In recent years drag performance has moved from the fringes to emerge as a mainstream phenomenon, showcased on TV shows in the US and the UK. This collection offers a diverse range of critical engagements by drag performers, makers, scholars and writers reflecting on work from the UK, USA, Israel, Germany and Australia. Moving beyond discussions of gender theory, the essays consider contemporary drag performance practices, connecting them to the histories, communities and politics that produced them. Chapters range across discussions of drag kings in the US, UK and drag and activism; the influence of RuPaul on the generation of new forms of work in New York; transfeminist critiques of drag; 'bio'/faux queens; engagements with race and ethnicity through drag performance; drag andragogy; audience concerns; drag intersections with animal personas, and how drag performance relates to personal narratives of history and identity. Collectively the contributions focus on drag as a mode of performance that is diverse and that uncorsets the easy thought that drag is simply a cross dressing man in a dress or a woman in a suit.

Fans and critics alike perceive Wong Kar-wai (b. 1958) as an enigma. His dark glasses, his nonlinear narrations, and his high expectations for actors all contribute to an assumption that he only makes art for a few highbrow critics. However, Wong's interviews show this Hong Kong auteur is candid about the art of filmmaking, even surprising his interlocutors by suggesting his films are commercial and made for a popular audience. Wong's achievements nevertheless feel like art-house cinema. His third film, Chungking Express, introduced him to a global audience captivated by the quick and quirky editing style. His Cannes award-winning films Happy Together and In the Mood for Love confirmed an audience beyond the greater Chinese market. His latest film, The Grandmaster, depicts the life of a kung fu master by breaking away from the martial arts genre. In each of these films, Wong Kar-wai's signature style-experimental, emotive, character-driven, and timeless-remains apparent throughout. This volume includes interviews that appear in English for the first time, including some that appeared in Hong Kong magazines now out of print. The interviews cover every feature film from Wong's debut As Tears Go By to his 2013 The Grandmaster.

From Scarlett O'Hara to Thelma and Louise to Wonder Woman, a wide range of strong female leads have not only lit up the screen -- they've fired our inspiration with their courage, their independence, and their refusal to follow the rules. Some dynamic women are naughty and some are nice, but all of them buck the narrow confines of their expected gender role -- whether by taking small steps or revolutionary strides. Through engaging profiles and dozens of photographs, Dynamic Dames looks at fifty of the most empowered and inspiring female roles in film from the 1920s to today. The characters are discussed along with the exciting off-screen personalities and achievements of the actresses and, on occasion, female writers and directors, who brought them to vibrant life. Among the stars profiled in their most revolutionary roles are Bette Davis, Mae West, Barbara Stanwyck, Josephine Baker, Greta Garbo, Audrey Hepburn, Natalie Wood, Barbra Streisand, Julia Roberts, Meryl Streep, Joan Crawford, Vivien Leigh, Elizabeth Taylor, Dorothy Dandridge, Katharine Hepburn, Pam Grier, Jane Fonda, Gal Gadot, Emma Watson, Zhang Ziyi, Uma Thurman, and Jennifer Lawrence.

In this candid and empowering A to Z of being an actor, Julie Hesmondhalgh draws on her decades of experience on stage and screen - including in massively popular television shows such as Broadchurch, Happy Valley and Coronation Street - to lift the lid on the realities of life in today's industry, and show you how to navigate it. She shares practical advice on preparing for roles (don't be afraid of looking like a dick), managing the ups and downs of your career (and how to be out of work without losing your mind), dealing with failure (and success), not constantly comparing yourself to others (bloody hard, but try), looking after your mental health, and the power of knowing when to say 'no'. Passionate about the arts, she makes a compelling case for their importance to society, but also calls out the industry on where it continues to fall short - including a clear-eyed assessment of what needs to change to make it safer and healthier, more accessible and inclusive. Written with refreshing honesty and self-deprecating humour, An Actor's Alphabet is a book for anyone who dreams of becoming an actor, wants to be a better one, or just wants to learn what being one is really like. 'Endearingly honest, funny and eye-opening. I loved it!' Francesca Martinez 'Like its author, this book is brimming with wisdom, intelligence, empathy and humanity... An absolute must!' Maxine Peake 'This is the best book on acting and being an actor I've read... Julie Hesmondhalgh is the mentor/best friend/guide we all need in these troubled times' Paul Chahidi 'Wonderful... not just a book about acting, but also about life. Us. The world. Humanity. Battling through this shit and finding time for a hug. I adore it.' Russell T Davies 'A must-read, whether you've been on the artist's journey for years or are just starting out' Shobna Gulati 'This book is bold, brash, sincere and angry. It regrets nothing and questions everything... Treasure it like we should treasure Julie' Jack Thorne 'A generous gift to actors, full of honesty, hope and wit. There is loads of tangible advice, not just for acting but for life' Anna Jordan 'Julie's book is honest, challenging and helpful. A great read' Andy Nyman

The Postfeminist Biopic explores the influence of postfeminist culture on cinematic representations of female biographies. While earlier research has described the subgenres of the classical female biopic and the feminist biopic, Polaschek proposes a third subgenre, the postfeminist biopic, which has appeared as part of a broader trend of reviving and reconfiguring classical genre forms aimed at women. The book explores the conventions of the postfeminist biopic through a close analysis of four films that represent the lives of women who are established members of the second-wave feminist canon: Sylvia (Christine Jeffs, 2003), which depicts the life of the American poet Sylvia Plath; Frida (Julie Taymor, 2002), about the Mexican painter Frida Kahlo; The Hours (Stephen Daldry, 2002), which includes a biographical narrative about the English novelist and critic Virginia Woolf; and Becoming Jane (Julian Jarrold, 2006), a fictionalized interpretation of the coming of age of the English novelist Jane Austen.

Because of his lengthy screen resume that includes almost eighty appearances in such movies as Camille and Waterloo Bridge, as well as a marriage and divorce to actress Barbara Stanwyck, Robert Taylor was a central figure of Hollywood's classical era. Despite this, he can be regarded as a "lost" star, an interesting contradiction given the continued success he enjoyed during his lifetime. In Robert Taylor: Male Beauty, Masculinity, and Stardom in Hollywood, author Gillian Kelly investigates the initial construction and subsequent developments of Taylor's star persona across his thirty-five-year career. By examining concepts of male beauty, men as object of the erotic gaze, white American masculinity, and the unusual longevity of a career initially based on looks, Kelly highlights how gender, masculinity, and male stars and the ageing process affected Taylor's career. Placing Taylor within the histories of both Hollywood's classical era and mid-twentieth-century America, this study positions him firmly within the wider industrial, cultural, and socioeconomic contexts in which he worked. Kelly examines Taylor's film and television work as well as ephemeral material, such as fan magazines, to assess how his on- and off-screen personas were created and developed over time. Taking a mostly chronological approach, Kelly places Taylor's persona within specific historical moments in order to show the complex paradox of his image remaining consistently recognizable while also shifting seamlessly within the Hollywood industry. Furthermore, she explores Taylor's importance to Hollywood cinema by demonstrating how a star persona like his can "fit" so well, and for so long, that it almost becomes invisible and, eventually, almost forgotten.

A FOUNDING MEMBER OF GUNS N' ROSES AND VELVET REVOLVER SHARES THE STORY OF HIS RISE TO THE PINNACLE OF FAME AND FORTUNE, HIS STRUGGLES WITH ALCOHOLISM AND DRUG ADDICTION, HIS PERSONAL CRASH AND BURN, AND HIS PHOENIX-LIKE TRANSFORMATION.
IN 1984, AT THE AGE OF TWENTY, Duff McKagan left his native Seattle--partly to pursue music but mainly to get away from a host of heroin overdoses then decimating his closest group of friends in the local punk scene. In L.A. only a few weeks and still living in his car, he answered a want ad for a bass player placed by someone who identified himself only as "Slash." Soon after, the most dangerous band in the world was born. Guns N' Roses went on to sell more than 100 million albums worldwide.
In "It's So Easy, "Duff recounts Guns' unlikely trajectory to a string of multiplatinum albums, sold-out stadium concerts, and global acclaim. But that kind of glory can take its toll, and it did--ultimately--on Duff, as well as on the band itself. As Guns began to splinter, Duff felt that he himself was done, too. But his near death as a direct result of alcoholism proved to be his watershed, the turning point that sent him on a unique path to sobriety and the unexpected choices he has made for himself since.
In a voice that is as honest as it is indelibly his own, Duff--one of rock's smartest and most articulate personalities--takes readers on a harrowing journey through the dark heart of one of the most notorious bands in rock-and-roll history and out the other side.

How does an actor embody a character? How do they use their body as an instrument of expression? Rethinking the Actor's Body offers an accessible introduction to the fields of neurophysiology and embodied knowledge through a detailed examination of what an actor does with their body. Built on almost a decade of conversations and public seminars by the author Dick McCaw in partnership with John Rothwell (Professor of Neurophysiology at University College London, UK), Rethinking the Actor's Body explores a set of questions and preoccupations concerning the actor's body and examines overlaps in research and practice in the fields of actor training, embodied knowledge and neurophysiology.

DISCOVER THE NEW MEMOIR FROM ALAN CUMMING. BAGGAGE: TALES FROM A FULLY PACKED LIFE PUBLISHES 28 OCT '21 'One of the most memorable, heart-stopping autobiographies I have ever read' STEPHEN FRY WINNER OF THE SLIGHTLY FOXED BEST FIRST BIOGRAPHY PRIZE 2015 THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER ATTITUDE MAGAZINE'S BOOK OF THE YEAR A beloved star of stage and screen, Alan Cumming's life and career have been shaped by a complex and dark family past - full of troubled memories, kept buried away. But then an unexpected phone call from his long-estranged father brought the pain of the past hurtling back into the present, and unravelled everything he thought he knew about himself. Not My Father's Son is the story of his journey of discovery, both a memoir of his childhood in Scotland, and an investigation into his family history which would change him forever. 'Equal parts memoir, whodunnit and manual for living . . . beautifully written, honest . . . I was completely sucked in' NEIL GAIMAN

The life-stories of a quartet of early Indian actors and poet-playwrights translated here. Their memoirs, replete with anecdote and humour, are as significant to the understanding of the nationalist era as the lives of political leaders or social reformers.

American filmmaker John Cassavetes (1929-1989) made only nine independent films during a quarter century, but those films affected the cinema culture of the 1960s to the 1980s in unprecedented ways. With a close nucleus of actors and crew members on his team, including his wife Gena Rowlands, Peter Falk, and Ben Gazzara, Cassavetes created films that explored the gritty side of human relationships. He staunchly advocated the right of actors and filmmakers to full artistic freedom over their work. Attracting both fervent admirers and harsh critics, Cassavetes's films have garnered prestigious awards in the US and Europe and continue to evoke strong reactions. Starting in New York with his first film Shadows, Cassavetes moved on to the West Coast with Faces, Husbands, Minnie and Moskowitz, A Woman Under the Influence, The Killing of a Chinese Bookie, Opening Night, Gloria, and Love Streams. He also directed several studio films, which often rankled his independent streak that rebelled against a loss of artistic freedom. Cassavetes's work in the theater and his performances in numerous television programs and films, including The Dirty Dozen and Rosemary's Baby, made him, as a director, fiercely protective of his actors' right to self-expression.

"Mitchum's tales include beatings, hanging producers by their shoelaces, killings in Mexican bars and slapping Teutonic helmer Otto Preminger. And there are classic observations, such as his quip to Variety that 'the best producer is an absent one.' Mitchum editor Jerry Roberts...conducted one of the interviews, and has done a terrific job piecing together vintage conversations with David Frost, Dick Lochte, Richard Schickel and Charles Champlin, as well as collecting a wonderful array of prize quotes by and about Mitchum." -Steven Gaydos, Variety

Because of his lengthy screen resume that includes almost eighty appearances in such movies as Camille and Waterloo Bridge, as well as a marriage and divorce to actress Barbara Stanwyck, Robert Taylor was a central figure of Hollywood's classical era. Despite this, he can be regarded as a "lost" star, an interesting contradiction given the continued success he enjoyed during his lifetime. In Robert Taylor: Male Beauty, Masculinity, and Stardom in Hollywood, author Gillian Kelly investigates the initial construction and subsequent developments of Taylor's star persona across his thirty-five-year career. By examining concepts of male beauty, men as object of the erotic gaze, white American masculinity, and the unusual longevity of a career initially based on looks, Kelly highlights how gender, masculinity, and male stars and the ageing process affected Taylor's career. Placing Taylor within the histories of both Hollywood's classical era and mid-twentieth-century America, this study positions him firmly within the wider industrial, cultural, and socioeconomic contexts in which he worked. Kelly examines Taylor's film and television work as well as ephemeral material, such as fan magazines, to assess how his on- and off-screen personas were created and developed over time. Taking a mostly chronological approach, Kelly places Taylor's persona within specific historical moments in order to show the complex paradox of his image remaining consistently recognizable while also shifting seamlessly within the Hollywood industry. Furthermore, she explores Taylor's importance to Hollywood cinema by demonstrating how a star persona like his can "fit" so well, and for so long, that it almost becomes invisible and, eventually, almost forgotten.

Born in 1893 into the only African American family in White Sulphur Springs, Montana, Emmanuel Taylor Gordon (1893-1971) became an internationally famous singer in the 1920s at the height of the Harlem Renaissance. With his musical partner, J. Rosamond Johnson, Gordon was a crucially important figure in popularizing African American spirituals as an art form, giving many listeners their first experience of black spirituals. Despite his fame, Taylor Gordon has been all but forgotten, until now. Michael K. Johnson illuminates Gordon's personal history and his cultural importance to the legacy of the Harlem Renaissance, arguing that during the height of his celebrity, Gordon was one of the most significant African American male vocalists of his era. Gordon's story-working in the White Sulphur Springs brothels as an errand boy, traveling the country in John Ringling's private railway car, performing on vaudeville stages from New York to Vancouver to Los Angeles, performing for royalty in England, becoming a celebrated author with a best-selling 1929 autobiography, and his long bout of mental illness-adds depth to the history of the Harlem Renaissance and makes him one of the most fascinating figures of the twentieth century. Through detailed documentation of Gordon's career-newspaper articles, reviews, letters, and other archival material-the author demonstrates the scope of Gordon's cultural impact. The result is a detailed account of Taylor's musical education, his career as a vaudeville performer, the remarkable performance history of Johnson and Gordon, his status as an in-demand celebrity singer and author, his time as a radio star, and, finally, his descent into madness. Can't Stand Still brings Taylor Gordon back to the center of the stage.

The 15th in a series drawn from scholarship presented at the annual Comparative Drama Conference at Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida, this collection provides insights into texts and practices currently at the forefront of theatrical discussion. The volume includes various essays on the intersections of script and performance, and features an exclusive interview with keynote speaker, playwright Simon Stephens.

Post World War II America saw a return to prosperity and the rise of a significant youth-culture. Television began to replace movies as the chief source of entertainment for the general public, and adolescents and single young adults began to constitute the largest portion of the audience for movies. With his youthful appearance, Montgomery Clift held special appeal to this new market, and he became one of the foremost American actors of his time. This book details his many performances. The introductory biography offers a succinct summary of Clift's life and the forces that shaped his work. The chapters that follow contain annotated entries for all of his work in plays, films, radio, and television. Entries present plot summaries, cast and credit information, critical analyses, and excerpts from reviews. The book gives equal attention to his lesser-known films and stage career, as to his most memorable performances. An extensive annotated bibliography cites and evaluates books, articles, and miscellaneous sources of information about Clift and includes fictional works in which he appears as a character.

David Fincher (b. 1962) did not go to film school and hates being defined as an auteur. He prefers to see himself as a craftsman, dutifully going about the art and business of making film. Trouble is, it's hard to be self-effacing when you are the director responsible for Se7en, Fight Club, and The Social Network. Along with Quentin Tarantino, Fincher is the most accomplished of the Generation X filmmakers to emerge in the early 1990s. This collection of interviews highlights Fincher's unwavering commitment to his craft as he evolved from an entrepreneurial music video director (Fincher helped Madonna become the undisputed queen of MTV) into an enterprising feature filmmaker. Fincher landed his first Hollywood blockbuster at twenty-seven with Alien3, but that film, handicapped by cost overruns and corporate mismanagement, taught Fincher that he needed absolute control over his work. Once he had it, with Se7en, he achieved instant box-office success and critical acclaim, as well as a close partnership with Brad Pitt that led to the cult favorite Fight Club. Fincher became circumspect in the 2000s after Panic Room, shooting ads and biding his time until Zodiac, when he returned to his mantra that ""entertainment has to come hand in hand with a little bit of medicine. Some people go to the movies to be reminded that everything's okay. I don't make those kinds of movies. That, to me, is a lie. Everything's not okay."" Zodiac reinvigorated Fincher, inspiring a string of films--The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, The Social Network, and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo--that enthralled audiences and garnered his films dozens of Oscar nominations.

Thomas Kilroy's long and distinguished career is celebrated in this volume by new essays, panel discussions and an interview, reconsidering the work of one of Ireland's most intellectually ambitious and technically imaginative playwrights. Contributors are drawn from both the academic and theatrical spheres, and include Nicholas Grene, Wayne Jordan, Patrick Mason, Christopher Murray and Lynne Parker. This volume follows Kilroy's own practice of connecting the creative and the critical, and publishes for the first time an extract from his play "Blake". Illustrated with photographs from major productions, this book also reproduces previously unseen materials from the Thomas Kilroy Collection held in the James Hardiman Library, NUI Galway.

Since its foundation in 1991, Blue Raincoat Theatre Company is Ireland's only full-time venue-based professional theatre ensemble and has become renowned for its movement, visual and aural proficiencies and precision. This book explores those signatures from a number of vantage points, conveying the complex challenges faced by Blue Raincoat as they respond to changing aesthetic and economic circumstances. Particular consideration is given to set, costume, sound and lighting design. Influenced and informed by renowned international theatre makers such as Etienne Decroux, Jacques Copeau, Roy Hart and Anne Bogart, Blue Raincoat productions are generally non-natural in their sensibility, with a few notable exceptions. Productions such as the stage adaptations of Flann O'Brien's The Third Policeman, At Swim Two Birds and The Poor Mouth, Samuel Beckett's Endgame and Eugene Ionesco's The Chairs speak to the artifice of the theatre itself, where actors and designers work collaboratively to reveal the function of the performance. W.B. Yeats's one act ritual dramas demand physical, vocal and technical rigour and flexibility. This book explores the marvellously textured and complex nature of Blue Raincoat's work, revealing the magic that results from their unique style of theatre making.

The year 2009 was the centenary of the death of John Millington Synge, one of the world's great dramatists. To mark the occasion, this book gathers essays by leading scholars of Irish drama, aiming to explore the writers and movements that shaped Synge, and to consider his enduring legacies. Essays discuss Synge's work in its Irish, European and world contexts - showing his engagement not just with the Irish literary revival but with European politics and culture too. The book also explores Synge's influence on later writers: Irish dramatists such as Brian Friel, Tom Murphy and Marina Carr, as well as international writers like Mustapha Matura and Erisa Kironde. It also considers Synge's place in Ireland today, revealing how The Playboy of the Western World has helped to shape Ireland's responses to globalisation and multiculturalism, in celebrated productions by the Abbey Theatre, Druid theatre, and Pan Pan theatre company. Contributors include Ann Saddlemyer, Ben Levitas, Mary Burke, Paige Reynolds, Eilis Ni Dhuibhne, Mark Phelan, Shaun Richards, Ondvrej Pilny, Richard Pine, Alexandra Poulain, Emilie Pine, Melissa Sihra, Sara Keating, Bisi Adigun, Adrian Frazier and Anthony Roche.

Characters are central to our experiences of screened fictions and invite a host of questions. The contributors to Screening Characters draw on archival material, interviews, philosophical inquiry, and conceptual analysis in order to give new, thought-provoking answers to these queries. Providing multifaceted accounts of the nature of screen characters, contributions are organized around a series of important subjects, including issues of class, race, ethics, and generic types as they are encountered in moving image media. These topics, in turn, are personified by such memorable figures as Cary Grant, Jon Hamm, Audrey Hepburn, and Seul-gi Kim, in addition to avatars, online personalities, animated characters, and the ensembles of shows such as The Sopranos, Mad Men, and Breaking Bad.

The Ritual Theatre of Theodoros Terzopoulos outlines the story of the Athenian-based Attis Theatre and the way its founder and director, Theodoros Terzopoulos, introduced bio-energetic presences of the body on the stage, in an attempt to redefine and reappraise what it means today not only to have a body, but to fully be a body. Terzopoulos created a very specific attitude towards life and death, and it is this broad perspective on energy and consciousness that makes his work so appealing both to a general public and to students of arts, theatre and drama. Freddy Decreus' study charts the career of Greece's most acclaimed theatre director and provides a spiritual and philosophic answer in times where former Western meta-narratives have failed.

Despite its international influence, Polish theatre remains a mystery to many Westerners. This volume attempts to fill in various gaps in English-language scholarship by offering a historical and critical analysis of two of the most influential works of Polish theatre: Jerzy Grotowski s Akropolis and Tadeusz Kantor s Dead Class . By examining each director s representation of Auschwitz, this study provides a new understanding of how translating national trauma through the prism of performance can alter and deflect the meaning and reception of theatrical works, both inside and outside their cultural and historical context.

Although theatre scholars have now gained familiarity with Akropolis and Dead Class, there remains little understanding of the complex web of cultural meanings and significations that went into their making they remain broadly but not deeply known. Grotowski and Kantor both sought to respond to the trauma of the Holocaust, albeit through drastically different aesthetics, and this study develops a comparative critical language through which one can simultaneously engage Grotowski and Kantor in a way that makes their differences evocative of a broader conversation about theatre and meaning. Ultimately, this volume invites and engages with many questions: how is theatrical meaning codified outside its cultural context? How is it codified within its cultural context? What affects the reception of a theatrical work? And, above all, how does theatre make meaning ?"

Sullied Magnificence: The Theatre of Mark O'Rowe is a collection of essays that combines the voices of Mark O'Rowe's collaborators and critics with analysis by leading academics. It examines the role of the actor and director in monologue theatre. It questions the use of violence in O'Rowe's films and plays. It explores influences and inspirations, and provides a thorough introduction to the work of one of Ireland's most unique theatrical voices. It also takes a brief look at O'Rowe's work for film, as both writer and director, and the crossover effect this work has had on his plays.

"Perhaps the greatest actor-manager of his time", wrote the distinguished playwright Harold Pinter, whose first job in the theatre was with Anew McMaster's classical theatre company and whose little book, called Mac, Pinter published as a tribute to him after his death. For over thirty years "Mac", as he was known, toured the Irish provinces giving the country people their first sight of Shakespeare. Anew McMaster died over fifty years ago, and though he figures largely in biographies by Micheal O'hAodha, Simon Callow and his brother-in-law, Micheal MacLiammoir, he has not had, as yet, a full book devoted to his life and work.