Award Monologues for Women is a collection of fifty-four monologues taken from plays written since 1980 that have been nominated for the Pullitzer Prize, the Tony and the Drama Desk Awards in New York, and The Evening Standard and Laurence Olivier Awards in London. The book provides an excellent range of up-to-date audition pieces, usefully arranged in age groups, and is supplemented with audition tips to improve your acting, and to ensure that the best possible performance.

Award Monologues for Men is a collection of fifty monologues taken from plays written since 1980 that have been nominated for the Pullitzer Prize, the Tony and the Drama Desk Awards in New York, and The Evening Standard and Laurence Olivier Awards in London. The book provides an excellent range of up-to-date audition pieces, usefully arranged in age groups, and is supplemented with audition tips to improve your acting, and to ensure you give your best possible performance.

The classic voice-training book for actors, teachers of voice and speech and anyone interested in vocal expression - by a pre-eminent voice teacher, actor and director. Fully revised and expanded edition. Linklater's approach is to liberate the voice you have rather than apply vocal techniques from the outside. Her basic assumption is that everyone possesses a voice capable of expressing whatever emotion, mood or thought he/she experiences. This edition incorporates vocal exercises developed over three decades to help the voice connect viscerally with language - a key element in the actors' craft. 'a radical breakaway from the old formal methods... an invaluable new resource... essential' Educational Theatre Journal 'the best and only work of its kind for vocal training' Educational Theatre News

Acting from Shakespeare's First Folio examines a series of techniques for reading and performing Shakespeare's plays that are based on the texts of the first 'complete' volume of Shakespeare's works: the First Folio of 1623. Do extra syllables in a line suggest how it might be played? Can Folio commas reveal character? Don Weingust places this work on Folio performance possibility within current understandings about Shakespearean text, describing ways in which these challenging theories about acting often align quite nicely with the work of the theories' critics. As part of this study, Weingust looks at the work of Patrick Tucker and his London-based Original Shakespeare Company, who have sought to discover the opportunities in using First Folio texts, acting techniques, and what they consider to be original Shakespearean performance methodologies. Weingust argues that their experimental performances at the Globe on Bankside have revealed enhanced possibilities not only for performing Shakespeare, but for theatrical practice in general.

Slovenia gained its independence in 1991, and joined the European Union in 2004. This book, with its substantial introduction and four Slovene plays in translation, makes a unique contribution to an understanding of both the dramatic and theatrical history of this period of enormous political change in Slovenia. The Great Brilliant Waltz (1985) by Drago Janč ar was written and produced when Slovenia was still part of the former Yugoslavia. This black comedy is set in the mental hospital 'Freedom Sets Free', a metaphor for the totalitarian society of the communist era. Draga Potoč njak is foremost among the few female playwrights in Slovenia. Based on real events, The Noise Animals Make is Unbearable (2003) shows a mentally retarded and severely autistic Bosnian boy after soldiers kill his whole family in front of his eyes, leaving only his grandmother. Critics have seen the play as the best tribute that Slovene drama has offered to the victims of the Bosnian war. The fabric of Duş an Jovanović 's comedy The Boozski Clinic (1999) is the transition into capitalism. Losers on the edge of society, examples of the collateral damage of a newly capitalist society whose rules of operating they do not wish to obey, congregate in a small bar in a small town which used to be the pride of the communist government. Matjaz Zupancic's play The Corridor (2004) is set in the corridor outside a television studio where the 'reality' programme 'Big Brother' is being filmed. The ever-present television camera in the studio represents current invisible but nonetheless totalitarian power, with its technical interference and controlling of individuals' lives.

Acting from Shakespeare's First Folio examines a series of techniques for reading and performing Shakespeare's plays that are based on the texts of the first complete volume of Shakespeare's works: the First Folio of 1623.

Do extra syllables in a line suggest how it might be played? Can Folio commas reveal character? Don Weingust places this work on Folio performance possibility within current understandings about Shakespearean text, describing ways in which these challenging theories about acting often align quite nicely with the work of the theories' critics.

As part of this study, Weingust looks at the work of Patrick Tucker and his London-based Original Shakespeare Company, who have sought to discover the opportunities in using First Folio texts, acting techniques, and what they consider to be original Shakespearean performance methodologies. Weingust argues that their experimental performances at the Globe on Bankside have revealed enhanced possibilities not only for performing Shakespeare, but for theatrical practice in general.

Though it is often neglected in cinema scholarship, screen performance is a crucial element in the ideological and emotional impact of films. More Than a Method: Trends and Traditions in Contemporary Film Performance features twelve essays that analyze performance in post-1950s film, addressing distinct questions about the working relationships between actors and directors and discussing the interplay between performance and cinematic techniques. The authors explain the context for performance analysis as they address an international array of film genres, actors, and directors including Alfred Hitchcock, Gus Van Sant, Robert Bresson, Michelangelo Antonioni, Robert Altman, John Cassavetes, John Sayles, Neil Jordan, Tomas Gutierrez Alea, Stanley Kubrick, Jim Carrey, and John Woo. More Than a Method provides the reader with a historical perspective on film performance theory and explains the relevance of analyzing acting. The essays are divided into three sections: modernism, neonaturalism, and postmodern film performance, each opening with a descriptive discussion of screen acting and the ways dramatic characters are constructed. The authors clearly define terms relating to acting and acting styles and provide brief overviews of the significant themes and predominant visual styles of each director. The volume's essays share a focus on the art and craft of acting, each emphasizing performance as it is presented on-screen, challenging the idea that the best (or only) way to categorize performance is by training or working method. Through dynamic and sophisticated analyses of a wide range of acting styles and choices, More Than a Method fills an important gap in today's film scholarship.

The Routledge Companion to Performance Practitioners collects the outstanding biographical and production overviews of key theatre practitioners first featured in the popular Routledge Performance Practitioners series of guidebooks. Each of the chapters is written by an expert on a particular figure, from Stanislavsky and Brecht to Laban and Decroux, and places their work in its social and historical context. Summaries and analyses of their key productions indicate each practitioner's theoretical approaches to performance and the performer were manifested in practice. With all 22 practitioners from the original series represented, this is the definitive first step for students, scholars and practitioners hoping to acquaint themselves with the leading names in performance, or deepen their knowledge of these seminal figures.

Maxim Gorky was dubbed the father of socialist realism in the Soviet period, but he had forged his career as an internationally known novelist and dramatist some three or more decades earlier. Posing questions that Soviet critics found difficult to confront, the author examines the effects of exile and religion on the content and form of the plays as well as the role played by women, and the personal and political implications of motherhood. All sixteen of Gorky's published plays are covered, and the book explores whether this body of work has themes and styles to unify it. While conflict is central to the core political themes and also infiltrates many aspects of the dramatic style (cartoonish and grotesque), other less expected themes and styles emerge. Viewing the post-revolutionary plays as a development of earlier work leads to a question rarely posed: are the plays written by Gorky in the process of defining the new Party-inspired socialist realism in fact less about socialist realist issues of conformity, and more about Gorky's own painful life experience? And what is equally under the microscope is a search for the monumental style frequently associated with socialist realist theatre: the proposed origins of the spatial grandeur in Gorky's plays come as a surprise.

The Viewpoints is a technique of improvisation that grew out of the postmodern dance world. It was first articulated by choreographer Mary Overlie, who broke down the two dominant issues performers deal with-space and time-into six categories. Since that time, directors Anne Bogart and Tina Landau have expanded her notions and adapted them for actors to function together spontaneously and intuitively and to generate bold, theatrical work.

The Viewpoints are a set of names given to certain principles of movement through time and space-they constitute a language for talking about what happens on stage. Coupling this with Composition, which is the practice of selecting and arranging the separate components of theatrical language into a cohesive work of art, provides theatre artists with an important new tool for creating and understanding their art form.

Primarily intended for the many theatre artists who, in the last several years, have become intrigued with Viewpoints yet have had no single source to refer to in their investigations. It can also be used by anyone with a general interest in collaboration and the creative process, whether in art, business or daily life.

Anne Bogart is Artistic Director of the SITI Company, which she founded with Japanese director Tadashi Suzuki in 1992. She is the recipient of two OBIE Awards and a Bessie Award, and is an associate professor at Columbia University. Her recent works include "Alice's Adventures; Bobrauschenbergamerica; Small Lives, Big Dreams; Marathon Dancing"; and "The Baltimore Waltz."

Tina Landau, noted director and playwright, whose original work includes "Space "("Time "magazine 10 Best), "Dream True" (with composer RickyIan Gordon) and "Floyd Collins "(with composer Adam Guettel), which received the Lucille Lortel Award for Best Musical, an OBIE Award and seven Drama Desk nominations. She has been an ensemble member of the Steppenwolf Theatre Company since 1997.

The Routledge Companion to Performance Practitioners collects the outstanding biographical and production overviews of key theatre practitioners first featured in the popular Routledge Performance Practitioners series of guidebooks. Each of the chapters is written by an expert on a particular figure, from Stanislavsky and Brecht to Laban and Decroux, and places their work in its social and historical context. Summaries and analyses of their key productions indicate how each practitioner's theoretical approaches to performance and the performer were manifested in practice. All 22 practitioners from the original series are represented, with this volume covering those born after 1915. This is the definitive first step for students, scholars and practitioners hoping to acquaint themselves with the leading names in performance, or deepen their knowledge of these seminal figures.

The Theater of Trauma is a groundbreaking re-reading of the relations between psychology and drama in the age of Eugene O'Neill, Susan Glaspell, and their many brilliant contemporaries. American modernist Theater of Trauma drew its vision from the psychological investigation of trauma and its consequences - among them hysteria and dissociation - made by French and American psychiatrists such as the great Pierre Janet, Alfred Binet, William James, Morton Prince, and W.E.B. Du Bois; the European and American « dissociationist culture that developed around their work; and the resulting trauma of World War I. American dramatists' deep resistance to Freud's suppression of trauma challenges the equation of Freud and modernism that has become commonplace in modernist criticism.

"Whitman's Ecstatic Union" rereads the first three editions of Leaves of Grass within the context of a nineteenth-century antebellum evangelical culture of conversion. Though Whitman intended to write a new American Bible and "inaugurate a religion," contemporary scholarship has often ignored the religious element in his poetry. But just as evangelists sought the redemption of America through the reconstruction of individual subjects in conversion, Leaves of Grass sought to redeem the nation by inducing ecstatic, regenerating experiences in its readers. "Whitman's Ecstatic Union "explores the ecstasy of conversion as a liminal moment outside of language and culture, and-employing Althusser's model of ideological interpellation and anthropological models of religious ritual-shows how evangelicalism remade subjects by inducing ecstasy and instilling new narratives of identity. The book analyzes Whitman's historical relationship to preaching and conversion and reads the 1855 "Song of Myself" as a conversion narrative. A focus on the 1856 edition and the poem "To You" explores the sacred seductions at the heart of Whitman's poetry. "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry" and Whitman's vision of a world of perfect miracles are then connected to a conception of universal affection, uncannily paralleling Jonathan Edward's ideal of "love to being in general." A conclusion looks toward the transformations of Whitman's vision in the 1860 edition.

101 great drama games for use in any classroom or workshop setting. Part of the Nick Hern Books Drama Games series. A dip-in, flick-through, quick-fire resource book, packed with 101 lively drama games suitable for players of all ages, with many appropriate for children from age 6 upwards. Whilst aimed primarily at school, youth theatre and community groups, they are equally fun - and instructional - for adults to play in workshop or rehearsal settings. 'An extraordinarily helpful compendium... a valuable help to directors, teachers and workshop leaders' Max Stafford-Clark, from his Foreword

Most historians and literary critics describe Spanish Golden-Age society as anti-Semitic, offering, for example,

Over the years there has been much controversy and confusion about the true nature of The Actors Studio, a secluded workshop in New York City that for decades has had a marked influence on the stage and screen and yet functions like a secret society behind closed doors. It all began when Stanislavsky's Moscow Art Theater brought its brand of ""realism"" to the United States in 1923. The legendary Group Theater of the 1930s followed. Then came the creation of a studio workshop incorporating the provocative acting and directing techniques of Eliza Kazan, and the emergence of Lee Strasberg as Studio head following Kazan's departure. Strasberg's background and the encounters between him and the actors he guided are presented in detail. The lives and careers of early icons like Marlon Brando, Montgomery Clift, Marilyn Monroe and James Dean are examined. Also covered are a progressive trans-Atlantic view of the subject, the Studio's short-lived efforts to form a world-class production company in the 1960s, and a later set of transitions leading to an altered image of the Studio and a change of venue for the 21st century. Such luminaries as these (and many more) have been associated with the Actors Studio: Edward Albee, Lauren Bacall, Glenn Close, Robert DeNiro, Robert Duvall, Danny Glover, Julie Harris, Dustin Hoffman, Dennis Hopper, Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine, Steve McQueen, Paul Newman, Mike Nichols, Al Pacino, Julia Roberts, Eva Marie Saint, Neil Simon, Steven Spielberg, Sylvester Stallone, Rod Steiger, Meryl Streep, Eli Wallach, and Tennessee Williams.

Merely Players? marks a groundbreaking departure in Shakespeare studies by giving direct voice to the Shakespearean performer. It draws on three centuries worth of actors' written reflections on playing Shakespeare and brings together the dual worlds of performance and academia, providing a unique resource for the student and theatre-lover alike.

An exciting and invaluable collection of audition speeches, all chosen from plays produced by the National Youth Theatre of Great Britain, spanning more than sixty years as one of the world's leading companies for young performers. Featuring seventy-five monologues by acclaimed writers such as Zawe Ashton, Moira Buffini, Carol Ann Duffy, Brian Friel, James Fritz, James Graham, Dennis Kelly, Rebecca Lenkiewicz, Gbolahan Obisesan, Evan Placey, Sarah Solemani and Jack Thorne, the book offers rich and diverse roles ranging from teens to adults. Each audition speech also comes with invaluable supporting material - compiled by NYT Associate Artist Michael Bryher - to help you perform the piece to its maximum effect, including: A detailed description of the play that the speech is originally from Contextual information such as what's just happened in the play, where the monologue takes place, to whom the character is talking, and what their motivations are Things to think about when rehearsing and performing the speech The book also provides extensive advice on choosing a speech, working on it and preparing for auditions, plus tips and first-hand insights into the monologues from current NYT members and alumni who've performed them. An ideal resource for actors auditioning for drama school, the NYT or elsewhere, as well as those preparing for showcases or competitions, National Youth Theatre Monologues offers a wide and diverse range of roles, themes and styles - meaning you'll be able to find the speech that's just right for you.

For nearly three centuries, actors have set down in print their reflections on the experience of performing Shakespeare's plays, resulting in a vast, heterogeneous and - remarkably - almost entirely unexamined body of material. Merely Players? brings together the diverse voices of actors writing about their experiences of playing Shakespeare, exploring the ways in which they discuss their embodiment with the performance and their own particular negotiations with the authority and tradition of the Shakespeare name. It should be useful for scholars of Shakespeare, drama and theatre studies, practitioners and theatre-lovers alike.

STAR POWER establishes a new wave of Acting. It speaks to current and relevant issues that creative Actors are grappling with: How do I BE authentic and respond from my truth and still BE the character? How do I respond spontaneously and still fulfill the Director's vision? How do I bring my rich inner imaginative world out to be visible in the material world? What is the theIT factor?
It's STAR POWER
STAR POWER engages the Actor in new possibilities, helping them develop their Authentic Self and define their Individual Signature. As an acting coach, it is Ms. Shurin's job to transform good actors into brilliant ones. This is a book about Ms Shurin's new discoveries on how to create an Individual Signature for the actor. The combination of Individual Signature, becoming that brilliant actor and having the the commitment to become a star is the missing link.
Actors of all levels of experience will find interesting interviews from industry professionals and fellow Actors confirming these principles.
STAR POWER works. It is the future of acting.
Ms. Shurin has recently found that these same principles benefit anyone in any profession:
attorneys, doctors, salespeople, parents, teachers, students, politicans and more. She hopes these life-altering principles will be used for the betterment of humanity.

Stardom Happens is a guide for parents and their children to navigating the intricacies of the entertainment business. It helps parents get their child into the business with information about agents, resumes, auditions, etc. The book also covers the expectations placed on a working child actor and helps families stay positive and avoid problems so that everyone emerges with a good experience.

Movie Acting: The Film Reader explores one of the most central but often overlooked aspects of cinema: film acting.

Combining classic and recent essays, it examines key issues such as:

• 
  
• What constitutes film acting?
• 
  
• How is film acting different from stage acting?
• 
  
• How has film acting changed over time?
• 
  
• What signifies realism in film acting?
• 
  
• How is acting different in different genres?
• 
  
• What is the role of the character actor?

In addition to theoretical essays, contributors provide detailed analyses of specific actors such as Lillian Gish, Marlon Brando and Sidney Poitier. Styles of acting discussed include silent film pantomime, 1930s comedic acting, the Method and acting in avant-garde films. Articles are grouped into thematic sections, each with an introduction by the editor.

Any student of film studies and acting will find this an essential part of their research and reading.

Movie Acting: The Film Reader explores one of the most central but often overlooked aspects of cinema: film acting.

Combining classic and recent essays, it examines key issues such as:

• 
  
• What constitutes film acting?
• 
  
• How is film acting different from stage acting?
• 
  
• How has film acting changed over time?
• 
  
• What signifies realism in film acting?
• 
  
• How is acting different in different genres?
• 
  
• What is the role of the character actor?

In addition to theoretical essays, contributors provide detailed analyses of specific actors such as Lillian Gish, Marlon Brando and Sidney Poitier. Styles of acting discussed include silent film pantomime, 1930s comedic acting, the Method and acting in avant-garde films. Articles are grouped into thematic sections, each with an introduction by the editor.

Any student of film studies and acting will find this an essential part of their research and reading.