda Weldy Boyd11 Queering Roxane from Davenant to RichardsonDanielle BobkerCoda: Whither Theatrical Anecdote?Heather Ladd and Leslie RitchieBibliographyNotes on ContributorsIndex

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Book SynopsisThe essays in English Theatrical Anecdotes, 1660-1800 explore the theatrical anecdote’s role in the construction of stage fame in England’s emergent celebrity culture during the long eighteenth century, as well as the challenges of employing such anecdotes in theatre scholarship today. This collection showcases scholarship that complicates the theatrical anecdote and shows its many sides and applications beyond the expected comic punch. Discussing anecdotal narratives about theatre people as producing, maintaining, and sometimes toppling individual fame, this book crucially investigates a key mechanism of celebrity in the long eighteenth century that reaches into the nineteenth century and beyond. The anecdote erases boundaries between public and private and fictionalizing the individual in ways deeply familiar to twenty-first century celebrity culture.Table of ContentsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: Miniature Stages of Celebrity: English Theatrical Anecdotes, 1600–1800Heather Ladd and Leslie RitchiePART IACTING BADLY: MISBEHAVING PERFORMERS1 Killing Delane; or, Mimickry and the Anecdota obscuraLeslie Ritchie2 Violent Afterlives: The Anecdote in Eighteenth-Century Theater BiographiesMáire Macneill3 Samuel Foote, Esq.: Caricature, Class, and the Comic Theatrical AnecdoteHeather LaddPART IIANECDOTAL BODIES4 Pregnancy and the Late Stuart Stage, 1661–1702Chelsea Phillips5 “A High Treat to the Anecdote Hunters!”: The Body of Mrs. Sophia BaddeleyNevena Martinocvić6 A Bellyful of Nightingales: Seven Stories of Seven SingersMichael BurdenPART IIIACTING CAREERS AND THE PROFESSIONAL ANECDOTE7 Anecdote and the Regional Actress: A History of the Farren Family in Several AnecdotesFiona Ritchie8 Neither Confirmed nor Refuted: The Anecdotal Elizabeth BarrySeth WilsonPART IVANECDOTES’ AFTERLIVES: SCHOLARLY ENCOUNTERS9 Anecdotal Origin Stories: Mary Ann Yates’s Trip to Drury LaneElaine Mcgirr10 The Vanishing Subject in “Anecdotal” Abridgments of Theatrical BiographiesAmanda Weldy Boyd11 Queering Roxane from Davenant to RichardsonDanielle BobkerCoda: Whither Theatrical Anecdote?Heather Ladd and Leslie RitchieBibliographyNotes on ContributorsIndex

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Book SynopsisLothario’s Corpse unearths a performance history, on and off the stage, of Restoration libertine drama in Britain’s eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. While standard theater histories emphasize libertine drama’s gradual disappearance from the nation’s acting repertory following the dispersal of Stuart rule in 1688, Daniel Gustafson traces its persistent appeal for writers and performers wrestling with the powers of the emergent liberal subject and the tensions of that subject with sovereign absolutism. With its radical, absolutist characters and its scenarios of aristocratic license, Restoration libertine drama became a critical force with which to engage in debates about the liberty-loving British subject’s relation to key forms of liberal power and about the troubling allure of lawless sovereign power that lingers at the heart of the liberal imagination. Weaving together readings of a set of literary texts, theater anecdotes, political writings, and performances, Gustafson illustrates how the corpse of the Restoration stage libertine is revived in the period’s debates about liberty, sovereign desire, and the subject’s relation to modern forms of social control. Ultimately, Lothario’s Corpse suggests the “long-running” nature of Restoration theatrical culture, its revived and revised performances vital to what makes post-1688 Britain modern. Published by Bucknell University Press. Distributed worldwide by Rutgers University Press. Trade Review"Lothario's Corpse is an innovative contribution to the study of Restoration and 18th-century drama. Gustafson has read admirably widely, taking as a remit not only dramatic texts but pamphlets, diaries, and press accounts that consider the figure of the rake or libertine as theatrical character type, political phenomenon, or both. In these provocative pages the irrepressible, unruly return of the rake—onstage and as performed in nontheatrical life—is a phenomenon beyond theater history that makes visible the unsettled dynamics of sovereignty and subjectivity in the long 18th century." -- Brett D. Wilson * author of A Race of Female Patriots: Women and Public Spirit on the British Stage, 1688-1745 *"Lothario's Corpse exemplifies the very best of recent work on Restoration and eighteenth-century performance history. Gustafson's ambitious book not only rereads the figure of the libertine but also overturns a standard narrative in theater history, namely that the rise of bourgeois, sentimental comedy in the eighteenth century made earlier libertine fare unacceptable, on stage and off. The writing is lively and pleasing, and the scholarship commendable: Gustafson has clearly done his homework. Readers from a range of disciplines, from theatre studies to eighteenth-century literature, will benefit enormously from his erudition." -- Deborah C. Payne * editor of The Cambridge Companion to English Restoration Theatre *"Gustafson’s [give readers] engagement with the liveness of the Restoration." * Restoration Journal *"Lothario’s Corpse directs the reader’s attention to the power of performance and to the expansiveness and breadth of history and its multiplicity—histories—when viewed through performance’s lenses. [Gustafson's] readings and case studies of the Restoration libertine’s many afterlives lift the curtain on the long-running repertoire of performances and reenactments that have shaped cultural fantasies about the British subject since the early eighteenth century. " * Eighteenth-Century Studies *Table of Contents Introduction: The Long-Running Restoration 1 Corpsing Lothario 2 Debating Dorimant 3 Stuarts without End 4 Libertines and Liberalism Conclusion Acknowledgments Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisLothario’s Corpse unearths a performance history, on and off the stage, of Restoration libertine drama in Britain’s eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. While standard theater histories emphasize libertine drama’s gradual disappearance from the nation’s acting repertory following the dispersal of Stuart rule in 1688, Daniel Gustafson traces its persistent appeal for writers and performers wrestling with the powers of the emergent liberal subject and the tensions of that subject with sovereign absolutism. With its radical, absolutist characters and its scenarios of aristocratic license, Restoration libertine drama became a critical force with which to engage in debates about the liberty-loving British subject’s relation to key forms of liberal power and about the troubling allure of lawless sovereign power that lingers at the heart of the liberal imagination. Weaving together readings of a set of literary texts, theater anecdotes, political writings, and performances, Gustafson illustrates how the corpse of the Restoration stage libertine is revived in the period’s debates about liberty, sovereign desire, and the subject’s relation to modern forms of social control. Ultimately, Lothario’s Corpse suggests the “long-running” nature of Restoration theatrical culture, its revived and revised performances vital to what makes post-1688 Britain modern. Published by Bucknell University Press. Distributed worldwide by Rutgers University Press. Trade Review"Lothario's Corpse is an innovative contribution to the study of Restoration and 18th-century drama. Gustafson has read admirably widely, taking as a remit not only dramatic texts but pamphlets, diaries, and press accounts that consider the figure of the rake or libertine as theatrical character type, political phenomenon, or both. In these provocative pages the irrepressible, unruly return of the rake—onstage and as performed in nontheatrical life—is a phenomenon beyond theater history that makes visible the unsettled dynamics of sovereignty and subjectivity in the long 18th century." -- Brett D. Wilson * author of A Race of Female Patriots: Women and Public Spirit on the British Stage, 1688-1745 *"Lothario's Corpse exemplifies the very best of recent work on Restoration and eighteenth-century performance history. Gustafson's ambitious book not only rereads the figure of the libertine but also overturns a standard narrative in theater history, namely that the rise of bourgeois, sentimental comedy in the eighteenth century made earlier libertine fare unacceptable, on stage and off. The writing is lively and pleasing, and the scholarship commendable: Gustafson has clearly done his homework. Readers from a range of disciplines, from theatre studies to eighteenth-century literature, will benefit enormously from his erudition." -- Deborah C. Payne * editor of The Cambridge Companion to English Restoration Theatre *"Gustafson’s [give readers] engagement with the liveness of the Restoration." * Restoration Journal *"Lothario’s Corpse directs the reader’s attention to the power of performance and to the expansiveness and breadth of history and its multiplicity—histories—when viewed through performance’s lenses. [Gustafson's] readings and case studies of the Restoration libertine’s many afterlives lift the curtain on the long-running repertoire of performances and reenactments that have shaped cultural fantasies about the British subject since the early eighteenth century. " * Eighteenth-Century Studies *Table of Contents Introduction: The Long-Running Restoration 1 Corpsing Lothario 2 Debating Dorimant 3 Stuarts without End 4 Libertines and Liberalism Conclusion Acknowledgments Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisWinner of the 2021 Best International Book Award from the Mormon History Association In the late nineteenth century, numerous French plays, novels, cartoons, and works of art focused on Mormons. Unlike American authors who portrayed Mormons as malevolent “others,” however, French dramatists used Mormonism to point out hypocrisy in their own culture. Aren't Mormon women, because of their numbers in a household, more liberated than French women who can't divorce? What is polygamy but another name for multiple mistresses? This new critical edition presents translations of four musical comedies staged or published in France in the late 1800s: Mormons in Paris (1874), Berthelier Meets the Mormons (1875), Japheth’s Twelve Wives (1890), and Stephana’s Jewel (1892). Each is accompanied by a short contextualizing introduction with details about the music, playwrights, and staging. Humorous and largely unknown, these plays use Mormonism to explore and mock changing French mentalities during the Third Republic, lampooning shifting attitudes and evolving laws about marriage, divorce, and gender roles. Published by Bucknell University Press. Distributed worldwide by Rutgers University Press.Trade Review"Mormons in Paris is as erudite as it is enchanting. In their introduction, Corry Cropper and Christopher Flood show exceptional depth and breadth of knowledge about French theater, opera, and light opera and their place in late nineteenth-century French culture. The language of the translations is natural and readable, and the little songs in verse are especially delightful." -- Susan McCready * author of Staging France between the World Wars *"This well-introduced collection of little-known musical comedies featuring French characterizations of Mormonism is a welcome contribution to nineteenth-century French cultural studies. The translations themselves are excellent . . . the authors’ choices of idiomatic expressions capture just the right tone, neither anachronistically modern nor too archaic to retain their impact." -- Andrea Goulet * co-editor of Orphan Black: Performance, Gender, Biopolitics *"Mormons in Paris is as erudite as it is enchanting. In their introduction, Corry Cropper and Christopher Flood show exceptional depth and breadth of knowledge about French theater, opera, and light opera and their place in late nineteenth-century French culture. The language of the translations is natural and readable, and the little songs in verse are especially delightful." -- Susan McCready * author of Staging France between the World Wars *"This well-introduced collection of little-known musical comedies featuring French characterizations of Mormonism is a welcome contribution to nineteenth-century French cultural studies. The translations themselves are excellent . . . the authors’ choices of idiomatic expressions capture just the right tone, neither anachronistically modern nor too archaic to retain their impact." -- Andrea Goulet * co-editor of Orphan Black: Performance, Gender, Biopolitics *Table of Contents List of Illustrations Introduction Chapter 1: Mormons in Paris Louis Leroy and Alfred Delacour Chapter 2: Berthelier Meets the Mormons Chapter 3: Japheth’s Twelve Wives Antony Mars and Maurice Desvallières Chapter 4: Stephana’s Jewel Arthur Bernède and Albert Dubarry Acknowledgements Bibliography Notes on Contributors Index

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