Theatre studies Books

Book SynopsisEVER AFTER: THE LAST YEARS OF MUSICAL THEATER AND BEYOND

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Book SynopsisHighlights the bridging character of drama-based foreign and second language teaching for intercultural learning. Drama here is not limited to theater-related work, but means the interplay between body and language in general, to include, for example, sports, dancing, singing, and storytelling. The major techniques and curricular structures of educational drama and its application in the foreign and second language classroom are introduced.What are the techniques, methods, strategies, and curricular structures that engage language learners in continuing dialogue between one's own culture and the one yet to be discovered? What comprises the language we speak in order to understand and be understood? Which body is it we communicate through and to? This volume answers these and other questions of the pedagogy of drama-based teaching across the foreign/second language curriculum and on all levels of the educational pyramid.There are two major issues currently discussed in drama-based foreign and second language methodology. The first is goal-oriented, asking whether the acquisition of accuracy or fluency is more important, and whether a controlled (learning through imitation) or an open (through improvisation) learning environment is more efficient. The second issue concerns using drama in language teaching: either its use is process-oriented, where drama becomes an immediate medium for language learning, or product-oriented, where it becomes primarily the reason for language learning. The book outlines the theoretical frameworks of both issues and introduces personal narrative, comparative observation, and analytical reflection, illuminating opportunities for learning at both ends of the seemingly contradictory poles of both issues.Table of ContentsIntroduction Goals and Potential: Understanding Drama-Based Education Understanding Drama-Based Education by Betty Jane Wagner Intercultural Recognitions Through Performative Inquiry by Lynn Fels and Lynne McGivern Transcultural Performance in Classroom Learning by Ann Axtmann Process Drama in Second and Foreign Language Classrooms by Jun Liu Approaches, Methods, Techniques--Obstacles, Doubts, and Questions Teaching Foreign Language Literature: Tapping the Students' Bodily-Kinesthetic Intelligence by Manfred Schewe Coping With Obstacles in Drama-Based ESL Teaching: A Nonverbal Approach by Cameron R. Culham Video Recording and Playback Equipment by Timothy Collins Designing Artful Reflective Strategies: The Guided Case Study by Philip Taylor Undergoing a Process and Achieving a Product: A Contradiction in Educational Drama? by Douglas J. Moody The Educational Potential of Drama for ESL by Sarah Dodson Practical Applications: Courses and Curriculum The Arts and the Foreign/Second Language Curriculum: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Actively Engage Students in Their Own Learning by Janet Hegman Shier Performing Brecht: From Theory to Practice by Franziska Lys, et al Magic on Stage: URFAUST and Other Great Plays for Educational Pleasure by Karla Schultz

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Book SynopsisNoh master Michishige Udaka is the only living actor to continue to create masks while still performing and teaching. In this book he presents 32 of the more than 200 masks he's made to date, accompanied by compelling revelations about the masks and the highly nuanced ancient dramatic art of Noh itself. Ruth Ozeki, who studied Noh theatre under Udaka in Japan, has contributed a new Foreword to further complement the stunning photographs.

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Book SynopsisExplores the relationship between professional baseball and professional theater in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Stern argues that examining theater from this era helps us better understand baseball's development and its transformation from a strictly working-class attraction.

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Book SynopsisThis is a book about video art, and about sound art. The thesis is that sound first entered the gallery via the video art of the 1960s and in so doing, created an unexpected noise. The early part of the book looks at this formative period and the key figures within it - then jumps to the mid-1990s, when video art has become such a major part of contemporary art production, it no longer seems an autonomous form. Paul Hegarty considers the work of a range of artists (including Steve McQueen, Christian Marclay, Ryan Trecartin, and Jane and Louise Wilson), proposing different theories according to the particular strategy of the artist under discussion. Connecting them all are the twinned ideas of intermedia and synaesthesia. Hegarty offers close readings of video works, as influenced by their sound, while also considering the institutional and material contexts. Applying contemporary sound theory to the world of video art, Paul Hegarty offers an entirely fresh perspective on the interactions between sound, sound art, and the visual.Trade ReviewIn Rumour and Radiation, Paul Hegarty provides novel insight into and strong evidence of the audiovisual nature of video arts as it turns out to play a key role in contemporary crossmedia practices. His arguments are convincing: that sound and image in video are different yet connected to each other. His many examples are fascinating, particularly the importance of sounds in the creation of spatial effects in video works where the artists, like Bruce Nauman, Jane and Louise Wilson, Christian Marclay, or Ryoji Ikeda, explore materials and perceptions across usual borders. This work is an illuminating source that sets a new tone for readjustments and critical engagement with multi-sensorial processes in our still predominantly 'visually' conceived culture. * Yvonne Spielmann, Dean of Faculty of Fine Arts, Lasalle College of the Arts, Singapore, author of Video. The Reflexive Medium (2008) and Hybrid Culture (2013) *Table of ContentsAcknowledgements List of Illustrations Introduction: How Video Works and How It Sounds 1 Expanding Cinema 2 Bruce Nauman and the Audiospatial 3 Body as Screen 4 Gary Hill, Seeing Language 5 Bill Viola, Elemental Ambience 6 Dan Graham, Stan Douglas, Laurie Anderson, Dara Birnbaum: Performing Musically 7 Christian Marclay, The Medium as multiple 8 Pipilotti Rist, Immersing 9 Pierre Huyghe, Repurposing Sound 10 Steve McQueen, The Destabilizing Ground 11 Jane and Louise Wilson, An Other Index 12 Total Screen (Ryoji Ikeda, Carsten Nicolai, Granular Synthesis 13 Ryan Trecartin, Videocore End: Elizabeth Price, Noise Capture Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisDennis Eugene Russell is Associate Professor in the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University.

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Book SynopsisThe only book of its kind, South Carolina Onstage offers a collection of plays spanning two hundred years, all by South Carolina authors. It begins with a concise history of the theater in the Palmetto State, from the first dramatic production in Charleston in 1735 and the golden age of the Dock Street and Charleston Theaters, through the rise of opera houses and community theatres across the state, to the dynamic dramatic culture South Carolina today enjoys. Each of the seven plays in Jon W. Tuttle's curated volume illuminates a different moment in South Carolina's history and is prefaced by an introductory essay. The plays included are William Ioor's The Battle of The Eutaw Springs (1807), John Blake White's Modern Honor (1812), Sarah Pogson's Young Carolinians (1818), William Gilmore Simms's Michael Bonham (1855), Rebecca Dial's Sand (1920), Alice Childress's Wedding Band (1966), and Sarah Hammond's Kudzu (2003). Collectively, the plays trace the compelling history of South Carolina drama and capture the rich diversity of the state's playwrights.

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Book SynopsisThe death of Spain’s Don Carlos, Prince of Asturias, on July 24, 1568, remains an enigma. Several accounts insinuated that the Spanish Crown Prince was murdered while incarcerated by order of his father, King Philip II. The mystery of Don Carlos’s death, supported by ambassadorial accounts that implied foul play, became a fertile subject for defamation campaigns against Philip, fostering an extraordinary fluidity between history and fiction. This book investigates three treatments of the Don Carlos legend on which this fluidity had a potent, transformational impact: César Vichard de Saint-Réal’s novel, Dom Carlos, nouvelle historique (1672), Friedrich Schiller’s play, Don Karlos, Infant von Spanien (1787), and Giuseppe Verdi’s opera, Don Carlos (1867). Through these cultural variations on a historical theme, the authors and composer contributed innovative elements to their genres. In The Don Carlos Enigma, the exciting young scholar Maria-Cristina Necula explores how the particular blend of history and fiction around the personage of Don Carlos inspired such artistic liberties with evolutionary outcomes. Saint-Réal advanced the nouvelle historique genre by developing the element of conspiracy. Schiller’s play began the transition from the Sturm und Drang literary movement towards Weimar Classicism. Verdi introduced new dramatic and musical elements to bring opera closer to the realism of dramatic theatre. Within each of these treatments, pivotal points of narrative, semantic, dramatic, and musical transformation shaped not only the story of Don Carlos, but the expressive forms themselves. In support of the investigation, selected scenes from the three works are explored and framed by an engagement with studies in the fields of French literature, German theatre, French and Italian opera, and Spanish history. The enigma of the Spanish prince may never be solved, but Saint-Réal, Schiller, and Verdi have offered alternatives that, in a sense, unburden history of truth that it could never bear alone. In the case of Don Carlos, history is in itself an encyclopedia of variations.

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Book Synopsis

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Book Synopsis

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Book Synopsis

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Book SynopsisNadezhda Ptushkina's plays reflect her keen interest in constructing multidimensional characters that reflect the myriad ways people are affected by today's turbulent world. Often writing strong female roles, she does not shy away from exploring the sometimes tragic implications that lie behind her comical, almost farcical scenes. Ptushkina questions the nature of love, and explores the boundaries between the spiritual and the base, the constructive and the destructive, that lie within every human being. Conflict between the sexes constitutes the core of Ptushkina's plays, in which she warns the audience against confusing sex and love. Ptushkina rejects any notion that men and women are the same, seeing gender differences rather than personality differences as the main source of tension between men and women. Her plays thus dwell on this 'battle of the sexes' and the resulting lack of respect for women that she sees in today's Russia.In this new translation, western readers have a chance to discover why Ptushkina's work holds such wide appeal in the Russian theatre.

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Book Synopsis"Simon Usher is one of the most clear headed thinkers about theatre in this country. He taps onto a well of experience spanning four decades with grace and ferocious honesty. He writes with precision and wit and insight. There is no more essential book for anybody working in or hoping to work in theatre." Simon Stephens ‘Only direct if you can do nothing else.’ ‘Directors: People with incurable cases of writer’s block.’ ‘Direct plays whose authors know more than you do.’ Not so much a how-to-direct book but reflections on a long career directing plays. Presented in the form of aphorisms, apercu, questions, maxims, dialogues and miniature essays aimed at the vocational rather than the career director. Usher emphasizes the reality of life as a theatre director. Directing vocationally is a state of mind, an attitude to life, a philosophical adventure. Directing: A Miscellany is about survival: how to remain creative in good times and bad; how to remain alive as a director in any circumstance. Commenting extensively on the process of acting, Shakespeare and the classics, working with writers and designers, directing techniques, the trials and tribulations of working with others, the book is an aid to reflection for readers.

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Book SynopsisOntroerend Goed is a Belgian, Ghent-based theatre performance group of international renown. The group is made of young creators who explore the space between theatre and performance, writing their own texts from a strong basic concept and adapting familiar formats from various media. From sensorial experiences with blindfolded, individual audience members, over anarchistic teenage performances up to shows that profoundly explore what it means to be a theatre-goer, the group continues to create work that is equally challenging and treacherously shallow. A lot of contemporary plays cannot be experienced unless you’ve attended them and many of those performances are hard to transcribe on paper, because of their visual and physical nature. Of course, it’s always possible to make a video recording, but watching that is a diminished experi­ence. Although Ontroerend Goed embrace the ‘nowness’ of theatre and its visual and physical possibilities, the group wanted to take an extra step to share its work. In this book, Ontroerend Goed explore different forms to convey a theatrical experience on paper. Each performance has its own way of approaching the audience, so each text has its own way to address the reader. This book is not made to turn the page and docu­ment the performances as a past experience, but for people to use it as a tool. A tool to play, adapt, oppose, relive, challenge and inspire.Trade ReviewCovers similar territory to Tim Crouch's The Author in its examination of the role and responsibilities of the audience - undoubted power - fascinating and slippery. * Guardian on The Audience *This isn't a lecture, it doesn't have a message: and yet it looks very like the networked future of political theatre: cool, determined and inside the nerve centre of political thought. * Exeunt Magazine on All That Is Wrong *

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Book SynopsisA volunteer arrives back from working in a refugee camp to discover she is now an "enemy of the people." Arrested and imprisoned for her actions, the only way to maintain her sanity in a world turned upside down is to discover the identity of the mysterious interrogator from her past. A psychological thriller set in a Kafkaesque world that interrogates the language of ‘othering’ and the stories we tell ourselves to justify violence, The Story asks, is mental torture worse than physical? And how long can we last before our loyalty – and sanity – splinters and snaps?

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Book SynopsisThis book delves into the complex narratives surrounding the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian dispute through the unique lens of theatre. This ground-breaking exploration employs postcolonial theory to analyze a diverse array of theatrical works by Israeli, Palestinian, and Western playwrights. By juxtaposing portrayals of significant events such as the Nakba or the Israeli War of Independence, the Intifadas, and the experiences of diaspora and exile, Harras provides a nuanced examination of how these events are represented on stage. The book reveals the profound impact of language in constructing and contesting historical narratives and underscores theatre''s role as a space for cultural critique and self-reflection. This comprehensive study offers new insights into the power of artistic expression to challenge historical dichotomies and encourage a deeper understanding of this enduring conflict. Essential for scholars of Postcolonial Studies, Middle East Studies, and the Performing Arts, this work invites readers to reconsider the conflict through the transformative lens of theatre.

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Book SynopsisA brand new series full of friendship, singing and laughter as war looms...Cleethorpes 1939 With the country teetering on the brink of war everyone faces an uncertain future. Destitute after the tragic death of her father, aspiring singer Jessie Delaney and her family have no choice other than to accept the charity of relatives to ensure a roof over their heads. Spiteful Aunt Iris soon has Jessie dreaming of a life filled with colour and excitement that she knows the theatre can offer. How can Jessie escape the drudgery, support her family and pursue her dreams? Through her father’s connections Jessie finds work as a Variety Girl in a new show at the Empire in Cleethorpes, a small seaside theatre on the east coast. But taking the job means flying solo and leaving her family and her sweetheart, Harry behind. Friendships are forged but will the glamour of show business lose its shine without those she loves close by?A gritty and heart-warming saga perfect for readers of Elaine Everest, Nancy Revell and Pam Howes.Praise for Tracy Baines:‘A charming, heart-warming saga about ambition, hard work and courage in the cut and thrust of a world often driven by jealousy and spite’. Rosie Clarke‘Immerse yourself in the exciting, evocative world of Wartime musical theatre. I highly recommend this book.’ Fenella Miller‘An emotional, entertaining read that had me gripped!’ Sheila Riley'An absorbing and poignant saga. I loved it from the very beginning and would highly recommend it...' Elaine Roberts'Terrific - beautifully written. The book twinkles. A well-crafted and satisfying story' Maisie Thomas‘A pleasure from start to finish.’ Glenda Young‘…you will have to read this well-researched song and dance of a novel in great gulps as I did’ Annie Clark‘I just loved this book! Molly WaltonThe Variety Girls is terrific - beautifully written & with an unusual background. The stage costumes twinkle with sequins and the book twinkles with tiny details of theatre life that add depth and atmosphere to this well-crafted and satisfying story. Maisie Thomas, The Railway Girls‘A pleasure from start to finish.’ Glenda Young, Belle of the Backstreets‘…you will have to read this well-researched song and dance of a novel in great gulps as I did’ Milly Adams‘an evocative, busy, entertaining read, which has well balanced touches of humour, vying with angst, and of course, more than a dollop of tension.’ Margaret Graham, Frost Magazine‘Characterisation is one of the book’s strong points – the individual characters stay in your mind long after you finish the story.’ Barbara Dynes, The Voice

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