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Books > Arts & Architecture > Performing arts > Individual actors & performers
This is the first book to dedicate critical attention to the work
of influential theater-maker Taylor Mac. Mac is particularly
celebrated for the historic performance event A 24-Decade History
of Popular Music, in which Mac, in fantastical costumes designed by
collaborator Machine Dazzle, sang the history of the United States
for 24 straight hours in October 2016. The MacArthur Foundation
soon thereafter awarded their "genius" award to a "writer,
director, actor, singer, and performance artist whose fearlessly
experimental works dramatize the power of theater as a space for
building community . . . [and who] interacts with the audience to
inspire a reconsideration of assumptions about gender, identity,
ethnicity, and performance itself." Featuring essays, interviews,
and commentaries by noted critics and artists, the volume examines
the vastness of Mac's theatrical imagination, the singularity of
their voice, the inclusiveness of their cultural insights and
critiques, and the creativity they display through stylistic and
formal qualities and the unorthodoxies of their personal and
professional trajectories. Contributors consider the range of Mac's
career as a playwright, performer, actor, and singer, expanding and
enriching the conversation on this much-celebrated and deeply
resonant body of work.
'I adored this book. It's so Geena and so inspiring and such a
wonderful read' Emma Thompson A Times Film and Theatre Book of the
Year 2022 From two-time Academy Award winner and screen icon Geena
Davis, Dying of Politeness is the candid, surprising tale of her
journey from her epically polite childhood to the roles that put
her in the spotlight and gave her the strength to become a
powerhouse in Hollywood. At three years old, Geena announced she
was going to be in movies. Now, with a slew of iconic roles and
awards under her belt, she has surpassed her childhood dream, but
her journey has been one of fits and starts, with a pothole or two
along the way. In this hilarious memoir, Geena regales us with
tales of a career playing everything from an amnesiac assassin to
the parent of a rodent in Stuart Little; a soap star in her
underwear to a housewife turned road warrior in Thelma &
Louise; a baseball phenomenon in A League of Their Own to the first
female President of the United States in Commander in Chief, and
more. She is frank about her eccentric childhood; her many
relationships, including her spontaneous Las Vegas wedding to Jeff
Goldblum; her archery exploits which led her to the Olympic trials;
and how she became a tireless advocate for women and girls,
founding her own institute which engages film and TV creators to
better represent women and actors from diverse backgrounds. Dying
of Politeness is a touching account of one woman's journey to fight
for herself, and ultimately fighting for women all around the
globe.
A filmmaker whose work exhibits a wide range of styles and
approaches, Louis Malle (1932-1995) was the only French director of
his generation to enjoy a significant career in both France and the
United States. Although Malle began his career alongside members of
the French New Wave like Francois Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, and
Claude Chabrol, he never associated himself with that group. Malle
is perhaps best known for his willingness to take on such difficult
or controversial topics as suicide, incest, child prostitution, and
collaboration with the Nazis during World War II. His filmography
includes narrative films like Zazie dans le Metro, Murmur of the
Heart, Atlantic City, My Dinner with Andre, and Au revoir les
enfants, as well as several major documentaries. In the late 1970s,
Malle moved to the United States, where he worked primarily outside
of the Hollywood studio system. The films of his American period
display his keen outsider's eye, which allowed him to observe
diverse aspects of American life in settings that ranged from
turn-of-the-century New Orleans to present-day Atlantic City and
the Texas Gulf Coast. Louis Malle: Interviews covers the entirety
of Malle's career and features seventeen interviews, the majority
of which are translated into English here for the first time. As
the collection demonstrates, Malle was an extremely intelligent and
articulate filmmaker who thought deeply about his own choices as a
director, the ideological implications of those choices, and the
often-controversial themes treated in his films. The interviews
address such topics as Malle's approach to casting and directing
actors, his attitude toward provocative subject matter and
censorship, his understanding of the relationship between
documentary and fiction film, and the differences between the film
industries in France and the US. Malle also discusses his
sometimes-challenging work with such actors as Brigitte Bardot,
Pierre Blaise, and Brooke Shields, and sheds new light on the
making of his films.
An enthralling biography about one of the most intriguing women of
the Victorian age: the first self-invented international social
celebrity. Lola Montez was one of the most celebrated and notorious
women of the nineteenth century. A raven-haired Andalusian who
performed her scandalous "Spider Dance" in the greatest performance
halls across Europe, she dazzled and beguiled all who met her with
her astonishing beauty, sexuality, and shocking disregard for
propriety. But Lola was an impostor, a self-invention. Born Eliza
Gilbert, the beautiful Irish wild child escaped a stifling marriage
and reimagined herself as Lola the Sevillian flamenco dancer and
noblewoman, choosing a life of adventure, fame, sex, and scandal
rather than submitting to the strictures of her era. Lola cast her
spell on the European aristocracy and the most famous intellectuals
and artists of the time, including Alexandre Dumas, Franz Liszt,
and George Sand, and became the obsession of King Ludwig I of
Bavaria. She then set out for the New World, arriving in San
Francisco at the height of the gold rush, where she lived like a
pioneer and performed for rowdy miners before making her way to New
York. There, her inevitable downfall was every bit as dramatic as
her rise. Yet there was one final reinvention to come for the most
defiant woman of the Victorian age-a woman known as a "savage
beauty" who was idolized, romanticized, vilified, truly known by no
one, and a century ahead of her time.
Judy Garland was an entertainment icon whose performances on stage,
screen and television had a tremendous impact across decades and
media. This film-by-film study of her work follows her progression
from pig-tailed child to a top motion picture star, with such
timeless classics as The Wizard of Oz, Meet Me in St Louis, and A
Star is Born. Garland's talent and versatility as an actress are
explored through each of her movie roles. More than just a
reference filmography, this work examines how Garland's talents
were realized and understood by producers and the world. It
analyzes the star's relatonships with various co-stars and
directors and details how she balanced her painful insecurities
with her often focused and driven approach to her work. Through the
context of her work on film, Judy Garland's innate and enduring
star power is readily appreciated and acknowledged.
PAPERBACK FOR SALE IN AFRICA ONLY A collection of playscripts and
texts that give an English-reading audience access to key plays as
well as less well-known and previously untranslated works - a
superb resource for scholars and theatre practitioners. This volume
makes available some of the most influential, imaginative and
exciting plays to come out of East and West Africa from the 1970s
to the present day. Deliberately excluding playscripts by the
regions' two best known playwrights, Wole Soyinka and Ngugi wa
Thiong'o, whose work was profiled in African Theatre 13 the editors
have selected plays, some well-known and some less widely
available, that represent the diversity and richness of thesetwo
very different African regions. The playscripts include a new
translation from Amharic, as well as the English version of a play
originally written in French, making more theatre from some of
Africa's multitude of languages accessible to an English-reading
audience. Each script is accompanied by an essay from an expert on
the work, the playwright, and the context in which the play was
produced, so that the volume will be of maximum use to both
researchers and students of African theatre. Volume Editors: MARTIN
BANHAM & JANE PLASTOW Series Editors: Martin Banham, Emeritus
Professor of Drama & Theatre Studies, University of Leeds;
James Gibbs, Senior Visiting Research Fellow, University of the
West of England; Femi Osofisan, Professor of Drama, University of
Ibadan; Jane Plastow, Professor of African Theatre, University of
Leeds; Yvette Hutchison, Associate Professor, Department ofTheatre
& Performance Studies, University of Warwick
Cecil Packer was a farm labourer, a factory worker, a shepherd and
a devoted family man from Wiltshire who like so many others was
sent to France to fight for his country in the First World War, and
never returned. Cecil survived both the Gallipoli and Somme
campaigns, so for his descendants, his death on the Western Front
when his battalion was far from the front line was a mystery as
well as a tragedy. Alan Gaunt, whose wife Shirley is Cecil's
great-granddaughter, set about researching Cecil's humble but
interesting life and finally established the tragic circumstances
of his accidental death in December 1916 at the age of 31."This is
not the story of a traditional hero in the mould of Nelson or
Wellington but that of a village shepherd, a local man who did not
come from the nobility or the ranks of the nation's leaders but
simply loved his family and died in the service of his country."
He was one of the world's true superstars, and the silver screen's
most beloved James Bond. Sir Sean Connery - a proud Scotsman born
in 1930 to a working-class family - died at home in the Bahamas on
31 October 2020. He left behind him a legacy to rival any actor.
Connery bestrode Hollywood like a Colossus. He commanded some of
the highest fees in the industry and was lauded by critics and the
public alike. In July 2000, his unique contribution to the world of
film was recognised when he was accorded a knighthood. John Parker
traces the astonishing rise to stardom of a tough street kid from
Edinburgh. The part of 007 became a monster that threatened to kill
Connery as an actor; he escaped to establish himself as one of the
world's most magnetic and commanding character actors, winning an
Oscar for his role in iconic crime drama The Untouchables. The
author has drawn on reminiscences of famous friends and colleagues,
including Honor Blackman, Robert Hardy and Eric Sykes, to create an
authoritative and entertaining portrait of a talented, complex
actor - and, above all else, a magnificent man.
Josephine Baker (1906-1975) was a dancer, singer, actress, author,
politician, militant, and philanthropist, whose images and cultural
legacy have survived beyond the hundredth anniversary of her birth.
Neither an exercise in postmodern deconstruction nor simple
biography, Josephine Baker in Art and Life presents a critical
cultural study of the life and art of the Franco-American performer
whose appearances as the savage dancer Fatou shocked the world.
Although the study remains firmly anchored in Josephine Baker's
life and times, presenting and challenging carefully researched
biographical facts, it also offers in-depth analyses of the images
that she constructed and advanced. Bennetta Jules-Rosette explores
Baker's far-ranging and dynamic career from a sociological and
cultural perspective, using the tools of sociosemiotics to excavate
the narratives, images, and representations that trace the story of
her life and fit together as a cultural production.
Screening Scarlett Johansson: Gender, Genre, Stardom provides an
account of Johansson's persona, work and stardom, extending from
her breakout roles in independent cinema, to contemporary
blockbusters, to her self-parodying work in science-fiction.
Screening Scarlett Johansson is more than an account of Johansson's
career; it positions Johansson as a point of reference for
interrogating how femininity, sexuality, identity and genre play
out through a contemporary woman star and the textual manipulations
of her image. The chapters in this collection cast a critical eye
over the characters Johansson has portrayed, the personas she has
inhabited, and how the two intersect and influence one another.
They draw out the multitude of meanings generated through and
inherent to her performances, specifically looking at processes of
transformation, metamorphosis and self-deconstruction depicted in
her work.
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Driven
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Craig R. Baxley
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Born in Tehran in 1957, filmmaker Mohsen Ostad Ali Makhmalbaf grew
up in the religious and politically charged atmosphere of the
1960s, and the June 1963 uprising of Ayatollah Khomeini constitutes
one of his earliest memories. In 1972, Makhmalbaf formed his own
urban guerrilla group and two years later attacked a police
officer, for which he was arrested and jailed. He remained
incarcerated until 1978, when the revolutionary wave led by
Ayatollah Khomeini freed him and launched his career as a writer
and self-taught filmmaker. Since then, Makhmalbaf has gone on to
make such highly admired films as Gabbeh and The Silence. The three
lengthy conversations collected here, between Makhmalbaf and
leading Iranian film critic and scholar Hamid Dabashi, traverse the
filmmaker's experiences as a young radical, his critical stance
regarding the current Islamic regime, and his fascination with
films--both as product and as process. In this in-depth view of one
of the most significant Middle Eastern filmmakers of our time,
Makhmalbaf reflects on the relationship between cinema and
violence, tolerance, and social change, as well as the political
and artistic importance of the autonomy of the filmmaker.
Wild and Crazy Guys is the larger-than-life story of the much-loved Hollywood comedy stars that ruled the 1980s. This paperback edition features never seen-before bonus material.
As well as delving behind the scenes of classic movies such as Ghostbusters, Beverly Hills Cop, The Blues Brothers, Trading Places and dozens more, it chronicles the off-screen, larger-than-life antics of John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd, Bill Murray, Eddie Murphy, Chevy Chase, Steve Martin, John Candy et al. It’s got drugs, sex, punch-ups, webbed toes and Bill Murray being pushed into a swimming pool by Hunter S Thompson, while tied to a lawn chair.
It’s akin to Peter Biskind’s Easy Riders, Raging Bulls, following the key players through their highs and lows, and their often turbulent relationships with each other. Nick de Semlyen has interviewed many of the key directors such as Walter Hill, John Landis and Carl Reiner, as well as the comedians themselves. Taking you on a trip through the tumultuous ’80s, Wild And Crazy Guys explores the friendships, feuds, triumphs and disasters experienced by these iconic funnymen. Based on candid interviews from the stars themselves, as well as those who entered their orbit, it reveals the hidden history behind the most fertile period ever for screen comedy.
This book discusses affective practices in performance through the
study of four contemporary performers - Keith Hennessy, Ilya Noe,
Caro Novella, and duskin drum - to suggest a tentative rhetoric of
performativity generating political affect and permeating attempts
at social justice that are often alterior to discourse. The first
part of the book makes a case for the political work done alongside
discourse by performers practising with materials that are
not-known, in ways that are directly relevant to people carrying
out their daily lives. In the second part of the book, four case
study chapters circle around figures of irresolvable paradox -
hendiadys, enthymeme, anecdote, allegory - that gesture to what is
not-known, to study strategies for processes of becoming, knowing
and valuing. These figures also shape some elements of these
performances that make up a suggested rhetorical stance for
performativity.
The definitive guide to a Hollywood legend. Few stars are as loved
as Audrey Hepburn, today as much as ever. Beautiful, delicate,
graceful - but always warm and natural - she stole our hearts. She
was also brave, working tirelessly for UNICEF in the face of her
own failing health. in this moving and heartwarming biography
Alexander Walker traces the extraordinary combination of luck and
talent that allowed a fragile little girl,who nearly died in
Hitler's occupied Europe, to conquer, in just one year, the New
York stage and the Hollywood screen. Walker analyses her ascent to
power and world fame and reveals the sadness of her life: two
failed marriages, a broken engagement, and the crushing
disappointment that occupied her triumph in My Fair Lady. Most
importantly of all, this biography reveals what no one has known
until now: the truly terrifying family secret that tore Audrey's
childhood apart and kept her forever silent about her parents.
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Alesha Dixon has one of the most incredible stories of any star,
yet she remains an enigma. Behind the fabulous smile and signature
laugh is a private woman whose childhood was blighted by domestic
violence, poverty and a lack of confidence. As a beautiful young
woman, she has struggled to overcome professional failure and the
devastating effect of her husband's infidelity. The UK's leading
celebrity biographer Sean Smith has travelled to her home town to
uncover the truth about her upbringing, her unconditional love for
her mother, her loyalty to her extended family, her feud with her
elder brother and her unsettled relationship with her Jamaican
father, who left home for good when she was four. He discovers a
sensitive and secretive woman, who managed to keep her long-term
relationship with a member of one of the country's best-known boy
bands hidden from public scrutiny. For the first time that love
affair can now be revealed. He examines the circumstances that led
to the break-up of her marriage to rapper MC Harvey and the effect
that unhappy time has had on her life. Aleshadescribes a
roller-coaster career that began when she was 'discovered' at a
dance class in Central London. She achieved huge early success with
Mis-Teeq, who had seven consecutive top ten hits before their
record label went bust. Her subsequent solo career stalled when she
was dropped by Polydor before her debut album was even released,
but she turned things around with a spectacular victory on Strictly
Come Dancing. Sean Smith lays bare her subsequent TV career,
including the row over her appointment as a judge on the programme,
as well as her triumphant switch to Britain's Got Talentin 2012.
Aleshais the dramatic and uplifting account of her journey from a
humble start in life and how she overcame all obstacles in her way
to become an inspiration to women everywhere.
Becoming Carole Lombard: Stardom, Comedy and Legacy is a historical
critique of the development and reception of Carole Lombard's
stardom from the classical Hollywood period to present day. Based
on original archival research, Olympia Kiriakou combines
theoretically informed textual analyses of Lombard's performances
and star image across different media (biographies, publicity
materials, photography and film) with a critical engagement of the
cultural, economic, social and industrial conditions that shaped
her stardom. Sitting at the intersection of feminist film theory,
star studies and comedy theory, this work presents Lombard as a
case study to challenge the screwball canon and existent academic
discourse about female physical comedy and the alleged "delicate"
female body. In doing so, it formulates a new historical approach
to understanding gender, femininity, and identity in Hollywood
comedies of the 1930s. Moreover, this is the first research of its
kind to offer a comprehensive understanding of Lombard's stardom
beyond her associations with the screwball comedy genre.
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