eBook available with sample pages: HB:0415194539

This book is about two very different kinds of company. On the one hand it concerns Shakespeare's poet-playwright contemporaries, such as Marlowe, Jonson, and Fletcher. On the other, it examines the contribution of his fellow actors, including Burbage, Armin, and Kemp. Traditionally, criticism has treated these two influences in separation, so that Shakespeare is considered either in relation to educated Renaissance culture, or as a man of the theatre. Shakespeare in Company unites these perspectives. Bart van Es argues that Shakespeare's decision, in 1594, to become an investor (or 'sharer') in the newly formed Chamberlain's acting company had a transformative effect on his writing, moving him beyond the conventions of Renaissance dramaturgy. On the basis of the physical distinctiveness of his actors, Shakespeare developed 'relational drama', something no previous dramatist had explored. This book traces the evolution of that innovation, showing how Shakespeare responded to changes in the personnel of his acting fellowship and to competing drama, such as that produced for the children's companies after 1599. Covering over two decades of theatrical history, van Es explores the playwright's career through four distinct phases, ending on the conditions that shaped Shakespeare's late style. Paradoxically, Shakespeare emerges as a playwright unique 'in company'--special, in part, because of the unparalleled working conditions that he enjoyed.

Kalina Stefanova surveys Eastern European theatre after the collapse of the Soviet Union, presenting factual information about the many different spheres of theatre there today -- from playwriting, directing and acting, to repertoire creation and theatre management. She covers the current theatre situation in Albania, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia and the Ukraine, including interviews with major directors and playwrights such as Yury Lyubimov, Vaclav Havel, Andrei Sherban, and Ismail Kadare. By presenting material never previously published on theatre life during the Communist years, she is able to compare theatre before and after the political changes.

Finally, a book that addresses one of the most important elements of theatrical production, the collaboration between director and designer.

This accessible and helpful guide addresses the crucial relationship between theatrical production team members. Experienced director Rob Roznowski and designer Kirk Domer offer prescriptive and proactive tips to create the ideal production environment. This three part book combines theory, practice, and exercises and will help anyone involved in the theatre to develop appropriate and healthy collaborative skills.

Topics Covered Include:

* The Vocabulary of Collaboration

* Script Analysis

* Responses to Criticism

* Research Methods

In this lively and varied tribute to Martin Banham, Layiwola has assembled critical commentaries and two plays which focus primarily on Nigerian theatre - both traditional and contemporary.
Dele Layiwola, Dapo Adelugba and Sonny Oti trace the beginnings of the School of Drama in 1960, at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria, where Martin Banham played a key and influential role in the growth of thriving Nigerian theatre repetoire and simulaneously encouraging the creation of a new theatre based on traditional Nigerian theatre forms.
This comparative approach is taken up in Dele Layiwola's study of ritual and drama in the context of various traditions worldwide, while Oyin Ogunba presents a lucid picture of the complex use of theatre space in Yoruba ritual dramadar
drama.
Harsh everyday realitites, both physical and political, are graphically demonstrated by Robert McClaren (Zimbabwe) and Oga Steve Abah (Nigeria) who both show surprising and alarming links between extreme actual experiences and theatre creation and performance.
The texts of the two plays - When Criminals Turn Judges by Ola Rotimi, The Hand that Feeds the King by Wale Ogunyemi, are followed by Austin O. Asagba's study of oral tradition and text in plays by Osofisan and Agbeyegbe, and Frances Harding's study on power, language, and imagery in Wole Soyinka's plays.

This text is an investigation and celebration of the Jonson canon from the point of view of the theatre practitioner as well as the teacher. Reflecting the increasing interest in the wider field of Renaissance drama, the book bridges the theory/practice divide by debating how Jonson's drama operates in performance and including discussions with and between practitioners. It includes: essays on Jonson on stage; Jonson in the classroom; Jonson and women; and edited transcripts of interviews with contemporary practitioners. Contributors include: Sam Mendes, Geoffrey Rush (Oscar winning actor), Colin Ellwood, Genista Macintosh and John Nettles. The aim of the title is to suggest new perspectives and new possibilities of engaging rewardingly with the drama of Ben Jonson.

This accessible and engaging text covering sketch, sitcom and comedy drama, alongside improvisation and stand-up, brings together a panoply of tools and techniques for creating short and long-form comedy narratives for live performance, TV and online. Referencing a broad range of comedy from both sides of the Atlantic, spanning several decades and including material on contemporary internet sketches, it offers all kinds of useful advice on creating comic narratives for stage and screen: using life experience as raw material; constructing comedy worlds; creating comic characters, their relationships and interactions; structuring sketches, scenes and routines; and developing and plotting stories. The book's interviewees, from the UK and the USA, feature stand-ups, sketch comics, improvisers and TV comedy producers, and include Steve Kaplan, Hollywood comedy guru and author of The Hidden Tools of Comedy, Will Hines teacher and improviser from the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre and Lucy Lumsden TV producer and former Controller of Comedy Commissioning for BBC. Written by "the ideal person to nurture new talent" (The Guardian), Creating Comedy Narratives for Stage & Screen includes material you won't find anywhere else and is a stimulating resource for comedy students and their teachers, with a range and a depth that will be appreciated by even the most eclectic and multi-hyphenated writers and performers.

This is the first anthology to focus exclusively on the lives of Black South African women. This collection represents the work of both female and male writers, including national and international award-winning playwrights. The collection includes six full-length and four one-act plays, as well as interviews with the writers, who candidly discuss the theatrical and political situation in the new South Africa. Written before and after apartheid, the plays present varying approaches and theatrical styles from solo performances to collective creations.
The plays dramatise issues as diverse as:
* women's rights
* displacement from home
* violence against women
* the struggle to keep families together
* racial identity
* education in the old and new South Africa
* and health care.

Acoustic Interculturalism is a study of the soundscapes of intercultural performance through the examination of sound's performativity. Employing an interdisciplinary approach, the book examines an akoumenological reception of sound to postulate the need for an acoustic knowing - an awareness of how sound shapes the intercultural experience.

It is said that British Drama was shockingly lifted out of the doldrums by the 'revolutionary' appearance of John Osborne's Look Back in Anger at the Royal Court in May 1956. But had the theatre been as ephemeral and effeminate as the Angry Young Men claimed? Was the era of Terence Rattigan and 'Binkie' Beaumont as repressed and closeted as it seems?
In this bold and fascinating challenge to the received wisdom of the last forty years of theatrical history, Dan Rebellato uncovers a different story altogether. It is one where Britain's declining Empire and increasing panic over the 'problem' of homosexuality played a crucial role in the construction of an enduring myth of the theatre. By going back to primary sources and rigorously questioning all assumptions, Rebellato has rewritten the history of the Making of Modern British Drama.

eBook available with sample pages: 0203009991

How does proximity between audiences and performers change the nature of live performance? How does it feel? How long can it last? How close is too close? Exploring the rise of close encounter, immersive productions that shine a light on performer-audience relationships, this book considers the impact of space and proximity in live performance. Drawing on their experience as internationally acclaimed performance artists, Leslie Hill and Helen Paris richly document their creative processes, performances and audience's responses in a series of illuminating case studies. Relating their practice to wider issues in contemporary performance and detailing workshop exercises that aid performance making, this unique fusion of artistic and academic reflection is crucial reading for students, scholars and practitioners alike.

Renaissance Drama in Action is a fascinating exploration of Renaissance theatre practice and staging. Covering questions of contemporary playhouse design, verse and language, staging and rehearsal practices, and acting styles, Martin White relates the characteristics of Renaissance theatre to the issues involved in staging the plays today. This refreshingly accessible volume: * examines the history of the plays on the English stage from the seventeenth century to the present day * explores questions arising from reconstructions, with particular reference to the new Globe Theatre * includes interviews with, and draws on the work and experience of modern theatre practitioners including Harriet Walter, Matthew Warchus, Trevor Nunn, Stephen Jeffreys, Adrian Noble and Helen Mirren * includes discussions of familiar plays such as The Duchess of Malfi and 'Tis Pity She's A Whore, as well as many lesser known play-texts Renaissance Drama in Action offers undergraduates and A-level students an invaluable guide to the characteristics of Elizabethan and Jacobean drama, and its relationship to contemporary theatre and staging.

Civic Performance: Pageantry and Entertainments in Early Modern London brings together a group of essays from across multiple fields of study that examine the socio-cultural, political, economic, and aesthetic dimensions of pageantry in sixteenth and seventeenth-century London. This collection engages with modern interest in the spectacle and historical performances of pageantry and entertainments, including royal entries, progresses, coronation ceremonies, Lord Mayor's Shows, and processions. Through a discussion of the extant texts, visual records, archival material, and emerging projects in the digital humanities, the chapters elucidate the forms in which the period itself recorded its public rituals, pageantry, and ephemeral entertainments. The diversity of approaches contained in these chapters reflects the collaborative nature of pageantry and civic entertainments, as well as the broad socio-cultural resonances of this form of drama, and in doing so offers a study that is multi-faceted and wide-ranging, much like civic performance itself. Ideal for scholars of Early Modern global politics, economics, and culture; literary and performance studies; print culture; and the digital humanities, Civic Performance casts a new lens on street pageantry and entertainments in the historically and culturally significant locus of Early Modern London.

Peter Brook is known internationally as a theatre visionary, and a daring experimenter on the cutting-edge of performance and production. This book concentrates on Brook's early years, and his innovative achievements in opera, television, film, and the theatre. His productions are viewed separately, in chronological order, suggesting Brook's developing and changing interests. The authors include thought-provoking interviews with Brook (and with numerous outstanding artists who have worked with him) and bring to the reader penetrating critiques of Brook's theories and practices as a man of the theatre.

With this special issue of Performing Arts International, the papers and presentations from the Black Theatre in Higher Education Conference, held in London in April 1994 and organized by Hazel Carey and Ruth Tompsett, are made more widely available. It offers readers a chance to engage in debates on topical issues, to widen their knowledge and understanding of black performance, and to catch something of its spirit from the combination here of critical comment, practitioner insight, and personal testimony. For academics, critics, and practitioners alike, to study, attend, or participate in black theatre is to be engaged in a rich and diverse contemporary arts reality.

Renaissance Drama in Action is a fascinating exploration of Renaissance theatre practice and staging. Covering questions of contemporary playhouse design, verse and language, staging and rehearsal practices, and acting styles, Martin White relates the characteristics of Renaissance theatre to the issues involved in staging the plays today.
This refreshingly accessible volume:
* examines the history of the plays on the English stage from the seventeenth century to the present day
* explores questions arising from reconstructions, with particular reference to the new Globe Theatre
* includes interviews with, and draws on the work and experience of modern theatre practitioners including Harriet Walter, Matthew Warchus, Trevor Nunn, Stephen Jeffreys, Adrian Noble and Helen Mirren
* includes discussions of familiar plays such as The Duchess of Malfi and 'Tis Pity She's A Whore, as well as many lesser known play-texts
Renaissance Drama in Action offers undergraduates and A-level students an invaluable guide to the characteristics of Elizabethan and Jacobean drama, and its relationship to contemporary theatre and staging.

While remapping the region by examining enduring historical and cultural connections, this study discusses multiple traditions and practices of theatre and performance in five South Asian countries within their specific political and socio-cultural contexts.

Auditioners often complain of seeing the same speeches over and over again. Director, Simon Dunmore, has seen well over ten thousand audition speeches performed, and has drawn on his experience to select and edit a new collection of fascinating, fresh and unusual audition speeches from Shakespeare's plays. This book brings together fifty speeches for women from plays frequently ignored such as Coriolanus, Pericles and Love's Labours Lost. It also includes good, but over-looked speeches from the more popular plays such as Diana from All's Well That Ends Well, Perdita from The Winter's Tale and Hero from Much Ado About Nothing. Each speech is accompanied by a character description, brief explanation of the context, and notes on obscure words, phrases and references - all written from the viewpoint of the auditioning actor.

Although films about the presidency have been a popular subject for analysis, there is no equivalent literature about plays that portray chief executives. This book fills that gap by examining in detail about 50 plays depicting historical, fictional and even musical presidents. It explains how, as the public's trust in government has declined, the heroic presidents of the first half of the twentieth century have been replaced on stage by such antiheroes as Nixon and Harding.

Alternative Theatre in Poland 1954-1989 describes a theatre movement about which little has been written in English. The complex nature of the relationship between theatre and politics is explored in this unique study of the exceptionally vibrant Polish theatre scene.
Tracing its evolution from the beginnings of the movement in the 1950s when two amateur student theatre groups performed programs of short, satiric skits which expanded the limits of the artistically permissable within a Communist society, the development of this movement is followed through the 1960s, when these satiric theatres, and others which sprang up in their wake, were forced by government censorship to become less politically active. During this period, other student groups concentrated on artistic experimentation, creating such forms as visual theatre, one-person shows, fact-montages, and poetry theatre. Furthermore, the period after 1956 saw the founding of two non-student theatres, Tadeusz Kantor's Cricot 2 and Jerzy Grotowski's Laboratory Theatre, both dedicated to artistic experimentation and having significant influence on alternative theatres worldwide.
In th 1970s, during the next period of political liberalization, the alternative theatre movement linked the avant-garde format it had acquired in the 1960s with the political engagement of the 1950s and reached its zenith with the works of groups such as the Theatre of the 8th Day. After the Solidarity period (1980-81), the movement declined in societal importance but groups such as Akademia Ruchu, Provisorium and Gardzienice continue to exist and produce experimental work.

Please note this is a 'Palgrave to Order' title (PTO). Stock of this book requires shipment from an overseas supplier. It will be delivered to you within 12 weeks. This study rediscovers the lives and notable accomplishments of five prominent, yet historically neglected women dramatists of the Progressive Era: Martha Morton, Madeleine Lucette Ryley, Evelyn Greenleaf Sutherland, Beulah Marie Dix, and Rida Johnson Young.