History & Criticism

The great nineteenth-century stage actor Edwin Booth began his long career in 1849 as a young teenager, following in his father's footsteps. This biography traces his life and career as a tragic actor, including his childhood; his early acting tours of...

This play is a celebration of London life and theatre in which Francis Beaumont's comic genius is given free rein. A grocer, his wife and their two apprentices attending the theatre in holiday mood interrupt and finally replace a fatuous love comedy with...

An exuberant and entertaining biography of Charles Dickens that captures the essence of the great novelist. Simon Callow's sparkling biography explores the central importance of the theatre to the life of the greatest storyteller in the...

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...

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...

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...

This important collection of essays focuses on the place of Roman Catholicism in early modern England, bringing new perspectives to bear on whether Shakespeare himself was Catholic.In the Introduction, Richard Wilson reviews the history of the debate...

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...

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...

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...

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...

Elizabeth Belfiore offers a striking new interpretation of Aristotle's Poetics by situating the work within the Aristotelian corpus and in the context of Greek culture in general. In Aristotle's Rhetoric, the Politics, and the ethical, psychological,...

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...

This updated 4th edition of Theatre Histories offers a critical overview of global theatre, drama, and performance, spanning a broad wealth of world cultures and periods, integrating them chronologically or thematically, and showing how they have often...

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...

'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...

Attempts on her Life 17 scenarios for the theatre by Martin Crimp Attempts to describe her? Attempts to destroy her? Or attempts to destroy herself? Is Anne the object of violence? Or its terrifying practitioner? Martin Crimps 17 scenarios for the...

Richard Schechner's pioneering textbook is a lively, accessible overview of the full range of performance, with primary extracts, student activities, key biographies, and over 200 images of global performance. The publication of Performance Studies: An...

What is a political playwright? Does theatre have any direct effect on society? Why choose to work in a medium which speaks to so few? Is theatre itself facing oblivion? All frequent questions addressed to David Hare over the last thirty-five years, as...

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...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9783956796050Author Valerie SolanasFormat PaperbackPage Count 104Imprint Sternberg PressPublisher Sternberg PressWeight(grams) 85gDimensions(mm) 180mm *...

Blasted brought Sarah Kane to the theatre pages of the broadsheets, the front pages of the tabloids, and to the notice of the nation. Covers all Kane's major plays and productions, contains hitherto unpublished material and reviews, and looks at her...

"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...

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)...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9780859653176Author Lindsay AndersonFormat PaperbackPage Count 470Imprint Plexus Publishing LtdPublisher Plexus Publishing Ltd

'Adrian Noble vigorously highlights the extraordinary rhythmic, linguistic patterns Shakespeare gives the speaker. Any actor will find this book invaluable. For any student of Shakespeare it should be essential.' (From the Foreword by Ralph Fiennes)'How...

In Staging and Re- cycling , John Keefe and Knut Ove Arntzen re-visit and reappraise a selection of their work to explore how the retrieval, re-approaching and re-framing of material can offer pathways for new work and new thinking. The book includes a...

'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...

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...

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...

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, ...

Liveness: Performance in a Mediatized Culture addresses what may be the single most important question facing all kinds of performance today. What is the status of live performance in a culture dominated by mass media and digital technologies?Since its...

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,...

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...

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 is a provocative exploration of how the self is revealed or exposed in the experience of reading, viewing and writing about Shakespeare. Following the ethos and ambition of the "Shakespeare Now!" series, and harnessing the energy, challenge and...

Stanislavski and the Actor offers a clear, modern presentation of Konstantin Stanislavski's methods of actor training and rehearsal. It is based on the course Stanislavski designed and taught with a team of hand-picked assistants in the last three years...

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...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781635571769Author Isaac ButlerFormat HardbackPage Count 448Imprint Bloomsbury USAPublisher Bloomsbury Publishing PlcWeight(grams) 784g

How has the work and legacy of Augusto Boal's Theatre of the Oppressed been interpreted and practised around the world? What does it look like in different working contexts? This book provides an accessible introduction to the political and artistic...