Since the sixties, Keith Johnstone has led the work on improvisation in theatre, schools and universities. His unique ideas, set out in the classic text, Impro, have now been taken up by practitioners the world over. Impro for Storytellers builds on and extends the seminal earlier work. Keith's techniques specialize in releasing an individual's potential within the context of group work. He became notorious as the acting coach who would shout 'Be more boring!' and 'Don't concentrate!'. Keith Johnstone is an inspirational teacher and writer, and Impro for Storytellers will encourage a life-long study of human interaction.

From the authors of the successful Grand-Guignol and London's Grand Guignol - also published by UEP - this book includes translations of a further eleven plays, adding significantly to the repertoire of Grand-Guignol plays available in the English language. The emphasis in the translation and adaptation of these plays is once again to foreground the performability of the scripts within a modern context - making Performing Grand-Guignol an ideal acting guide. Hand and Wilson have acquired extremely rare acting copies of plays which have never been published and scripts that were published in the early years of the twentieth century but have not been published since - even in French. Includes plays written by, or adapted from, such notable writers as Octave Mirbeau, Gaston Leroux and St John Ervine as well as examples by Grand-Guignol stalwarts Rene Berton and Andre de Lorde. Also included is the 1920s London translation of Blind Man's Buff written by Charles Hellem and Pol d'Estoc and banned by the Lord Chamberlain. A brief history of the Parisian theatre is also included, for the benefit of readers who have not read the previous books.

William Esper, one of the most celebrated acting teachers of our time, takes us through his step-by-step approach to the central challenge of advanced acting work: creating and playing a character.

'Essential reading for any young actor' Dame Maggie Smith Competition for acting work is fierce and talent is not necessarily enough. Actors need all the help they can get with all aspects of the profession. Now in its fifth edition, completely revised and updated, this practical, comprehensive guide contains invaluable information and advice to enable actors to succeed in the business. Written with honesty, humour and thoroughness, An Actor's Guide to Getting Work draws on the author's rich experience in the field to offer advice to both the novice and the seasoned performer. New material in this fifth edition includes what drama schools are looking for, approaching Shakespeare for audition, professional email etiquette, using the internet as a self-marketing tool, and many more useful checklists and updated insights into the profession.

The way some introductory acting books are written it seems that a literal leg break is your best option. In EThe Young Actor's HandbookE Jeremy Kruse an actor writer producer and director who teaches method acting acting for camera improvisation and sketch comedy at The Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute in New York mends this mangled genre distilling invaluable lessons and years of experience down to a lean mean intuitive hundred page primer.THRather than bludgeoning the uninitiated with dense paragraphs vague concepts and opaque examples EThe Young Actor's HandbookE ignites the beginning actor's creative soul with inspirational acting exercises acting theory writing exercises and insight into what it means to be an actor. This concise and pragmatic manual will guide and inform the young actor beginning actor novice acting teacher or anyone who wants to understand acting through a broad and diverse survey of essential knowledge. The teachings of Richard Boleslavsky Stella Adler Sanford Meisner Uta Hagen Michael Shurtleff Lee Strasberg and Constantin Stanislavsky are eloquently and accessible rendered as are basics of script analysis camera technique the audition mindset agent acquisition and the actor's life.THWhether you're a curious novice veteran acting teacher or even an interested observer EThe Young Actor's HandbookE will enhance your understanding of this vast and rewarding craft.

Strasberg, the father of Method Acting, explains in this book his Method--for the first time in his own words. "Essential reading for actors, directors and students of theater".--Publishers Weekly. Advertising in newspapers and theater publications. Two 8-page photo inserts.

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.

The Singer Acts, The Actor Sings is a practical workbook for singers and actors of all disciplines, from musical theater through classical repertory to popular performance styles. This book addresses the needs of both students and professionals, helping them to face the challenges of musical performance undaunted and to achieve the exhilarating feeling of living through song. Paired with online video exercises and demonstrations, The Singer Acts, The Actor Sings is an essential resource for actors and singers alike, helping them master both art forms and gain deeper insight into their own strengths. Whether you're a singer seeking a straightforward approach to acting, an actor who wants to sing, or a singing actor desiring to take your performances to the next level, this book will prove invaluable in achieving your goal.

The essential handbook for every actor In every drama school, in every English-speaking country, students from all over the world have to learn a Standard English Accent, and voice and drama tutor shave to teach it. But what exactly is it? How many varieties are there? And which one should they use when? Following on from How To Do Accents, this book provides a long awaited,up-to-date answer to these important questions and offers a complete course in how to do A Neutral Standard English Accent & Upper and Upper-Middle Class Varieties Part One: contains all the tools you need to learn a current Neutral Standard English Accent; neutral in terms of class, race, age, gender, occupation and social background Part Two: introduces you to the most useful Upper and Upper-Middle Class varieties of Standard English Accent

'Absolutely delicious . . . Janelle Brown is a surgeon of the complex relationships between women. I gobbled this up' Emma Straub, New York Times bestselling author of All Adults Here 'You won't be able to put this novel down and you won't want to' Laura Dave, no. 1 New York Times bestselling author of The Last Thing He Told Me 'One of those books you'll devour' Chris Bohjalian, New York Times bestselling author of The Flight Attendant 'Janelle Brown has done it again. She has created a deliciously twisty page-turner you won't be able to put down' Angie Kim, Edgar Award-winning author of Miracle Creek 'You be me, and I'll be you' I whispered. As children, Sam and Elli were two halves of a perfect whole: gorgeous identical twins whose parents sometimes couldn't even tell them apart. And once Hollywood discovered them, they became B-list child TV stars, often inhabiting the same role. But as adults, their lives have splintered. After leaving acting, Elli reinvented herself as the perfect homemaker: married to a real estate lawyer, living in a house just blocks from the beach. Meanwhile, Sam has never recovered from her failed Hollywood career, or from her addiction to the pills and booze that have propped her up for the last fifteen years. Sam hasn't spoken to her sister since her destructive behavior finally drove a wedge between them. So when her father calls out of the blue, Sam is shocked to learn that Elli's life has been in turmoil: her husband moved out, and Elli just adopted a two-year-old girl. Now she's stopped answering her phone and checked in to a mysterious spa in Ojai. Is her sister just decompressing, or is she in trouble? Could she have possibly joined a cult? As Sam works to connect the dots left by Elli's baffling disappearance, she realizes that the bond between her and her sister is more complicated than she ever knew.

This book highlights the contributions and careers of Native Americans who have carved impressive careers in Hollywood, from the silent film era of the early 1900s to the present, becoming advocates for their heritage. This book explores how the heritage and behind-the-scenes activities of Native American actors and filmmakers helped shape their own movie images. Native artists have impacted movies for more than a century, but until recently their presence had passed largely unrecognized. From the silent era to contemporary movies, this book features leading Native American actors whose voices have reached a broad audience and are part of the larger conversation about the exploitation of underrepresented people in Hollywood. Each chapter highlights Native actors in lead or supporting roles as well as filmmakers whose movies were financed and distributed by Hollywood studios. The text further explores how a "pan-Indian heritage" that applies to all tribes in terms of spirituality, historical trauma, and a version of ceremony and storytelling have shaped these performers' movie identities. It will appeal to a wide range of readers, including fans of Westerns, history buffs of American popular cinema, and students and scholars of Native American studies. Interviews with today's Native American actors and filmmakers Rare photos of Native artists in film and behind the scenes Foreword by noted film historian and archivist Jan-Christopher Horak Stories of the emergence of Native women in Hollywood Contributions of Native American "consultants" in the movie industry Script revisions of early films highlighting the heritage of Native actors

An actor's deepest desire is to be understood. But when asked to pronounce such words as "chanson," "phantasime," or "quaestor," many otherwise unflappable actors can be rendered speechless. The "Eloquent Shakespeare" aims to untie those tongues and help anyone speak Shakespeare's language with ease. More than 17,500 entries make it the most comprehensive pronunciation guide to Shakespeare's words, from the common to the arcane. Each entry is written in the International Phonetic Alphabet and represents standard American pronunciations, making this dictionary perfect for teachers, actors, and directors all over North America. Renowned Shakespearean voice and text coach Gary Logan has spent years teaching Shakespeare's works to some of the best actors in the world. His book includes proper names and foreign words and phrases, as well as an extensive introduction that covers everything from how to interpret the entries to scansion dynamics. Designed especially for actors, directors, stage managers, and teachers, "The Eloquent Shakespeare" is a one-of-a-kind resource for performing Shakespeare's dramatic works.

Laban's The Mastery of Movement on the Stage, first published in 1950, quickly came to be accepted as the standard work on his conception of human move-ment. When he died, Laban was in the process of preparing a new edition of the book, and so for some time after his death it was out of print. That a second edition appeared was solely due to the efforts of Lisa Ullmann, who, better than any other person, was aware of the changes that Laban had intended to make. The rather broader treatment of the subject made advis-able the change of title, for it was recognised that the book would appeal to all who seek to understand movement as a force in life. In this fourth edition Lisa Ullmann has taken the opportunity to make margin annotations to indicate the subject matter referred to in a particular section of the text, so that specified topics may be easily found. Kinetograms have been added to most of the examples in Chapters 2 and 3, as Laban originally intended, for the growing number of people who read and write movement notation. Lisa Ullmann has also compiled an Appendix on the the structure of effort, drawing largely on material from an unpublished book by Laban. The relationship between the inner motivation of movement and the outer functioning of the body is explored. Acting and dancing are shown as activities deeply concerned with man's urge to establish values and meanings. The student is introduced to basic principles underlying movement expres-sion and experience and the numerous exercises are intended to challenge his or her intellectual, emotional and physical responses. The many descrip-tions of movement scenes and mine-dances are designed to stimulate penetra-tion into man's inner life from where movement and action originate.

What actors do on-screen is a fascination for audiences all over the world. Indeed, the cultural visibility of movie stars is so pronounced that stardom has often been regarded as intrinsic to the medium's specificity. Yet not all great cinematic performances are star turns, and so, what really makes a cinematic performance good, interesting, or important has been a neglected topic in film criticism. This two-volume set presents detailed interpretations of singular performances by several of the most compelling actors in cinema history, asking in many different and complementary ways what makes performance meaningful, how it reflects a director's style, as well as how it contributes to the development of national cinemas and cultures. Whether noting the precise ways actors shape film narrative, achieve emotional effect, or move toward political subversion, the essays in these books innovate new approaches to studying screen performance as an art form and cultural force. This volume focuses on American cinema, including case studies of key performances from actors like Bette Davis, Irene Dunne, Whoopi Goldberg, Cary Grant, Oscar Isaac, Jack Nicholson, Al Pacino, Sidney Poitier, Gena Rowlands, Peter Sellers, Kristen Stewart, and Ethel Waters, amongst many others.

What actors do on-screen is a fascination for audiences all over the world. Indeed, the cultural visibility of movie stars is so pronounced that stardom has often been regarded as intrinsic to the medium's specificity. Yet not all great cinematic performances are star turns, and so, what really makes a cinematic performance good, interesting, or important has been a neglected topic in film criticism. This two-volume set presents detailed interpretations of singular performances by several of the most compelling actors in cinema history, asking in many different and complementary ways what makes performance meaningful, how it reflects a director's style, as well as how it contributes to the development of national cinemas and cultures. Whether noting the precise ways actors shape film narrative, achieve emotional effect, or move toward political subversion, the essays in these books innovate new approaches to studying screen performance as an art form and cultural force. This second volume focuses on international cinema, and includes case studies of key performances from actors like Ingrid Bergman, Gael Garcia Bernal, Nikolai Cherkassov, Alec Guinness, Setsuko Hara, Isabelle Huppert, Peter Lorre, Madhubala, Anna Magnani, Toshiro Mifune, and Choi Min Sik, amongst many others.

The philosopher and educationalist Rudolf Steiner was also a radical dramatist who wrote four lengthy and complex plays. The first of these, The Portal of Initiation, is rich in content and artistically presented, but leaves us with questions: Why is the first scene so long and many speeches so lengthy? Why are our usual expectations of drama not met? Was Steiner really a competent dramatist? In this essential guide, Trevor Dance suggests that the first step to appreciating The Portal of Initiation is to understand Steiner's methods. The play belongs to the tradition of Mystery Dramas from ancient times - artistic works intended as vehicles for inner development. Steiner thus combines aspects of Goethe's alchemical fable The Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily with the spiritual growth of contemporary individuals - all in the broader context of reincarnation and karma. With accessibility in mind, the author provides a clear synopsis of each scene and introduces us to the characters - a collection of rustics, sophisticates, hierophants and spiritual entities. Their dilemmas and challenges take place on many layers of reality: from a room in Sophia's house to the exalted Sun Temple. Revealing the enigmas behind the creation and content of The Portal of Initiation, Dance enables us not only to enjoy the play, but also to love it. His lucid guide - the first of its kind - is an ideal introduction for both individual readers and study groups.

In this third volume in The Actor of the Future series, Dawn Langman continues to explore the integration of Steiner's research into speech, drama and eurythmy with Michael Chekhov's acting methodology. Her advanced applications of all the basic processes allow the art of the actor and speaker to evolve beyond the 'soul and body' paradigm - still broadly accepted in contemporary culture - to include dimensions of the spirit. The book contains a seminal analysis of comedy and tragedy, showing how an understanding of their esoteric roots - sprung from the Eleusis mysteries of ancient Greece - deepen our appreciation and our ability to implement the practical suggestions made by Steiner and Chekhov to differentiate the fundamental styles. A comprehensive exploration of the vowels in relation to planetary beings lays the foundation for many layers of artistic deepening and application.