A premier playwright, Edward Albee is also a gifted director. Albee in Performance details Albee's directorial vision and how that vision animates his plays. Having had extraordinary access to Albee as director, Rakesh H. Solomon reveals how Albee has shaped his plays in performance, the attention he pays to each aspect of theater, and how his conception of the key plays he has directed has evolved over a five-decade career. Solomon pays careful attention to the major works, from The American Dream and Zoo Story to Albee's best-known work, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, as well as to later plays such as Marriage Play and Three Tall Women. The book also includes interviews with Albee and his collaborators on all aspects of staging, from rehearsal to performance.

In rehearsal with dramatist Edward Albee

About the Author

Rakesh H. Solomon teaches in the Department of Theatre and Drama at Indiana University Bloomington.

Reviews

Albee in Performance is an impressive documentation of Albee's rehearsal practices that, along the way, reveals countless insights into the characters and play worlds of one of our most celebrated living playwrights.Sept 2012

* Theatre Survey *

For theatre professionals as well as academics, this book is a quick and useful glimpse into the theatrical practices of Edward Albee as they reveal his own aesthetic principles.

* Text & Presentation *

Albee in Performance is a fascinating volume. Solomon's writing is lively . . . It is an important contribution to our understanding of Edward Albee as a man of the theatre.

* Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism *

Albee in Performance provides the most comprehensive analysis to date of Edward Albee's work directing his own plays, a topic which has received far less attention than it deserves. . . . [It] will prove of lasting benefit to literary scholars and theatre professionals as they attempt to capture Albee's original intent and interpretation of his plays. Fall 2010

* Valley Voices: A Literary Review *

Rakesh Solomon's insightful study Albee in Performance appeals to a broad spectrum of readers. Scholars, teachers, and Edward Albee fans will want to read it for interpretations of characters and themes in Albee's plays. Directors and deigners will enjoy the book from the standpoint of theatrical production. Theatre students at all levels can learn about their craft from case studies of how Albee himself solved production problems. Vol. 21, No. 1, March 2011

* Theatre Topics *

Fully documents Albee's choices and decisions, frequently shedding a corrective light on texts as Albee imagined them. A valuable portrait of Albee as an actor's director, influenced by, but not bound to, the American method-acting tradition. Highly recommended.

* Choice *

Solomon usefully contextualizes Albee in relation to Beckett, Pinter, and other dramatists for whom such totality of vision is (or was) a significant dimension of their practice. At the same time, though, one of the strengths of this book is in demonstrating just how collaborative a theatre artist Albee is.

-- Stephen Bottoms * New Theatre Quarterly *

A book of stunning revelations. . . . Solomon's extraordinary thirty year documentation of Albee's plays in production . . . is a major gift to directors, actors, designers, and others. . . . Albee scholars, in particular, would ignore this new study at their peril. . . . It will prove to be an indispensible source and catalyst for future Albee scholarship, and a highly influential creative guide to understanding one of America's greatest and, perhaps, most mysterious playwrights.

-- David A. Crespy * Theatre History Studies *


Awards
Commended for Independent Publisher Book Awards (Performing Arts) 2011.



Book Information
ISBN 9780253222053
Author Rakesh H. Solomon
Format Paperback
Page Count 320
Imprint Indiana University Press
Publisher Indiana University Press
Weight(grams) 476g
Dimensions(mm) 229mm * 152mm * 24mm