History & Criticism

Harnessing the romance of the world of fashion and high art, this fascinating story of a collection of miniature mannequins describes the birth of Theatre de la Mode, the Theater of Fashion. Full of stars such as Robert Ricci (Nina Ricci's son),...

In London in 1770 Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742-1799) remarked, 'What a work could be written on Shakespeare, Hogarth and Garrick! There is something similar in the genius of all three.' Two-and-a-half centuries on, Robin Simon's highly original and...

Act of violence or show of strength? In a world of spectacular suffering and power plays - large and small - what is theatre's role in protecting human dignity? With its impassioned plays, inspired activism and outspoken artists, the theatre has long...

A ghost summoned with bizarre rituals from the underworld, the elaborate protocol of the Persian court, desperate lamentation, self-mutilation, and a thrilling eye-witness account of the battle of Salamis - these are some of the features of Aeschylus'...

What if the work of a nurse, physio, or homecare worker was designated an art, so that the qualities of the experiences they create became understood as aesthetic qualities? What if the interactions created by artists, directors, dancers, or workshop...

This unique anthology presents the important historical essays on tragedy, ranging from antiquity to the present, divided into historical periods and arranged chronologically. Across its span, it traces the development of theories and philosophies of...

Frantic Assembly have had a powerful and continuing influence on the popularisation of devising practices in contemporary theatre-making. Their work blends brave and bold physical theatre with exciting new writing, and they have collaborated with some of...

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...

**As featured on Barack Obama's Summer 2022 Reading List**Winner of the Gordon Burn PrizeWinner of the 2022 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in NonfictionFinalist for the National Book Critics Circle AwardFinalist for the Pen/Diamonstein-Spievogel...

Favorite examples of cross-dressing or cross-gender performances include Dustin Hoffman in Tootsie, Vesta Tilley as Burlington Bertie, Maxine Peake as Hamlet, and Drag Queen RuPaul outrageously fronting the RuPaul Drag Race. Cross-Dressing in Performance...

Jessica Swale's Blue Stockings is the empowering and surprising story of four young women fighting for their right to a university education in a world that assumed women belonged at home. First produced professionally at Shakespeare's Globe in 2013, and...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9780767931694Author Kenneth TuranFormat PaperbackPage Count 640Imprint Doubleday & Co Inc.Publisher Random House USA IncWeight(grams) 621gDimensions(mm)...

The Arden Research Handbook of Shakespeare and Contemporary Performance is a wide-ranging, authoritative guide to research on Shakespeare and performance studies by an international team of leading scholars. It contains chapters on the key methods and...

Shortlisted for the 2022 TaPRA David Bradby Monograph Prize Applied Theatre: A Pedagogy of Utopia offers a critical consideration of long-term applied and participatory theatre projects. In doing so, it provides a timely analysis of concepts that...

This book offers a wealth of resources, critical overviews and detailed analysis of Ivo van Hove's internationally acclaimed work as the foremost director of theatre, opera and musicals in our time. Stunning production photos capture the power of van...

'Enchanting' - Simon Russell Beale 'Remarkable' - James Shapiro'Wonderful . . . compulsively readable' - Nicholas HytnerWhy do the collected works of an Elizabethan writer continue to speak to us as if they were written yesterday?When Robert McCrum began...

From films ranging from An American in Paris and Flying Down to Rio to such Broadway landmarks as Oklahoma and West Side Story and television hits such as Cinderella and High School Musical, the American musical has thrilled audiences around the world...

It was with this play that Harold Pinter had his first major success, and its production history since it was first performed in 1960 has established the work as a landmark in twentieth-century drama.The obsessive caretaker, Davies, whose papers are in...

Active Analysis combines two of Maria Knebel's most important books, On Active Analysis of the Play and the Role and The Word in the Actor's Creative Work, in a single edition conceived and edited by one of Knebel's most famous students, the renowned...

This Critical Companion to the American Stage Musical provides the perfect introductory text for students of theatre, music and cultural studies. It traces the history and development of the industry and art form in America with a particular focus on its...

A fresh and insightful history of how the German arts-and-letters scene was transformed under the Nazis Culture was integral to the smooth running of the Third Reich. In the years preceding WWII, a wide variety of artistic forms were used to instill a...

Where did cabaret come from? What has it got to do with pre-war Berlin, decadent society and Nazis? How does it turn into media cabaret and the sisterhood of sleaze? Is cabaret a primary vehicle for exploring the range of sexual practices and...

Authoritative and wide-ranging, this absorbing account of the history of theatre draws on the latest scholarly research to describe and celebrate theatre's greatest achievemenst over 4,500 years, from festival performances in ancient Egypt to...

Putting It Together chronicles the two-year odyssey of creating the iconic Broadway musical Sunday in the Park with George. In 1982, James Lapine, at the beginning of his career as a playwright and director, met Stephen Sondheim, nineteen years his...

This book provides a deep-dive into the dressmaking of the late Eighteenth Century.By combining the author's experience with drafting patterns from surviving eighteenth-century garments with fashion plates and period-correct reproduction methods this...

What happens to politics when it takes the form of theatre? How has theatre both exploited and undermined politics both in society and on the stage?Theatre& Politics explores the complex relationship between theatre and politics, questioning some of the...

What is ethics and what has it got to do with theatre? Drawing on both theoretical material and practical examples, Ridout makes a clear and compelling critical intervention, raising fundamental questions about what theatre is for and how audiences...

"This book is a fascinating cri de coeur and made me question everything I think about musicals" Alan Cumming A book for those who can't stand musicals, those who love them, and every theatregoer, academic, practitioner and student in between...

Newsroom, political platform, local hot spot, confession box, preacher-pulpit and football stadium. For generations, African men have gathered in barber shops to discuss the world. These are places where the banter can be barbed and the truth is always...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9780544334618Author Sam WassonFormat PaperbackPage Count 752Imprint Harper PerennialPublisher Harper PerennialWeight(grams) 590gDimensions(mm) 203mm * 135mm...

A bold new account of how celebrity worksWhy do we care so much about celebrities? Who decides who gets to be a star? Do celebrities deserve the outsized attention they receive? Sharon Marcus challenges everything you thought you knew about our obsession...

What do we mean when we talk about bodies in theatre? And how does theatre affect the way we think about the human body?Bodies are vital elements of theatre production and spectatorship. But the body is not just physical, it is also conceptual. Drawing...

In this lavishly illustrated hands-on account of the creation of new theatre spaces spanning a century, Iain Mackintosh offers a compelling history that is part memoir, part impassioned call to rethink the design of our theatre spaces and the future of...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9780486440149Author Friedrich PerzynskiFormat PaperbackPage Count 176Imprint Dover Publications Inc.Publisher Dover Publications Inc.Weight(grams)...

In The Stage Life of Props, Andrew Sofer aims to restore to certain props the performance dimensions that literary critics are trained not to see, then to show that these props are not just accessories, but time machines of the theater.Using case studies...

British theatre is booming. But where do these beautiful buildings and exciting plays come from? And when did the story start? To find out we time travel back to the age of the first Queen Elizabeth in the 16th century, four hundred years ago when there...

KA-POW! BOFF! ZAP! This action-packed gift book is the perfect introduction and guide to the beloved 1960s Batman Classic TV series. The Dynamic Duo, the colourful villains, the gadgets--it's all here! Filled with fascinating facts, statistics and...

This is the ultimate anthology of theatrical anecdotes, edited by lifelong theatre-lover Gyles Brandreth in the Oxford tradition, and covering every kind of theatrical story and experience from the age of Shakespeare and Marlowe to the age of Stoppard...

"A must-read for anyone interested in the history of drag performance."- Publishers WeeklyA rich and provocative history of drag's importance in modern British culture. Drag: A British History is a groundbreaking study of the sustained popularity and...

The Origin of German Tragic Drama is Walter Benjamin's most sustained and original work. It begins with a general theoretical introduction on the nature of the baroque art of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, concentrating on the peculiar...