History & Criticism

This volume provides new, ground-breaking perspectives on the globally renowned work of the Tanztheater Wuppertal and its iconic founder and artistic director, Pina Bausch. The company's performances, how it developed its productions, the global transfer...

Deep Are the Roots celebrates the pioneers of Black British theatre, beginning in 1825, when Ira Aldridge made history as the first Black actor to play Shakespeare's Othello in the United Kingdom, and ending in 1975 with the success of Britain's first...

This updated edition of one of the bestselling and comprehensive Broadway reference books, first published in 1985, has been expanded to include many of the most important and memorable productions of American musical theatre, including revivals...

This pioneering study is one of the major publications in the increasingly popular and largely undocumented area of circus studies.Through photographs and illustrations, Peta Tait presents an extraordinary survey of 140 years of trapeze acts and the...

Theatrical scene design is one of the most beautiful, varied, and lively art forms. Yet there are relatively few books on the subject, and almost none for a general audience that combine expansive scholarship with lavish design. Making the Scene offers...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781635574777Author Isaac ButlerFormat HardbackPage Count 512Imprint Bloomsbury Publishing USAPublisher Bloomsbury Publishing USA

The Costumes of Burlesque: 1866-2018 is the first volume to inclusively document burlesque costume from its birth in the 1860's through the global burlesque movement in 2018. This lushly illustrated book presents the history and development of this...

The Globe Guide to Shakespeare is the ultimate guide to the life and work of the world's greatest playwright: William Shakespeare. With full coverage of the 39 Shakespearian plays, including a synopsis, full character list, stage history and a critical...

'All you have is yourself, no words, no script in hand, no music to dance to, nothing to hide behind. It was just me - the pure expression of my desire.' Trish Arnold (1918-2017) was a pioneer in the field of movement. Her work stands alongside that...

Published in France in 1987, this is the book in which Lecoq first set out his philosophy of human movement, and the way it takes expressive form in a wide range of different performance traditions. He traces the history of pantomime, sets out his...

Newly adapted for the Anglophone reader, this is an excellent translation of Hans-Thies Lehmann's groundbreaking study of the new theatre forms that have developed since the late 1960s, which has become a key reference point in international discussions...

The new wave of cultural materialists in Britain and new historicists in the United States here join forces to depose the sacred icon of the "eternal bard" and argue for a Shakespeare who meditates and exploits political, cultural and ideological forces...

'Believe me, my young friend, there is absolutely nothing half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats. In them or out of them, it doesn't matter. Whether you get away or you don't, whether you arrive at your destination or whether you never...

Strongly influenced by Classical drama, Jean Racine (1639-99) broke away from the grandiose theatricality of baroque drama to create works of intense psychological realism, with characters manipulated by cruel and vengeful gods. Iphigenia depicts a...

A vastly entertaining and unique history of spying and showbiz, from the Elizabethan age to the Cold War and beyond.'Perfect...read as you settle into James Bond on Christmas afternoon' Daily Telegraph Books of the Year 2021Throughout history, there has...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.About the AuthorEugene Ionesco (1910-1994), a Romanian-born Frenchman, was central to the theatre of the Absurd, a dramatic movement that abandons logical plot development,...

In the wide realm of Shakespeare worship, the house in Stratford-upon-Avon where William Shakespeare was born in 1564 - known colloquially as the 'Birthplace' - remains the chief shrine. It's not as romantic as Anne Hathaway's thatched cottage, it's not...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9780307593412Author Stephen SondheimFormat HardbackPage Count 480Imprint Random House IncPublisher Random House USA IncWeight(grams) 1701gDimensions(mm)...

The French New Wave cinema is arguably the most fascinating of all film movements, famous for its exuberance, daring, and avant-garde techniques. ""A History of the French New Wave Cinema"" offers a fresh look at the social, economic, and aesthetic...

One of the most frank and authentic accounts yet written of the pressures placed on today's stars King Lear is perhaps the most challenging role in the Shakespearian canon. In 1991, directed by Deborah Warner, Brian Cox gave a highly-acclaimed...

The Routledge Companion to Audiences and the Performing Arts represents a truly multi-dimensional exploration of the inter-relationships between audiences and performance.This study considers audiences contextually and historically, through both...

Throughout the nineteenth century, people heard more music in the theatre - accompanying popular dramas such as Frankenstein, Oliver Twist, Uncle Tom's Cabin, Lady Audley's Secret, The Corsican Brothers, The Three Musketeers, as well as historical...

Winner of the STR Theatre Book Prize 2014 The National Theatre Story is filled with artistic, financial and political battles, onstage triumphs - and the occasional disaster. This definitive account takes readers from the National Theatre's...

What is good acting? How does one create believable characters? How can an actor understand a character if they do not understand themselves?In The Science of Acting, Sam Kogan uses his theories on the relationship between neuroscience, psychology and...

Now in paperback, here is the critically acclaimed, best-selling biography of one of Hollywood's legendary stars. Burt Lancaster is known to audiences around the world as the electrifying performer of Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, From Here to Eternity, ...

Theatre& Sexuality explains the critical validity of using sexuality as a lens for examining theatre's creation and reception. The book offers clear introductions to sexual identity politics, ways of 'reading' sexuality on stage and a select history of...

Ruth Padel explores Greek conceptions of human innerness and the way in which Greek tragedy shaped European notions of mind and self. Arguing that Greek poetic language connects images of consciousness, even male consciousness, with the darkness...

This set is one of the cornerstones of film scholarship, and one of the most important works on twentieth century British culture. Published between 1948 and 1985, the volumes document all aspects of film making in Britain from its origins in 1896 to...

A beguiling exploration of the last Habsburg monarchs' grip on Europe's historical and cultural imagination. In 1919 the last Habsburg rulers, Emperor Karl and Empress Zita, left Austria, going into exile. That same year, the fairy-tale opera Die Frau...

This set is one of the cornerstones of film scholarship, and one of the most important works on twentieth century British culture. Published between 1948 and 1985, the volumes document all aspects of film making in Britain from its origins in 1896 to...

This volume analyses the nature of the mime art of Deburau and of the pantomime performances of the Theatre des Funambules in Paris in the context of Romantic art, literature and socio-political thought. Deburau and the Theatre des Funambules are...

This set is one of the cornerstones of film scholarship, and one of the most important works on twentieth century British culture. Published between 1948 and 1985, the volumes document all aspects of film making in Britain from its origins in 1896 to...

The Politics of Performance^ addresses fundamental questions about the social and political purposes of performance through an investigation into post-war alternative and community theatre. It proposes a theory of performace as ideological transaction,...

This book provides for the first time modern-spelling, fully annotated editions of three important Elizabethan and Jacobean 'usury plays' - The Three Ladies of London, Englishmen for My Money, and The Hog Hath Lost His Pearl. The edition includes an...

Staging Detection reveals how the new figure of the stage detective emerged in nineteenth-century Britain. The first book to explore the productive intersections between detection and performance across a range of Victorian plays, Staging Detection...

From before history was recorded to the present day, theatre has been a major artistic form around the world. From puppetry to mimes and street theatre, this complex art has utilized all other art forms such as dance, literature, music, painting,...

This book offers an accessible introduction to England's sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century playing industry and a fresh account of the architecture, multiple uses, communities, crowds, and proprietors of playhouses. It builds on recent scholarship...

What is the secret DNA of theater? What makes it unique from its sister arts? Why was it invented? Why does it persist? And now, in such an advanced technological age, why do we still feel compelled to return to a mode of expression that was invented...

'An engrossing, enthralling and utterly captivating read, The Young Pretender tells a simply remarkable story with bounce, energy, wit, and lively authenticity . . . Michael Arditti's brilliant imaginative achievement offers high comedy, dark tragedy and...

Few people in recent memory have dedicated themselves as devotedly to the story of twentieth- century American music as Rob Kapilow, the composer, conductor, and host of the hit NPR music radio program, What Makes It Great? Now, in Listening for America,...