Part of the popular and successful Routledge Performance Practitioners series Includes a wealth of both original exercises and invaluable primary material Written with input from Hart's close collaborators and company members

'I've been waiting for someone to write this book for years: a thorough-going analysis and reconsideration of American approaches to Stanislavsky from a feminist perspective ... lively, intelligent, and engaging.' Phillip Zarrilli, University of Exeter

'Theatre people of any gender will be transformed by Rose Malague 's eye-opening study An Actress Prepares... This book will be useful to all scholars and practitioners determined to make gender equity central to how they hone their craft and their thinking.' Jill Dolan, Princeton University

'Every day, thousands of women enter acting classes where most of them will receive some variation on the Stanislavsky-based training that has now been taught in the U.S. for nearly ninety years. Yet relatively little feminist consideration has been given to the experience of the student actress: What happens to women in Method actor training?'

An Actress Prepares is the first book to interrogate Method acting from a specifically feminist perspective. Rose Malague addresses "the Method" not only with much-needed critical distance, but also the crucial insider's view of a trained actor. Case studies examine the preeminent American teachers who popularized and transformed elements of Stanislavsky 's System within the U.S. Strasberg, Adler, Meisner, and Hagen by analyzing and comparing their related but distinctly different approaches.

This book confronts the sexism that still exists in actor training and exposes the gender biases embedded within the Method itself. Its in-depth examination of these Stanislavskian techniques seeks to reclaim Method acting from its patriarchal practices and to empower women who act.

In Rehearsal is a clear and accessible how-to approach to the rehearsal process. Author Gary Sloan brings more than thirty years' worth of acting experience to bear on the question of how to rehearse both as an individual actor and as part of the team of professionals that underpins any successful production. Interviews with acclaimed actors, directors, playwrights, and designers share a wealth of knowledge on dynamic collaboration.

The book is divided in to three main stages, helping the reader to refine their craft in as straightforward and accessible manner as possible:

• In the world A flexible rehearsal program that can be employed daily, as well as over a typical four week production rehearsal.
• In the room Advice on working independently and productively with other members of a company, such as directors, playwrights, designers and technical crew; how your personal creative process varies depending on the role, be it Shakespeare, musicals, film, television or understudying.
• On your own Creating your own rehearsal process, exploring original and famous rehearsal techniques, breaking through actor's block and how to practice every day.

In Rehearsal breaks down the rehearsal process from the actor 's perspective and equips its reader with the tools to become a generous and resourceful performer both inside and outside the studio. Its independent, creative and daily rehearsal techniques are essential for any modern actor.

From Komisarjevsky in the 1920s, to Cheek by Jowl 's Russian sister company almost a century later, Russian actor training has had a unique influence on modern British theatre. Russians in Britain, edited by Jonathan Pitches, is the first work of its type to identify a relationship between both countries theatrical traditions as continuous as it is complex.

Unravelling new strands of transmission and translation linking the great Russian migr practitioners to the second and third generation artists who responded to their ideas, Russians in Britain takes in:

• Komisarjevsky and the British theatre establishment.
• Stanislavsky in the British conservatoire.
• Meyerhold in the academy.
• Michael Chekhov in the private studio.
• Littlewood 's Theatre Workshop and the Northern Stage Ensemble.
• Katie Mitchell, Declan Donnellan and Michael Boyd.

Charting a hitherto untold story with historical and contemporary implications, these nine essays present a compelling alternative history of theatrical practice in the UK.

Adolphe Appia swept away the foundations of traditional theatre and set the agenda for the development of theatrical practice this century. In Adolphe Appia: Texts on Theatre, Richard Beacham brings together for the first time selections from all his major writings. The publication of these essays, many of which have long been unavailable in English, represents a significant addition to our understanding of the development of theatrical art. It will be an invaluable sourcebook for theatre students and welcomed as an important contribution to the literature of the modern stage.

This book is the broad application of queer theories to the original plays of the contemporary Irish dramatist Frank McGuinness, the only author in Ireland to consistently utilize gay and lesbian themes in his writing. McGuinness continually represents sexual difference in his character development in a way that previous Irish authors have not. In particular McGuinness portrays homosexual protagonists in his dramas, allowing the queer the narrative prerogative, not merely a secondary role in the formation of theatrical perspective. Often it is the homosexual who tells the story or alters the plot through his or her alternative perspective. This book not only analyzes the queer in McGuinness's work, but also contributes to a widening of the conversation and criticism on Irish theatre in general. Its implementation of the internationally recognized paradigm of analysis, queer theory, is cutting-edge in its contribution to the general field of Irish studies as well. As a result of its two-fold agenda of theatrical and cultural analysis, this book not only brings together theories of the queer and the theatre of McGuinness, but it also maps the way in which this queer dramaturgy intersects with contemporary Irish society as it faces a new era of cultural re-invention.

Whether you're applying for drama school, taking an exam, or auditioning for a professional role, it's likely you'll be required to perform one or more monologues, including a piece from a contemporary play. It's vital to come up with something fresh that's suited both to you - in order to allow you to express who you are as a performer - and to the specific purposes of the audition. In this book, you'll find forty fantastic speeches featuring male roles, all written and premiered since the year 2014, by some of today's most exciting dramatic voices from the UK and USA. Playwrights include Annie Baker, Andrew Bovell, Jez Butterworth, Caryl Churchill, Mark Gatiss, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, Anna Jordan, Arinze Kene, Rona Munro and Evan Placey. The plays featured were premiered at leading venues including the National, the Royal Court, the Bush and Hampstead in London, prestigious theatres in Birmingham, Cardiff, Edinburgh and Manchester, and by renowned companies including Frantic Assembly and Paines Plough. Drawing on her experience as an actor, director and teacher at several leading drama schools, Trilby James introduces each speech with a user-friendly, bullet-point list of essential things you need to know about the character, and then five inspiring ideas to help you perform the monologue. This book also features a step-by-step guide to the process of selecting and preparing your speech, and approaching the audition itself. 'Easy-to-use... The guidance is perhaps the most thorough I have seen in a monologue book' Teaching Drama on Trilby James's first volume of Contemporary Monologues Please note that some of the speeches in this volume contain strong language and themes which some readers may find inappropriate.

Denis Diderot (1713-1784) was one of the French philosophers and writers of the Enlightenment. This volume contains the first English translations of his plays, The Illegitimate Son and The Father of the Family. These complex and very entertaining plays delve into the attitudes of the middle-class, bourgeois society and reveal an eighteenth-century "suburbia" that populates dramatic and suspenseful situations and settings. The translations are vivid and contemporary and bring the plays alive to early twenty-first-century stage and culture.

The Routledge Companion to Studio Performance Practice is a unique, indispensable guide to the training methods of the world's key theatre practitioners. Compiling the practical work outlined in the popular Routledge Performance Practitioners series of guidebooks, each set of exercises has been edited and contextualised by an expert in that particular approach. Each chapter provides a taster of one practitioner's work, answering the same key questions: 'How did this artist work? How can I begin to put my understanding of this to practical use?' Newly written chapter introductions put the exercises in context, explaining how they fit into the wider methods and philosophy of the practitioner in question. All 21 volumes in the original series are represented in this volume.

Routledge Performance Practitioners is a series of introductory guides to the key theatre-makers of the last century. Each volume explains the background to and the work of one of the major influences on twentieth- and twenty-first-century performance. Antonin Artaud was an active theatre-maker and theorist whose ideas reshaped contemporary approaches to performance. This is the first book to combine an overview of Artaud's life with a focus on his work as an actor and director; an analysis of his key theories, including the Theatre of Cruelty and the double; a consideration of his work as a director at the Theatre Alfred Jarry and his production of Strindberg's A Dream Play; and a series of practical exercises to develop an approach to theatre based on Artaud's key ideas. As a first step towards critical understanding and as an initial exploration before going on to further, primary research, Routledge Performance Practitioners are unbeatable value for today's student.

Packed with insights from a lifetime of directing theatre, Words into Action is a fascinating read and a vital masterclass for actors and directors. Renowned theatre director William Gaskill was one of the founders of the Royal Court, whose ethos, as Christopher Hampton says in his Foreword, 'this book goes a long way towards defining'. Gaskill's acclaimed work as a director always began with the words of the playwright, and here, starting with a chapter on 'Trusting the Writer', he takes the actor through the vital steps needed to find the life of the play and then to articulate it on stage. Drawing instances from his own work in the theatre and from teaching at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, he looks at action and intention, stillness and movement, sentences and rhetoric, punctuation and pauses. He pays detailed attention to staging Shakespeare's plays, and there are also chapters on masks, on language as character, and on verse and prose. Gaskill was, says Maggie Smith, 'the best teacher in the world.'

Acting Reframes presents theatre and film practitioners with a methodology for using Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) as a tool to aid their practice. Author Robert Barton uses the NLP approach to illustrate a range of innovative methods to help actors and directors, including: * reducing performance anxiety * enabling clearer communication * intensifying character analysis * stimulating imaginative rehearsal choices. The author also shows how NLP can used alongside other basic training systems to improve approaches to rehearsal and performance. The book shows the use of NLP to the reader in a playful, creative and easily accessible style that is structured to enable solo study as well as group work. The text offers a range of engaging exercises and extensive analysis of language patterns used in performance. It is a source for enhancing communication between all theatre practitioners in training, productions, and daily life outside the theatre. Acting Reframes gives actors a richly rewarding approach to help them develop all aspects of their craft.

This book gives new insight into acting and theatre-making through phenomenology (the study of how the world shows itself to conscious experience). It examines Being-in-the-world in everyday life with exercises for workshops and rehearsal. Each chapter explores themes to guide the creative process through objects, bodies, spaces, being with others, time, history, freedom and authenticity. Key examples in the work are drawn from Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard, Sophocles' Antigone and Shakespeare's Hamlet. Practical tasks in each section explore how the theatrical event can offer unique insight into Being and existence. In this way, the book makes a bold leap to understand acting as an embodied form of philosophy and to explain how phenomenology can be a rich source of inspiration for actors, directors, designers and the creative process of theatre-making. This original new book will provide new insight into the practice and theory of acting, stimulate new approaches to rehearsal and advance the notion of theatre making a genuine contribution to philosophical discourse. The fundamental task of the actor is to be on stage with purposeful action in the given circumstances. But this simple act of 'Being' is not easy. Phenomenology can provide valuable insight into the challenge. For some time, scholars have looked to phenomenology to describe and analyse the theatrical event. But more than simply drawing attention to embodiment and the subjective experience of the world, a philosophical perspective can also shed light on broader existential issues of being. No specialist knowledge of philosophy is required for the reader to find this text engaging and it will be relevant for second-year students and above at tertiary level. For postgraduates and researchers, the book will provide a valuable touchstone for phenomenology and performance as research. The book will appeal to theatre and performance studies, and some applied philosophy courses. The material is also relevant to studies in literary and critical theory, cultural studies and comparative literature. The work is relevant to The International Federation of Theatre Research (IFTR/FIRT) (Performance and Consciousness), Performance Studies International (psi) and the Performance Philosophy Research Network - an influential and growing research field. Primary markets for this book will be students (both at university and conservatoires) and academics in theatre studies, as well as practitioners and actors in training. The text will be useful to students in units or modules relating to acting theory and theatre-making processes, and which combine critical theory with practical performance. It will also be useful for practitioners of theatre looking to expand or inflect their own methods of approaching performance.

Acting: The First Six Lessons was first published in 1933 and remains a key text for anyone studying acting today. These dramatic dialogues between teacher and idealistic student explore the field of acting according to one of the original teachers of Stanislavsky's System in America.

This new edition of an essential text is edited by Rhonda Blair and supplemented for the very first time with documents from the American Laboratory Theatre. These collect together a broad range of exciting unpublished material, drawn from Boleslavsky's pivotal and unprecedented teachings on acting at the American Laboratory Theatre. Included are:

Performative theatre is one of the most important trends of our time. It is emblematic of the work of many European theatrical artists in the early twenty-first century. Annamaria Cascetta does not propose a model or a historical overview, but rather strives to identify the salient features of a significant trend in the theatrical research and transformation of our time by analysing some crucial examples from outstanding works, of great international resonance. She draws on work by artists from different generations, all active between the late twentieth century and the first decades of the twenty-first, and in various European countries, performed in a number of European theatres in recent years. The aim is to apply a method of analysis in depth, bringing out the technical elements of contemporary "performative theatre" in the field, and above all to highlight the close links between it and the urgent and troubled issues and problems of history and society in the phase of cultural and anthropological transition we are experiencing.

This book deals with the process of negotiation with the past in the present through the plays of Marina Carr. The title frames the work, connoting the path towards destruction and the sense of lethargy acquired along the way. The book offers an in-depth and extensive reading of Carr's plays. In doing so, it surveys some of the destructive issues represented in the works and provides a series of social and cultural contexts to which the concerns in the works are related. Carr is best known for her trilogy, The Mai, Portia Coughlan and By the Bog of Cats..., and more recently Woman and Scarecrow, The Cordelia Dream and Marble. The plays are regularly concerned with notions of identity in the context of self-destruction, self-estrangement and displacement. This book applies Julia Kristeva's theory of abjection to Carr's plays in an effort to structure the loss the author identifies in the works. Themes of memory, history and myth are examined in the context of these concerns in provocative and confrontational ways.

One of the original members of Jerzy Grotowskia (TM)s acting company, Zygmunt Molika (TM)s Voice and Body Work explores the unique development of voice and body exercises throughout his career in actor training.

This book, constructed from conversations between Molik and author Giuliano Campo, provides a fascinating insight into the methodology of this practitioner and teacher, and focuses on his a ~Body Alphabeta (TM) system for actors, allowing them to combine both voice and body in their preparatory process.

The book is accompanied by a DVD containing the films Dyrygent (2006), which illustrates Molika (TM)s working methods, Acting Therapy (1976), exploring his role in the Theatre of Participation, and Zygmunt Molik's Body Alphabet (2009). It also includes an extensive photo gallery documenting Zygmunt Molika (TM)s life and work.

This book was awarded a Special Mention Citation in the 2010 competition for the 'de la Torre Bueno Prize' by The Society of Dance History Scholars. In the region of Salento in Southern Italy, the music and dance of the pizzica has been used in the ritual of tarantism for many centuries as a means to cure someone bitten by the taranta spider. This book, a historical and ethnographic study of tarantism and pizzica, draws upon seven hundred years of writings about the ritual contributed by medical practitioners, scientists, travel writers and others. It also investigates the contemporary revival of interest in pizzica music and dance as part of the 'neo-tarantism' movement, where pizzica and the history of tarantism form a complex web of place, culture and identity for Salentines today. This is one of the first books in English to explore this fascinating ritual practice and its contemporary resurgence. It uses an interdisciplinary framework based in performance studies to ask wider questions about the experience of the body in performance, and the potential of music and dance to create a sense of personal and collective transformation and efficacy.

One of the original members of Jerzy Grotowski's acting company, Zygmunt Molik's Voice and Body Work explores the unique development of voice and body exercises throughout his career in actor training.

This book, constructed from conversations between Molik and author Giuliano Campo, provides a fascinating insight into the methodology of this practitioner and teacher, and focuses on his ?Body Alphabet? system for actors, allowing them to combine both voice and body in their preparatory process.

The book is accompanied by a DVD containing the films Dyrygent (2006), which illustrates Molik's working methods, Acting Therapy (1976), exploring his role in the Theatre of Participation, and Zygmunt Molik's Body Alphabet (2009). It also includes an extensive photo gallery documenting Zygmunt Molik's life and work.

For centuries the theater has been one of the major forms of art. How did acting, and its institutionalization in the theater, begin in the first place? In some cultures complex stories relate the origin of acting and the theater. And over time, approaches to acting have changed considerably. In the West, until the end of the 19th century, those changes occurred within the realm of acting itself, focusing on the question of whether acting should be 'natural' or 'formal.' Approaches to acting were closely related to the trends in culture at large. Acting became more and more professional and sophisticated as philosophical theories developed and knowledge in the human sciences increased. In the 20th century, the director was established as the most important force in the theater--able to lead actors to pinnacles of their art which they could not have achieved on their own. Approaches to acting in non-Western cultures follow quite different patterns. This book provides a clear overview of different approaches to acting, both historical and contemporary, Western and non-Western, and concludes with a challenge to the future of the art.

The Lee Strasberg Notes reproduces the original teachings of a unique voice in actor training, for the very first time. It is a stunning document in the history and ongoing practice of Strasberg 's Method.

Compiled and edited by Lola Cohen, the book is based on unpublished transcripts of Strasberg 's own classes on acting, directing and Shakespeare. It recreates his theoretical approach, as well as the practical exercises used by his students, and brilliantly conveys his approach and personality.

The book features Strasberg 's teachings on:

Training and exercises

Characters and scenes

Directing and the Method

Shakespeare and Stanislavski

The theater, acting and actors.

Including a Preface by Anna Strasberg and a Foreword by Martin Sheen, this illuminating book brings the reader closer to Strasberg 's own methods than any other, making it a phenomenal resource for students, actors, and directors.

Acting in Musical Theatre remains the only complete course in approaching a role in a musical. It covers fundamental skills for novice actors, practical insights for professionals, and even tips to help veteran musical performers refine their craft. Educators will find the clear structure ideal for use with multiple courses and programs. Updates in this expanded and revised third edition include: A comprehensive revision of the book's companion website into a fully online "Resource Guide" that includes abundant teaching materials and syllabi for a range of short- and long-form courses, PowerPoint slide decks and printable handouts for every chapter. Updated examples, illustrations, and exercises from more recent musical styles and productions such as Hamilton, Waitress, and Dear Evan Hansen. Revision of rehearsal and performance guidelines to help students and teachers at all levels thrive. Updated and expanded reading/listening/viewing lists for specific-subject areas, to guide readers through their own studies and enhance the classroom experience. New notes in the "The Profession" chapters to reflect the latest trends in casting, self-promotion, and audition practice. Acting in Musical Theatre's chapters divide into easy-to-reference units, each containing group and solo exercises, making it the definitive textbook for students and practitioners alike.

Actor Training expands on Alison Hodge s highly-acclaimed and best-selling Twentieth Century Actor Training. This exciting second edition radically updates the original book making it even more valuable for any student of the history and practice of actor training. The bibliography is brought right up to date and many chapters are revised. In addition, eight more practitioners are included - and forty more photographs - to create a stunningly comprehensive study.

The practitioners included are:

Stella Adler; Eugenio Barba; Augusto Boal; Anne Bogart; Bertolt Brecht; Peter Brook; Michael Chekhov; Joseph Chaikin; Jacques Copeau; Philippe Gaulier; Jerzy Grotowski; Maria Knebel; Jacques Lecoq; Joan Littlewood; Sanford Meisner; Vsevolod Meyerhold; Ariane Mnouchkine; Monika Pagneux; Michel Saint-Denis; W odzimierz Staniewski; Konstantin Stanislavsky; Lee Strasberg

The historical, cultural and political context of each practitioner s work is clearly set out by leading experts and accompanied by an incisive and enlightening analysis of the main principles of their training, practical exercises and key productions.

This book is an invaluable introduction to the principles and practice of actor training and its role in shaping modern theatre.

A collection of comedic and dramatic monologues with 50 monologues for boys and 50 monologues for girls.

'Adrian Noble vigorously highlights the extraordinary rhythmic, linguistic patterns Shakespeare gives the speaker. Any actor will find this book invaluable. For any student of Shakespeare it should be essential.' (From the Foreword by Ralph Fiennes)

'How can I bring the text alive, make it vivid, how do I make people hear it for the first time? How can I enter into that world and not feel a stranger. How can I not feel clumsy and inept? ... How can I speak it without sounding artificial or "actory"? In other words, how can I make it real ...?'

Adrian Noble has worked on Shakespeare with everyone from oscar-nominated actors to groups of schoolchildren. Here he draws on several decades of top-level directing experience to shed new light on how to bring some of theatre s seminal texts to life.

He shows you how to approach the perennial issues of performing Shakespeare, including:

• wordplay using colour and playing plain, wit and comedy, making language muscular
• building a character different strategies, using the text, Stanislavski and Shakespeare
• shape and structure headlining a speech, playing soliloquys, determining a speech s purpose and letting the verse empower you
• dialogue building tension, sharing responsibility and passing the ball .

This guided tour of Shakespeare s complex but unfailingly rewarding work stunningly combines instruction and inspiration.