In the tradition of the medieval cycle plays performed for education, enrichment, and entertainment, A New Corpus Christi: Plays for Churches presents 25 short plays and skits with one or two scripts for each of 21 events in the church year. The scripts range from celebratory pieces to problem plays to liturgical dramas to plays that call for no worship setting accouterments. The scripts will also provide discussion starters for Sunday school classes or small groups. And some of the plays might be grouped together as programs on particular topics such as poverty and homelessness or death and dying. This book also provides a resource for university and seminary courses in liturgics and worship.

This practical, accessible and far-reaching guide to making site-specific theatre and performance emphasises the diversity of approaches to the practice, and explores key principles of space and site. Phil Smith draws on a wide range of interdisciplinary and international performance examples, and uses an innovative variety of exercises, to show students and aspiring performance-makers how to find a site and generate a performance beyond the theatre building.

Scenography Expanded is a foundational text offering readers a thorough introduction to contemporary performance design, both in and beyond the theatre. It examines the potential of the visual, spatial, technological, material and environmental aspects of performance to shape performative encounters. It analyses examples of scenography as sites of imaginative exchange and transformative experience and it discusses the social, political and ethical dimensions of performance design. The international range of contributors and case studies provide clear perspectives on why scenographic design has become a central consideration for performance makers today. The extended introduction defines the characteristics of 21st-century scenography and examines the scope and potentials of this new field. Across five sections, the volume provides examples and case studies which richly illustrate the scope of contemporary scenographic practice and which analyse the various ways in which it is used in global cultural contexts. These include mainstream theatre practice, experimental theatre, installation and live art, performance in the city, large-scale events and popular entertainments, and performances by and for specific communities.

Shakespeare's plays present the dynamics of personal relationships in a way that is direct and unambiguous, and with unparalleled forcefulness. This book concentrates on three of Shakespeare's last plays, King Lear, Pericles and The Tempest, allowing them to demonstrate the underlying dynamic of theatre as it is embodied within the work of a master craftsman. The three plays are widely dissimilar from one another at the surface level, yet they all concentrate on a particular relationship - that between fathers and daughters - working outwards from the centre of human experience and using the fundamental relational paradigm as it is enshrined in theatre, especially Shakespeare's. As a professional actor as well as an academic, the author combines an actor's understanding with psychodynamics and literary criticism.

Concert Sound and Lighting Systems provides comprehensive coverage of equipment and setup procedures for touring concert systems. The new edition will cover the new equipment now available and discuss other venues where the skills and technology are being used. This new edition incorporates the continuing developments in concert sound and lighting systems maintaining the premise that the reader has had no previous experience. The practical how-to illustrations teach the reader about the equipment, and this thoroughly updated edition will include new equipment such as radio microphones, in-ear monitoring, digital audio products and digital lighting products. The author also discusses new venues outside the traditional concert touring environment and applies the skills and technology to such diverse events as product launches, theatrical arena spectaculars and outdoor stadium productions. In addition to an introductory section on touring concerts, there are sections on sound systems and lighting systems and an explanation of how all the parts fit together to create a professional, safe, efficient show.

Encountering Texts represents the theory and praxis uncovered through an ongoing interdisciplinary arts-based critical pedagogy that engages students in critical self-reflection (disciplined, sustained thinking, requiring engagement) on difference. The Multicultural Theatre Project (MTP) is a dialogical encounter with literature through the dramatic arts. This book provides a blueprint for the multiple ways in which this enacted theory/method can be utilized as a high impact practice toward transformative learning. The significance of minority literature as fertile testing ground for raising and seeking to answer questions about difference is undisputed. To address this dynamic, this research utilizes Hans-Georg Gadamer's hermeneutical method of understanding to engage students in the interpretive process using theatre as methodology. Gadamer's concept, described as a fusion of horizons, provides a methodological approach by which students can bring their own "effective history" to the hermeneutical task. He argues that hidden prejudices keep the interpreter from hearing the text. Thus an awareness of these prejudices leads to an openness that allows the text to speak. The MTP facilitates this kind of subjectivity by engaging the interpreter holistically. This integrative work provides a promising pragmatic interdisciplinary approach to teaching and learning that creates bridges to liberatory knowledge, both cognitively and affectively.

The cultural discourse of theatrical performance defines the theatre sign interaction as an active semiosis. This, in turn, specifies the main objective of the study - the formulation of the basic parameters of this architectonics as a fundament of theatralite. Since the time of Antiquity the theatre has always been discussing general aesthetic, philosophical, ethical and social issues in the context of a visual image of the specific objects of an intellectual discourse. The book takes a close look at this process of signification, formation of meanings, presentation and interpretation on stage: a theatre performance is a product of an intense sign environment and a major symbol of theatricality.

Encountering Texts represents the theory and praxis uncovered through an ongoing interdisciplinary arts-based critical pedagogy that engages students in critical self-reflection (disciplined, sustained thinking, requiring engagement) on difference. The Multicultural Theatre Project (MTP) is a dialogical encounter with literature through the dramatic arts. This book provides a blueprint for the multiple ways in which this enacted theory/method can be utilized as a high impact practice toward transformative learning. The significance of minority literature as fertile testing ground for raising and seeking to answer questions about difference is undisputed. To address this dynamic, this research utilizes Hans-Georg Gadamer's hermeneutical method of understanding to engage students in the interpretive process using theatre as methodology. Gadamer's concept, described as a fusion of horizons, provides a methodological approach by which students can bring their own "effective history" to the hermeneutical task. He argues that hidden prejudices keep the interpreter from hearing the text. Thus an awareness of these prejudices leads to an openness that allows the text to speak. The MTP facilitates this kind of subjectivity by engaging the interpreter holistically. This integrative work provides a promising pragmatic interdisciplinary approach to teaching and learning that creates bridges to liberatory knowledge, both cognitively and affectively.

Krzysztof Warlikowski's work stands among the most remarkable phenomena in post-1989 European theater. This book joins Warlikowski's theater with the dynamic changes in Polish society following 1989, using strategies borrowed from psychoanalysis, theater anthropology, performance studies, and cultural poetics. This book is not only about an artist of the theater, but above all about the theater production as an object of the audience's desire, an object evoking fascination, revulsion, aversion, and opposition. This is why the performances are analyzed as a series of flash-points, constellations with powerful affective impacts. It focuses on fragments of social rituals, material objects with major potential to spark audience emotions, and gestures of violence. The piecemeal narrative serves to cull out aspects of Warlikowski's performances that could be read as symptoms of social drama.

Cruel Britannia: Sarah Kane's Postmodern Traumatics examines four plays by British playwright Sarah Kane (1971-1999), all written between 1995 and 1999 within the context of the "Cool Britannia", or "In-Yer-Face" London theatre movement of the 1990s. Kane's plays were notorious for their shocking productions and challenging and offensive subject matter. This book analyzes her plays as products of a long history of theatrical convention and experimentation, rather than trend. I read Kane's plays through an optic of trauma theory, and link the trauma to postmodern experience as defined by war, inter-personal violence, repetitive memory, and sex as medium of violence. Kane's plays' unrelenting violence and graphic depictions of violent sex suggest a relationship with theories and practices such as Artaud's theatre of cruelty, and Kroker and Cook's theory of the postmodern as sign of excremental culture and an inherently abject state of being. Through a play by play analysis I conclude that Kane's work suggests that violence and trauma are endemic to postmodern life, and are ultimately apocalyptic due to their culmination in Kane's final play, the suicide text of 4.48 Psychosis.

Focussing on costume in performance, this reader brings together key texts, case studies and interviews. Exploring costume's role and function in a variety of theoretical, historical, conceptual and practical contexts, this exciting volume also reflects on the broader relationship between costume and visual culture throughout.

Special effects have become an increasingly important part of both film and theatre production. With storylines becoming more sensational and technology more sophisticated, the market for high-quality special effects is huge. In this book Janus Vinther provides step-by-step guidelines for achieving a wide variety of grotesque and outlandish effects, including bullet holes, body fluids and burns. In addition there is a chapter on specialised character make-up, ranging from Dracula to the Terminator. With detailed explanation of techniques and materials and illustrated throughout, this book contains everything you need to know to look your worst.

"This collection of essays provides new perspectives on reading, reinterpreting, appropriating and popularising Shakespeare through the work of women - actresses, directors, designers, translators and scholars from different cultural, social and political, mostly non-English speaking, contexts. Raising a wide variety of urgent issues relating not only to Shakespeare but also to the arts, to gender matters, and to postcolonial and ethnic studies, this volume advocates both the illumination of the often neglected, forgotten and rarely appreciated women - who deserve the spotlight of attention on an international level - and the need for revisions in Shakespearean studies, which are dominated by cultural sameness of prevalently male professionals." (Prof. Dr. habil. Bozenna Chylinska, Institute of English Studies, University of Warsaw)

A Theater Criticism/Arts Journalism Primer: Refereeing the Muses examines the skill set associated with being a critic and arts journalist. It explores the history, evolution, and future of the profession in the United States, and carefully and purposefully dissects the preparation, observation, and writing process associated with generating thoughtful and interesting arts criticism. Using theatrical productions as the best and most vivid example of a storytelling enterprise that employs creativity, imagination, collaboration, aesthetics, and artisanship to effectively engage an audience, this book is intended to generate the critical thinking and critical writing skills necessary to effectively engage in all forms of arts journalism. It is designed to be used as a college-level textbook on theater criticism and arts journalism courses, for those looking to become more thoughtful, critical consumers, for casual critics thinking about starting a blog or working for their university newspaper, and for working critics hoping to improve their craft. The text is written in an accessible style and includes quotes from renowned critics and arts practitioners throughout as well as frequent sidebars that offer timely, insightful, and entertaining examples of the points being made in the text.

How has light influenced the staging of theatre throughout history? What does light contribute to performance? How does it make meaning? This collection explores the creative potential of light in the theatre. Through a wide range of extracts from historical accounts, new research and rare documents, some presented for the first time in English, Scott Palmer provides new ways of thinking about lighting as a creative performance practice. Focusing on elements such as: * the emergence of lighting design in the theatre * equipment and techniques * the dramaturgy of light * its impact on actor, audience and playhouse * the semiotics and phenomenology of light in performance the book reveals why light has such a profound effect on the audience's experience of a theatrical event.

Of all the playwrights from the age of Louis XIV, only Moliere's work is still regularly performed in France and beyond. This book analyses certain elements of the plays that may explain Moliere's longevity: a plausible chain of events peppered with shocks and surprises; tensions between opposites; intellectual concerns that had not previously been the province of comedy; and plots founded on situations that are anything but comic. These hallmarks added up to an intense type of comic theatre, meaningful in ways that gave the genre a new dimension. The author of this study does not treat Moliere's plays as variations on a single prototype, but brings a fresh approach to each. The book's witty, learned and penetrating readings examine critical issues such as the ambiguous anti-feminism of Les Femmes savantes, Moliere's revisions of the myth of Don Juan, 'conversion' as the theological starting point of Le Tartuffe, contrariety as the basis of comedies such as George Dandin and Le Misanthrope, and coded satire in the comedie-ballets. Each play is revealed to have a seamless comic design, while at the same time speaking to the wider world. Moliere's works are shown to be entirely and immediately involved in human society, in the social dimension of the human condition.

Curriculum and the Aesthetic Life brings together over 20 years of scholarly work by dancer, educator, and scholar Donald S. Blumenfeld-Jones on the intersection of curriculum theory and practice with aesthetics, ethics, and hermeneutic inquiry, focusing on the body and emotions and the theory and practice of Arts-Based Education Research, including his noted "Hogan Dreams." He brings to his work an aesthetic sensibility developed over 40 years of active involvement in the arts as well as a Frankfurt School critical theory orientation and a constant concern for building an ethical world through cultivating an aesthetic awareness. This linking of aesthetics and ethics makes a unique contribution to the theoretical foundations of curriculum theory and educational philosophy. Always concerned with connections to practice, this book provides many examples of curriculum practice and teaching as well as scholarly studies of curriculum work. This book is essential reading for anyone involved in the arts and education.

When Black runway models began throwing phones and VH1's "Divas Live" riveted viewers, a new paradigm for Black women had fully evolved in the form of the Black Diva. Tracing the trajectory of the Diva figure from the Italian castrati to Ntozake Shange's Liliane: Resurrection of the Daughter suggests a way around staid and fixed stereotypes about Black womanhood. The Black Diva performs her demands as a quintessential act of survival in a hostile and racist world; she is both a product of and a mark against the male gaze, Black and white. Ultimately, Tipping on a Tightrope: Divas in African American Literature uses present popular culture incarnations of the Diva to detail her long relationship with Black American literary culture.

The only reporter James Cameron invited to chronicle the astonishing three-year odyssey that was the making of Titanic, Paula Parisi details the behind-the-scenes adventure so vividly you feel as if you are there. In this fast-paced narrative, we dive with Cameron twelve thousand feet to the wreckage of the Titanic. We're with him as he plans and budgets the film, scouts locations, and casts the actors; as he builds a state-of-the-art studio in Mexico, deals with studio executives, edits fourteen days' worth of film, and supervises more than five hundred special effects. Cameron also collaborates with composer James Horner and singer Celine Dion, and ultimately wins the gold: eleven Academy Awards, including Best Director and Best Picture. Excerpts from Cameron's journals are cited throughout.

In addition, there's Cameron's own story: his childhood and family life; his first experience in film, working for Roger Corman; and fascinating stories about the founding of Lightstorm and the making of Terminator, Aliens, The Abyss, Terminator 2, True Lies, and, ultimately, Titanic.

This book brings together twelve specially commissioned essays that showcase current research on Spanish Republican exile theatre and performance, including work by some of the foremost scholars in the field. Covering a range of periods, geographical locations and theatrical phenomena, the essays are united by the common question of what it means to 'stage exile', exploring the relationship between space, identity and performance in order to excavate the place of theatre in Spanish Republican exile production. Each chapter takes a particular case study as a starting point in order to assess the place of a particular text, practitioner or performance within Hispanic theatre tradition and then goes on to examine the case study's relationship with the specific sociocultural context in which it was located and/or produced. The authors investigate wider issues concerning the recovery and performability of these documentary traces, addressing their position within the contemporary debate over historical and cultural memory, their relationship to the contemporary stage, the insights they offer into the experience and performance of exile, and their contribution to contemporary configurations of identity and community in the Hispanic world. Through this commitment to interdisciplinary debate, the volume offers a new and invigorating reimagination of twentieth-century Hispanic theatre from the margins.

This work presents a detailed study of the five key ballet organisations that operated in Ireland between 1927 and 1963: the Abbey Theatre School of Ballet, the Abbey School of Ballet, the Sara Payne School and Company, the Irish Ballet Club and the National Ballet School and Company. By examining a previously neglected dimension of Irish artistic life, this study aims to provide a greater appreciation of the various roles that ballet has played in the development of Irish cultural activity. It records the rich interaction between the different dance artists and movements and their collaborators across the entire spectrum of Irish artistic endeavour, including Cecil ffrench Salkeld, F. R. Higgins, Mainie Jellett, Patrick Kavanagh, J. F. Larchet, Louis le Brocquy, Elizabeth Maconchy, Donagh MacDonagh, Brinsley MacNamara, Micheal Mac Laimmoir, Norah McGuinness, A. J. Potter, Lennox Robinson, Michael Bowles, Mary Devenport O'Neill, Anne Yeats and W. B. Yeats. This book breaks significant new ground for an area in which little published information exists. The author pieces together research on the schools and companies from interviews, ballet programmes, playbills, libretti, scores, memoirs, contemporary press reviews, literary articles and photographs, to form a fascinating narrative of the under-researched world of Irish ballet.

This is the first anthology to explore the fertile intersection of dance and political studies. It offers new perspectives on the connections of dance to governmental, state and party politics, war, nationalism, activism, terrorism, human rights, political ideologies and cultural policy. This cutting-edge book features previously unpublished work by leading scholars of dance, theatre, politics, and management, alongside renowned contemporary choreographers, who propose innovative ways of looking at twentieth- and twenty-first-century dance. Topics covered range across the political spectrum: from dance tendencies under fascism to the use of choreography for revolutionary socialist ends; from the capacity of dance to reflect the modern market economy to its function in campaigns for peace and justice. The book also contains a comprehensive introduction to the relations between dance and politics.

Universally proclaimed as the most important Spanish playwright of the last half of the twentieth century, Antonio Buero Vallejo was deemed by a Madrid theater critic to be the greatest author of theater since Calderon de la Barca. This book explores ten of Buero's thirty plays, utilizing literary approaches ranging from the traditional to the radical. It breaks new ground by indicating how contemporary analyses can extrapolate vital interpretations in addition to what has been previously observed in Buero's theater. Simultaneously, the study metonymically evokes the depth and breadth of the plays not studied herein, suggesting they hold unexplored treasures for prospective explorers of the playwright's work.