The timeless enchantment of a magical fairy tale is reborn with the Rodgers & Hammerstein hallmarks of originality, charm and elegance. Originally presented on television in 1957 starring Julie Andrews, Rodgers & Hammerstein's Cinderella was the most widely viewed program in the history of the medium. Its recreation in 1965 starring Lesley Ann Warren was no less successful in transporting a new generation to the miraculous kingdom of dreams-come-true, and so was a second remake in 1997, which starred Brandy as Cinderella and Whitney Houston as her Fairy Godmother. As adapted for the stage, with great warmth and more than a touch of hilarity, this romantic fairy tale still warms the hearts of children and adults alike. This Enchanted Edition is inspired by the 1997 teleplay. Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella premiered in a live television broadcast on March 31, 1957, starring Julie Andrews, a sparkling new star who had just triumphed in My Fair Lady. Richard Lewine, a distant cousin and close friend of Rodgers, produced and Ralph Nelson directed. Real-life spouses Howard Lindsay and Dorothy Stickney played the King and Queen; Jon Cypher played the Prince; Ilka Chase, Kaye Ballard and Alice Ghostley played the comical Stepmother and Stepsisters; and Edi Adams played the Fairy Godmother. Rodgers and Hammerstein approached the story with the honesty and simplicity that characterized all their work, and Cinderella was a smash hit. The live broadcast was viewed by more people than any other program in the history of television. In 1997, Cinderella was remade for television in a production adapted by Robert L. Freedman and directed by Robert Iscove, with choreography by Rob Marshall. Produced by Whitney Houston and Debra Martin Chase for Walt Disney Television, Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella aired on November 2, 1997. This version featured a diverse cast, with Brandy Norwood as Cinderella, Whitney Houston as her fairy godmother, Bernadette Peters as Cinderella's stepmother, Paolo Montalban as the prince, Whoopi Goldberg as the queen, Victor Garber as the king and Jason Alexander as Lionel, the herald. Several songs were added, including "The Sweetest Sounds" from No Strings, sung by Cinderella and the Prince, and "There's Music in You," written for the 1953 film Main Street to Broadway, sung as the finale by the Fairy Godmother. Sixty million viewers watched the broadcast, making it the most-watched television musical in decades, and earning ABC its highest Sunday-night ratings in 10 years.

Edward Einhorn blends absurdist humor with philosophy in these critically acclaimed plays about legendary Jewish figures. GOLEM STORIES retells an old Kabalistic legend. It's a ghost story and a love story, about a childlike clay man who may be a demon inside. In THE LIVING METHUSELAH, the oldest living man survives every disaster is human history, with the help of his wife Serach, the oldest living woman. But when a doctor tells him he will only live until the end of the play, will this be his final curtain? To find the title character of A SHYLOCK, Jacob Levy interrogates every character in The Merchant of Venice, but oddly Hamlet may know the most-although this Hamlet is a woman. And in ONE-EYED MOSES AND THE CHURNING RED SEA, Rabbi Tzipporah Finestein dreams Moses is a pirate captain, but what do the dreams mean? Two congregants hold the key.

Rodgers and Hammerstein's first collaboration remains, in many ways, their most innovative, setting the standards and rules of modern musical theatre. In a Western territory just after the turn of the 20th century, a high-spirited rivalry between local farmers and cowboys provides a colorful background for Curly, a charming cowboy, and Laurey, a feisty farm girl, to play out their love story. Their romantic journey, as bumpy as a surrey ride down a country road, contrasts with the comic exploits of brazen Ado Annie and hapless Will Parker in a musical adventure embracing hope, determination and the promise of a new land. Oklahoma! opened at the St. James Theatre on Broadway on March 31, 1943. At that time, the longest-running show in Broadway history had run for three years. Oklahoma! surpassed that record by two more years, running for a marathon 2,212 performances. The US national tour played for an unprecedented ten and a half years, visiting every single state and playing before a combined audience of more than 10 million people. In 1947, Oklahoma! opened at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, London, where it ran for 1,548 performances, the longest run of any show up to that time in the 267-year history of the theatre. In 1953, the Oklahoma State Legislature named "Oklahoma" the official state song. In 1955, the motion picture version of Oklahoma!, starring Gordon MacRae and Shirley Jones and produced by Rodgers and Hammerstein, was released to great success.

Though a staple in high school English classes, Julius Caesar is not a simple play. Seemingly irreconcilable forces are at work: fate and free will, the changeableness and stubbornness of ambitious men, the demands of public service and the desire for private gain. Drawn from history as recorded by Plutarch, the major characters-Caesar, Brutus, Cassius, and Mark Antony-are complex, as are the twists and turns of their fortunes. What kind of man rises to power? What price does he pay when he becomes a politician? These questions raised by Shakespeare are relevant in every age, whether ancient Rome, Elizabethan England, or even in our own day.

This Norton Critical Edition includes: The 1633 quarto (Q) text-the only authoritative version-with modernised spelling and silent alteration of obvious errors, of confusing punctuation and of word-form changes. A Textual Notes section follows the play. Editorial matter by Lloyd Kermode. Six illustrations and one map. An unusually rich selection of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century contexts, thematically organised to promote classroom discussion. Topics include "Theater and Marlowe", "Machiavelli and Mediterranean Identities" and "Ideas of the Jew". Twenty-seven critical interpretations spanning three centuries and including seven considerations of The Jew of Malta in performance. A chronology and a selected bibliography. About the Series Read by more than 12 million students over fifty-five years, Norton Critical Editions set the standard for apparatus that is right for undergraduate readers. The three-part format-annotated text, contexts and criticism-helps students to better understand, analyse and appreciate the literature, while opening a wide range of teaching possibilities for instructors. Whether in print or in digital format, Norton Critical Editions provide all the resources students need.

This study seeks to reunite American drama with more of the mainstream of American literature using contemporary literary theories of feminism, Derrida, Lacan, as well as the nature of language. It also focuses on the theatrical ways that plays work through performance and staging. This reveals how contemporary playwrights see themselves not as authors, but as parts of a team of designers, actors, and directors. Stage directions are largely omitted, but knowledge of original productions--both as seen live and recorded on tapes archived at Lincoln Center--reveal aspects of fragmentation of scenery, minimalist acting, emphasis on the "unsayable," which makes these plays far more postmodern than they might seem merely as read. More importantly, the final chapter reveals how these techniques culminate in 1990s play' ability to extend beyond the real in a myriad of ways, all united by a new, postmodern view of the divine as interpenetrating reality. In one sense, this seems to be juggling quite a few different items-poststructural theory, modernist realists, as well postmodern deconstructive realists and theatrical practice. All fit together neatly, however, in each chapter through a focus on performance, staging is seen as central to the dramatic experience, with reviews, photographs, and archival videotapes of productions used to verify and explore the plays' meanings. The plays, taken as a whole, reflect the key issues of American society from reactions to the Vietnam War, through issues of sexual preference, race, and feminism and its backlash, through issues of wealth and poverty to arrive at a new vision of a forgiving divine which accepts without judgment all the issues of diversity. American Drama and the Postmodern is an important book for collections in American literature, drama and theatre, as well as for literary theory.

This is the first collection from groundbreaking playwright Alistair McDowall, "an exceptionally talented and fast-rising writer. Still only in his twenties, this writer is surely going places. Whatever he dreams up next, his name will almost certainly be in lights at the Royal Court soon, if not at the National Theatre." (The Times) Having won a Judges Award at the Bruntwood Prize in 2011 and been shortlisted for the Writers' Guild Best Play Award in 2013, Alistair McDowall is one of the most exciting playwrights of this generation. The anthology features the play that brought McDowall to people's attention, Brilliant Adventures, up to his latest major play, Pomona, that received ecstatic reviews, transferred to the National Theatre, and hailed him as one of the most important playwrights of this generation. It also includes two previously unpublished plays. Brilliant Adventures (Royal Exchange/Live Theatre, 2013) is a fast paced tale of brotherhood, addiction and breaking the laws of physics. It won McDowall a Bruntwood Prize. Captain Amazing (Live Theatre, 2013) is a funny and poignant one-man show that thrusts us into the life of Britain's only part-time superhero. Talk Show (Royal Court, 2013) is black comedy about talking and transmission. It was premiered as part of the Royal Court's Open Court season and has not previously been published. Pomona (Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama/Orange Tree Theatre, 2014) is a sinister and surreal thriller, which takes as its setting Manchester's Pomona - an abandoned concrete island at the heard of the city; a place where journeys end and nightmares are born. The anthology is introduced by the author and includes a foreword by Olivier-award-winning playwright Simon Stephens.

UNDERSTANDING DRAMA EIGHT PLAYS CLEANTH BROOKS ROBERT B. HEILMAN Yale University University of Washington i-ost Graduate of An Commerce, 0. c. HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY NEW YORK CONTENTS LETTER TO TEACHER AND STUDENTS IX PART ONE Problems of the Drama 1. DIALOGUE AND ACTION 3 j. Types of Dialogue 3 Courtroom Dialogue 3 The Conversation 5 The Difference between the Conversation and Drama 7 2 The Meaning of Action 8 Shooting-Script for The Great McGinty 8 The Script and the Com pleted Movie 9 Action and Character n The Relation of Dialogue to Action 12 2. DRAMA AND OTHER LITERARY FORMS 13 i Drama and Eiction 13 A Sum in Addition, William March 13 The Method of the Story 15 The Story as Drama 16 The Difference between Story and Play 17 Another Story 18 2. Drama and Poetry 19 To a Mouse, Robert Burns 19 The Method of the Poem 20 The Climax 22 The Poem Compared with Other Forms 23 3. The Elements Common to Drama and Other Forms 24 4. The Difference Between Drama and Other Forms 24 3. SPECIAL PROBLEMS OF THE DRAMA 27 Iroblerns of Scope 27 The Dramatic Situation 27 Number of Characters 28 Place 29 roblems of Dialogue 29 Progression 29 Exposition 30 The Use of Informative Devices 30 Plausibility 31 Naturalness Poetic Drama 32 Tempo 33 4. HOW THE PROBLEMS ARE MET 34 i. Lady Windermeris Fan Oscar Wilde 34 Act I 35 Notes on Act I 43 Characterization 43 111 IV CONTENTS Exposition 43 Motivation and Pro gression 44 Concentration 45 Act II 46 Notes on Act II 54 The Structure of Act II 54 Evidences of Melo drama 56 Act III 57 Notes on Act III 63 The Rhythm of Act III 63 The Melodramatic Tendency Motiva tion 64 The Mother-Daughter Coincidence 65 Act IV 66 Notes on Act IV 73 Wildes Problem Fur therMelodramatic Effects 73 Mrs. Erlynnes in Act IV Part The Play as a Whole The Limitations The Symbolic Situation The Authors Attitude The Treatment of Society Treatment of Mrs. Erlynne The Theme Other Evidence The Epigrammatic Style The Nature of Comedy The Authors Choice The Well-Made Play The Problem Play Other Questions 73 74 74 75 75 76 76 77 78 78 7 79 80 81 81 PART TWO Simpler Types 1. INTRODUCTION 2. EVERYMAN NOTES ON Everyman 1. The Nature of Parable The Problem of the Para able-Writer the Re lationship of Theme and Form How We Become Aware of the Meaning 2. Theme and Drama in Everyman Characterization Structure Parti 86 IOO IOO 101 102 103 103 104 105 Part II Part III Part IV. The Compli cation of Theme The Growth of Every mans Character Significant Variation Summary 3. Everyman as Tragedy Questions 106 107 107 1 08 1 08 109 3. PLAUTUS, THE TWIN MENAECHMI 112 NOTES ON The Twin Me naechmi 136 I. The Nature of Farce 137 CONTENTS 2. The Quality of Plautuss Farce 140 Conventions 141 Variety 141 Climactic Arrangement 142 Language 142 Probability 142 Conclusion 144 Questions 145 4. LILLO, THE LONDON MERCHANT 146 Act I 147 Questions on Act I 153 Act II 154 Questions on Act II 160 Act III 1 60 Questions on Act III 166 Act IV 167 Questions on Act IV 173 Act V 173 Questions on Act V 179 NOTES ON The London Mer chant 1 80 1. Lack of Focus 180 2. Multiplicity of Objectives 181 3. The Treatment of Barn well 184 Barnwells Language 185 The Problem of Acts IV and V 187 Conclusion Questions 188 189 PART THREE More Mature Types 1. INTRODUCTION 193 2. SHERIDAN, THE SCHOOL FOR SCANDAL 194 Act I 196 Questions on Act I 203 Act II 204 Questions on Act II 211 Act III 212 Questions on Act III 221 Act IV221 Questions on Act IV 232 Act V 232 NOTES ON The School for Scandal 243 7. Sheridan and Other Drama tists Structure and Mechanics 244 Theme and Form 244 Characterization 244 Focus 245 Sheridan and Farce 245 Melodramatic Ten dencies 246 2. Sheridans Attitude Theme The Sentimental Tendency 248 Sir Olivers Reward 249 The Treatment of Charles 249 3. Other Influences on the Tone 252 Summary 254 Questions 254 3...

The final collaboration between Rodgers & Hammerstein was destined to become the world's most beloved musical. Featuring a trove of cherished songs, including "Climb Ev'ry Mountain," "My Favorite Things," "Do Re Mi," "Sixteeen Going on Seventeen" and the title number, The Sound of Music won the hearts of audiences worldwide, earning five Tony Awards and five Oscars. The inspirational story, based on the memoir of Maria Augusta Trapp, follows an ebullient postulate who serves as governess to the seven children of the imperious Captain Von Trapp, bringing music and joy to the household. But as the forces of Nazism take hold of Austria, Maria and the entire Von Trapp family must make a moral decision. The Sound of Music opened at Broadway's Lunt-Fontanne Theatre on November 16, 1959, and Rodgers & Hammerstein's last musical was a triumph. It ran for 1,443 performances and earned five Tony Awards, including Best Musical. In addition, the cast album earned a Gold Record and the Grammy Award. Florence Henderson starred in the first national tour, which played for over two years. Jean Bayless created the role of Maria in the original London production, which ran for over six years, long holding the record as the longest-running American musical in London.

In this, the fourth part of our unfolding drama, we witness the renewal of old and forgotten love, the beginning of new relationships, the reforging of old bonds of friendship, and the beginning of new life. Certain young dreams are fulfilled, certain truths are revealed, and a trip to Paris proves to be definitive for those who take it; a fact which in itself will have consequences which neither party can foresee. A discovery at the Manor House, a terrible secret which has lain buried and forgotten for centuries, will in the fullness of time have far - reaching implications, which are inexorably tied to events which unfold in this part of our tale. By sheer chance, Rebecca's parents happen upon news of their daughter, and their search for her which has lain cold for so long is rekindled. What they cannot know is that their unwitting and innocent intervention forces their beloved daughter to risk everything for her ultimate safety, and the safety of others who now share her fate. In doing so she must at last confront the demons which have haunted her for so long, but first she must betray those who are closest to her, in order to finally meet and confront her tormentor.

Lotus Beauty follows the intertwined lives of five multigenerational women, inviting us into Reita's salon where clients can wax lyrical about their day's tiny successes or have their struggles massaged, plucked or tweezed away. But with honest truths and sharp-witted barbs high among the treatments on offer, will the power of community be enough to raise the spirits of everyone who passes through the salon doors?

Aristophanes' Peace was performed at the City Dionysia in Athens in 421 BC as a decade-long war with Sparta seemed finally to be drawing to an end, and is one of only eleven extant plays by the greatest Old Comic poet. Olson's edition of the play, which replaces Platnauer's of 1969, is based on a complete new collation of the manuscripts, many of which have never been adequately reported before. The extensive commentary explores matters of all sorts, but it focuses in particular on the realities of day-to-day life in classical Athens and also examines the practical problems of staging. The substantial introduction includes essays on Aristophanes' early career, the politics of the Greek world in the late 420s, and the poet's theology.

From a writer hailed as an American original -- and the author of the national bestsellers All the Pretty Horses and The Crossing -- comes a taut, expansively imagined drama about four generations of an African American family.

The setting is Louisville, Kentucky, in the 1970s. The Telfairs are stonemasons and have been for generations. Ben Telfair has given up his education to apprentice himself to his grandfather, Papaw, a man who knows that "true masonry is not held together by cement but...by the warp of the world." Out of the love that binds these two men and the gulf that separates them from the Telfairs who have forsaken -- or dishonored -- the family trade, Cormac McCarthy has crafted a drama that bears all the hallmarks of his great fiction: precise observation of the physical world; language that has the bite of common speech and the force of Biblical prose; and a breathtaking command of the art of storytelling.