The Art of Knife Fighting for Stage and Screen: An Actor's and Director's Guide to Staged Violence provides detailed information for the safe use of knives and daggers in a theatrical setting and an in-depth understanding of safe theatrical weapons. The book starts with an extensive safety review, then moves on to the basic techniques of dagger fighting, starting with grip and body postures. Readers will then learn about the basic actions of cuts, parries, blocks, and disarms. During this process, they will explore the connection between body and weapon and start learning the elements of storytelling through choreography. Special attention is given to suicides, threats, and murder and how directors, choreographers, performers, teachers, and students can approach these techniques in a way that is physically and mentally safe. The book also covers the use of throwing knives, knife flips, and other tricks to help add a little flair to your fight. The Art of Knife Fighting for Stage and Screen teaches the safe theatrical use of the knife for directors, performers, educators, and students of stage combat.

* Interdisciplinary book that weaves together ideas from psychology, philosophy, neuroscience, and dance. * Considers how movement is central to our sense of reality, our sense of self, and our relationships with others and the surrounding world. * Accessibly written book that foregrounds the author's voice and experiences

This lively and provocative study offers a radical reappraisal of a century of Shakespearean theatre. Topics addressed include modernist Shakespearean performance's relation with psychoanalysis, the hidden gender dynamics of the open stage movement, and the appropriation of Shakespeare himself as a dramatic fiction and theatrical icon.

The Theatre of Soc etas Raffaello Sanzio chronicles four years in the life of an extraordinary Italian theatre company whose work is widely recognized as some of the most exciting theatre currently being made in Europe.

In the first English-language book to document their work, company founders, Claudia Castellucci, Romeo Castellucci and Chiara Guidi, discuss their approach to theatre making with Joe Kelleher and Nicholas Ridout.

At the centre of the book is a detailed exploration of the company's eleven episode cycle of tragic theatre, Tragedia Endogonida (2002 2004, ) including:

• production notes and extensive correspondence giving insights into the creative process
• essays by and conversations with company members alongside critical responses by their two co-authors
• seventy-two photographs of the company's work.

This is a significant collection of theoretical and practical reflections on the subject of theatre in the twenty-first century, and an indispensible written and visual document of the company's work.

The Routledge Companion to Interdisciplinary Studies in Singing, Volume I: Development introduces the many voices necessary to better understand the act of singing-a complex human behaviour that emerges without deliberate training. Presenting research from the social sciences and humanities alongside that of the natural sciences and medicine alike, this companion explores the relationship between hearing sensitivity and vocal production, in turn identifying how singing is integrated with sensory and cognitive systems while investigating the ways we test and measure singing ability and development. Contributors consider the development of singing within the context of the entire lifespan, focusing on its cognitive, social, and emotional significance in four parts: Musical, historical and scientific foundations Perception and production Multimodality Assessment In 2009, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada funded a seven-year major collaborative research initiative known as Advancing Interdisciplinary Research in Singing (AIRS). Together, global researchers from a broad range of disciplines addressed three challenging questions: How does singing develop in every human being? How should singing be taught and used to teach? How does singing impact wellbeing? Across three volumes, The Routledge Companion to Interdisciplinary Studies in Singing consolidates the findings of each of these three questions, defining the current state of theory and research in the field. Volume I: Development tackles the first of these three questions, tracking development from infancy through childhood to adult years.

Filled with practical advice from an award-winning playwright, with a range of resources to guide you in the craft and business of theatre writing, The Art of Writing for the Theatre provides everything you need to write like a seasoned theatre professional, including: * how to analyze and break down a script * how to write a wide range of plays * how to critique a theatre production * how to construct and craft critical essays, cover letters, and theatrical resumes This thorough introduction is supplemented with exercises and new interviews with a host of internationally acclaimed playwrights, lyricists, and critics, including Marsha Norman, Beth Henley, Lyn Gardner, Octavio Solis, Ismail Khalidi, and David Zippel, among many others. Accompanying online resources include playwriting and script analysis worksheets and exercises, an example of a playwriting resume, and critical points to consider on playwriting, design, acting, directing and choreography.

The Diaries of Elizabeth Inchbald (1753-1821) are rare and fragile documents which present a unique view of Romantic-era Britain. An energetic woman, Inchbald achieved fame as an actress, novelist, playwright and critic. Her career introduced her to a wide group of people and she counted William Godwin, Thomas Holcroft, Maria Edgeworth, Sarah Siddons and John Philip Kemble among her friends. Published here for the first time, her eleven surviving diaries are a fascinating vignette of everyday life in the theatrical and literary circles of eighteenth-century London. They record Inchbald's reading habits, social contacts and professional activities, itemize her day-to-day expenditure, and chart the development of current affairs such as the Napoleonic Wars and the trial of Queen Caroline. The diaries are fully transcribed, but a sense of the original documents is preserved through selected photographic reproductions, and descriptions of the physical notebooks. The editorial apparatus also contextualises the diaries and provides biographical details for Inchbald and the other figures she encountered. Full editorial apparatus includes a substantial general introduction, a chronology of Inchbald's life, brief introductions to each diary, bibliographical guides to figures mentioned, and textual notes. There is a consolidated index in the final volume.

Carl Eberwein's dramatic setting of Goethe's melodrama, Proserpina, for solo voice (speaking part) and orchestra, with a choral finale, is highly dramatic in impact and beautifully orchestrated. Eberwein's music for Proserpina was written under Goethe's supervision and according to his wishes. This is the first publication to represent the artistic intentions of both artists in a modern orchestral score, with piano reduction, German/English text and critical commentary on the work.

In ACTING: Make It Your Business, Second Edition, award-winning casting director Paul Russell puts the power to land jobs and thrive in any medium-stage, film, television, or the Internet-directly into the hands of the actor. This blunt and practical guide offers a wealth of advice on auditioning, marketing, and networking, combining traditional techniques with those best suited for the digital age. Well-known actors and powerful agents and managers make cameos throughout, offering newcomers and working professionals alike a clear-eyed, uncensored perspective on survival and advancement within the entertainment industry. This second edition has been updated and expanded to include the following: More stars of screen and stage sharing acting career strategies Digital audition techniques for screen and stage, including how best to self-tape New tools to master modern marketing, both digital and traditional with innovation Expanded actor resource listings Additional bicoastal talent agents and managers spilling secrets for obtaining representation, and tips for successful actor-to-representation partnerships New insights on audition techniques An excellent resource for career actors, beginning and amateur actors, as well as students in Acting I and II, Auditions, and Business of Acting courses, ACTING: Make It Your Business provides readers with invaluable tools to build a successful, long-lasting acting career.

Award Monologues for Women is a collection of fifty-four monologues taken from plays written since 1980 that have been nominated for the Pullitzer Prize, the Tony and the Drama Desk Awards in New York, and The Evening Standard and Laurence Olivier Awards in London. The book provides an excellent range of up-to-date audition pieces, usefully arranged in age groups, and is supplemented with audition tips to improve your acting, and to ensure that the best possible performance.

Women's Theatre Writing in Victorian Britain is the first book to make a comprehensive study of women playwrights in the British theatre from 1820 to 1918. It looks at how women playwrights negotiated their personal and professional identities as writers, and examines the female tradition of playwriting which dramatises the central experience of women's lives around the themes of home, the nation, and the position of women in marriage and the family. The book also includes an extensive Appendix of authors and plays, which will be a useful reference tool for students and scholars in nineteenth-century studies and theatre historians.

"Tales of the Tricycle Theatre "provides an inside look at the history of the north London theatre which has achieved renown with its staging of black, Irish, verbatim and political drama. Co-published with the Society for Theatre Research, the book draws extensively on archival research and interviews with actors, playwrights, directors, designers and board members to document and celebrate the work of one of London's most artistically exciting and politically engaged theatres.Terry Stoller presents the Tricycle's story, giving you a front-row view of the theatre's productions, including: - the work of generations of black British writers, from Mustapha Matura and Alfred Fagon to Roy Williams, Kwame Kwei-Armah and Bola Agbaje- Irish plays ranging from Bernard Shaw's "John Bull's Other ""Island "to Brendan Behan's "The Hostage"- its critically lauded political play cycles "The Bomb - A Partial ""History "and "The Great Game: Afghanistan," the latter performed at the Pentagon in 2011" The Tricycle Theatre] has been both defiantly local and proudly international, it has held a mirror up to British society, and, above all, it has proved that political engagement is not incompatible with the highest artistic standards. It has helped make my life as a critic worthwhile . . ."Michael Billington, Foreword

Aesthetic Hysteria is a deconstructive psychoanalytic study of hysteria, using literary texts to foreground a telling encounter between two growing discourses within English studies: that of emotion/affect and trauma studies. It brings together several academic foci - the history of medicine, aesthetic theory, speech act theory, feminism, and gender and performance studies. The study uses its theoretical and philosophical questioning of a cultural phenomenon to interrogate the politics and ends of theory, and is timely in addressing similar anxieties dominating contemporary critical and cultural theory.

How are we to understand the actor's work as a fully embodied process? 'Embodied cognition' is a branch of contemporary philosophy which attempts to frame human understanding as a fully embodied interaction with the environment. Engaging with ideas of contemporary significance from neuroscience, psychology, linguistics, and philosophy, Why Do Actors Train? challenges outmoded mind/body dualistic notions that permeate common conceptions of how actors work. Theories of embodiment are drawn up to shed important light on the ways and reasons actors do what they do. Through detailed, step-by-step analyses of specific actor-training exercises, the author examines the tools that actors use to perform roles. This book provides theatre practitioners with a new lens to re-examine their craft, offering a framework to understand the art form as one that is fundamentally grounded in embodied experience.

What are cultural centres for? This book offers a unique and dynamic guide to managing these organizations, and the challenge of reconciling cultural aims with business success. Drawing on research and practice, it provides case-based insights into common managerial problems and their solutions. Although international research demonstrates that culture has positive economic impact and many cultural institutions are multi-million dollar institutions, there has been little research on how cultural centres are managed to combine cultural and economic impact. Due to the diversity of their missions and purpose, cultural centres in Europe often struggle to find business success. By drawing on recent cases from Finland and Sweden, and focusing on the challenges which face both managers and organizations, this book explores the incentives which underpin the foundation of cultural centres, and what is needed to make them a success, By defining the complex challenges which face cultural centres, this book enables managers to move beyond administrating an organization to becoming cultural entrepreneurs, turning good ideas into good business. In this under-researched area, this book will be essential reading for researchers, policy makers and managers working in cultural centers and museum management.

This shortform book tells the research story of cultural management, helping scholars to analyse and combine theoretical models into an approach of their own. Cultural management emerged and developed out of the field of arts management in the 1980s, which imported managerial techniques and assumptions from mainstream commercial business into the arts. In the late 1990s, the field integrated entrepreneurial approaches to management in the creative industries before adapting to a new model, based on user experiences and co-creation. These historical phases are theorised respectively as cultural management 1.0, cultural management 2.0 and cultural management 3.0. Yet they also overlap. Bringing together theories of management and creativity, this book enables scholars to get a grip on the underlying assumptions and conditions which lie behind an eclectic and evolving field. The author, an established expert in this field, empowers scholars and reflective practitioners to develop their own approach to cultural management, drawing on the available approaches, and to recognise that successful cultural management is contingent on understanding the context (organisational and personal) within which these models will be applied.

A timely book that identifies the practice of (syn)aesthetics in artistic style and audience response, which helps to articulate the power of experiential practice in the arts. This exciting new approach includes interviews with leading practitioners in of theatre, dance, site-specific work, live art and technological performance practice.

What goes on inside a great narrator to make them great? This ground-breaking work answers this question by exploring the psychophysical aspect of voiceover. The reader is given a bird's-eye view of the professional narrator's mental, physical, and vocal "machinery" as well as an in-depth look at the underlying currents that power it: energy, intention, emotion, connection, and flow. Ideal for all-from novice to seasoned voiceover pro-Voiceover Narration inspires the reader to gain a deeper understanding of the nuances of voiceover performance within each narration subgenre, including audiobooks, corporate films, documentaries, e-learning, and explainer videos. With wisdom, humor, and personal anecdotes, Dian Perry shares everything she has learned about narration from decades as a voice actor and teacher. Her advice is supplemented by graphics, worksheets, and a variety of sample text for practice. Voiceover Narration is a much-needed handbook that guides voice actors in creating and delivering more intuitive voiceover performances.

"This book investigates the political dimensions of Czech Shakespeare appropriation and production in the wake of the fall of communism, uncovering an anxious struggle between dimensions of Czech nationhood that comes to a head in a competition for a 'true' Shakespeare, and addressing key issues such as gender, globalization and national culture"--

Theo and Cecily want to be honest about their sexual histories, but what happens when telling the truth jeopardizes everything? A contemporary queer love story, Plot Points in Our Sexual Development explores gender, intimacy, and the dangers of revealing yourself to the person you love.

This innovative collection features essays by a range of internationally renowned scholars and reconsiders textual practices in contemporary performance, specifically focusing on the exciting exchange between text, body and technology.

Multi-media charts the development of multi-media video, installation and performance in a unique dialogue between theoretical analysis and specially commissioned documentations by some of the world's foremost artists. Nick Kaye explores the interdisciplinary history and character of experimental practices shaped in exchanges between music, installation, theatre, performance art, conceptual art, sculpture and video.

The book sets out key themes and concerns in multi-media practice, addressing time, space, the resurgence of ephemerality, liveness and 'aura'. These chapters are interspersed with documentary artwork and essays by artists whose work continues to shape the field, including new articles from:

• Vito Acconci
• The Builders Association
• John Jesurun
• Pipilotti Rist
• Fiona Templeton.

Multi-media also reintroduces a major documentary essay by Paolo Rosa of Studio Azzurro in a new, fully illustrated form. This book combines sophisticated scholarly analysis and fascinating original work to present a refreshing and creative investigation of current multi-media arts practice.

This vital resource will steer you through the hugely competitive industry of stage, film and TV acting, offering wise advice on everything from writing an eye-catching resume to finding an agent. It will give you a clear understanding of how acting careers are built and sustained, and how actors must position themselves in an environment overseen by directors, agents, casting directors and acting unions. Praised for its honest and critical understanding of the industry, the text has retained its status as the leading book in its field since the first edition published in 1972. Acclaimed industry professional authors Robert Cohen and James Calleri offer vast insight and experience as professors, directors, playwrights and casting directors, making the text essential reading for all students and lecturers of acting at universities, drama schools and conservatories, as well as anyone interested in pursuing and developing their career in acting.

This book examines Commedia dell'Arte as a performative genre, and one that should be analysed through the framework of dramaturgy and dramaturgical practice. This volume examines the way Commedia has been explored in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, and details its reinventors' dramaturgic approaches, both focusing in on specific examples such as Jacques Lecoq, Dario Fo and Antonio Fava, and also suggesting how modern discoveries may aid the study of historical performance practice. It also discusses how audiences read and receive masks; the relationship between the different masked and unmasked roles; the range of performance activities that come under the umbrella term 'improvisation'; the performative construction of a role performed 'live' from a scenario; the role of language and embodied locality in performance; and the performative relationship between performative commedia and literary tragicomedy. Its focus is dramaturgy, and so it may be read both as a text describing various theatrical practices from 1946 onwards and as a way of creating one's own contemporary Commedia practice. It is an important read for any student or scholar of Commedia dell'Arte and theatre historians grappling with the status of this unique and influential performance form.

"Strongly recommended for undergraduate and graduate libraries; useful in theater, American history, and ethnic studies." Choice