Essential tips and advice from stars of stage and screen. Actors know the best source of advice on the profession is other actors. Nothing compares with the wisdom and practical know-how acquired through years of working in the business. Advice from the Players features a host of tips and guidance on every aspect of the actor's craft, direct from some of the best-known stars of stage and screen, including Julie Walters, Lenny Henry, Harriet Walter, Simon Callow, Mark Gatiss, David Harewood, Jo Brand, Simon Russell Beale, Lesley Manville, Zawe Ashton and Mathew Horne, amongst many others. Drawing directly on their own personal experience, they offer essential advice on topics including: Applying to drama school Getting an agent Auditions The dos and don'ts of rehearsal Acting for camera Acting comedy Coping with stage fright Surviving the tough times Staying inspired, and much more... Candid, passionate, sometimes contradictory, often very funny - Advice from the Players is a book to turn to whenever you're in need of guidance or inspiration, whether you're a working actor, at drama school, or involved in amateur theatre. It is also an invaluable introduction for those considering a career in the performing arts, and a fascinating read for anyone who wants to know what it's really like to be a working actor.

" Fists upon a Star" is the hard-hitting memoir of Florence James, a pioneering American theatre director, whose devastating experience with McCarthyism led her to flee to Canada.
The memoir is as epic as America itself. Born in 1892 in the frontier society of Idaho, she became a suffragette in New York City, was the first to put Jimmy Cagney on stage, and along with her husband, Burton, founded the Negro Repertory Theater and the nationally recognized Seattle Repertory Playhouse. With star appearances by Woody Guthrie and Helen Hayes, the memoir beautifully illustrates the evolution in her personal life and the development of professional theater during the Great Depression, World War II, and the McCarthy period.
James believed that theatre could offer both an uplifting artistic experience and the tools to advance community development. Her views on art and politics and her choice to stage what some saw as controversial plays led to a clash with the Un-American Activities Committee. After two Kafkaesque trials, a conviction for refusing to follow Committee rules, and being manhandled by police, she fled to Canada.
After settling in Saskatchewan (where she pioneered professional theatre) with her beloved husband, Burton, she marvelled over the "simplicity of causes" that brought the U.S. Government down upon her: "unionism, the eight-hour day, free speech, an uncensored press, freedom from poverty in old age, and health programs... Most of these principles are now the law of the land...But the struggle is hardly over."
Written thirty-five years ago with celebrated actress Jean Freeman, James's memoir sheds light on a fully realized creative life, her love for Burton, and a fascistic strain of American politics that continues to exist today.

Thinking Through Theatre and Performance presents a bold and innovative approach to the study of theatre and performance. Instead of topics, genres, histories or theories, the book starts with the questions that theatre and performance are uniquely capable of asking: How does theatre function as a place for seeing and hearing? How do not only bodies and voices but also objects and media perform? How do memories, emotions and ideas continue to do their work when the performance is over? And how can theatre and performance intervene in social, political and environmental structures and frameworks? Written by leading international scholars, each chapter of this volume is built around a key performance example, and detailed discussions introduce the methodologies and theories that help us understand how these performances are practices of enquiry into the world. Thinking through Theatre and Performance is essential for those involved in making, enjoying, critiquing and studying theatre, and will appeal to anyone who is interested in the questions that theatre and performance ask of themselves and of us.

"New Monologues for Women features "up to 30 monologues from plays published by Bloomsbury Methuen Drama within the past year. The monologues are selected by the editor, Geoffrey Colman, on account of their relevance to drama school students and recent graduates entering the profession. Each monologue is preceded by an introductory paragraph, written either by the editor or a selected actor/director/playwright, outlining the setting, character type, and point in the plot. The monologue itself is annotated by the editor with staging advice, ideas to think about, highlighted points of significance, and information drawn from the professional production/s. There is a margin down the side of each page for the actor to scribble notes and their own annotation.This annual collection is "the "go-to resource for the auditioning actor with an insatiable appetite for new, original and excellent material.