History & Criticism

Death, The One and the Art of Theatre is the latest collection of Barkers distinctive and revelatory philosophical musings on theatre. It is a stunning array of speculations, deductions, prose poems and poetic apercus that casts a unique and unflinching...

Now in its 4th edition, this is an accessible and comprehensive introduction to the critical study of drama. Using familiar examples of classic and contemporary works such as Shakespeare's King Lear, Ibsen's A Doll's House and Timberlake Wertenbaker's...

'The greatest literary scholar of his generation' (Independent) explains how the history of the Elizabethan era is the backdrop to William Shakespeare and his plays.Shakespeare made his unique contribution to British and world culture in the midst of...

Physicists have discovered that the vast majority of the universe's mass is constituted by what remains transparent. So far, this mysterious "dark matter" can only be traced by its gravitational effects on visible matter. Taking up this analogy, theatre...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9780933826694Author Mel GordonFormat PaperbackPage Count 96Imprint Performing Arts JournalsPublisher Johns Hopkins University PressWeight(grams) 141g

In Performance and Politics in Tanzania, Laura Edmondson examines how politics, social values, and gender are expressed on stage. Now a disappearing tradition, Tanzanian popular theatre integrates comic sketches, acrobatics, melodrama, song, and dance to...

Before film made them international comedy legends, the MarxBrothers developed their comic skills on stage for twenty-fiveyears. In Four of the Three Musketeers: The Marx Brothers onStage, Robert S. Bader offers the first comprehensive history ofthe...

"The best theatrical read of the year." - British Theatre Guide A book of selected theatre reviews from 1992 to 2020 from one of the foremost authorities on British theatre. Each chapter starts with a brief commentary on the developments of that...

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...

In So Much Wasted, Patrick Anderson analyzes self-starvation as a significant mode of staging political arguments across the institutional domains of the clinic, the gallery, and the prison. Homing in on those who starve themselves for various reasons...

Shakespeare is at the heart of the British theatrical tradition, but the contribution of Ira Aldridge and the Shakespearean performers of African, African-Caribbean, south Asian and east Asian heritage who came after him is not widely known. Telling the...

"A Shakespearean Theatre" is an invaluable guide to an important period in English history. With the use of superb cutaway illustrations, we take a look at the different people involved in the theatre, providing a vivid and dramatic insight into life in...

The first comparative study on the history and practice of popular theatre in Britain and overseas. The fragmentation of social groups in the face of the global mass media has begun to threaten the survival of popular theatre companies. This study traces...

Thinking Through Theatre and Performance presents a bold and innovative approach to the study of theatre and performance. Instead of topics, genres, histories or theories, the book starts with the questions that theatre and performance are uniquely...

Whether you are a theatre major looking forward to a career in the arts or a non-major interested in an overview to increase your appreciation as an audience member, THE ESSENTIAL THEATRE, 11th Edition, provides an engaging, insightful, and informative...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781787359178Author Philip SteadmanFormat HardbackImprint UCL PressPublisher UCL PressWeight(grams) 970g

Sir Thomas Stukeley, the notorious English courtier, pirate, adventurer and soldier, died at the Battle of Alcazar in Morocco in 1578, while serving in the army of King Sebastian of Portugal. This volume comprises the first modern-spelling, annotated...

Contemporary productions on stage and film, and the development of theater studies, continue to draw new audiences to ancient Greek drama. With observations on all aspects of performance, this volume fills their need for a clear, concise account of what...

The Noh Plays of Japan is the most respected collection of Noh plays in English.The classic Japanese plays can be read for their great literary merit and also provide the reader with an understanding of a unique theatre art and important insights into...

For the first time, a group of distinguished authors come together to provide an authoritative exploration of the cultural history of tragedy in the Middle Ages. Reports of the so-called death of medieval tragedy, they argue, have been greatly...

Six years after its initial publication, Applied Theatre returns with a second edition. As the first book to assist practitioners and students to develop critical frameworks for implementing their own theatrical projects, it served as a vital addition to...

The women's experimental theater space called the WOW Cafe (Women's One World) has been a vital part of New York's downtown theater scene since 1980. Since that time, WOW has provided a place for feminist and particularly lesbian theater artists to...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781635572988Author Isaac ButlerFormat PaperbackPage Count 464Imprint Bloomsbury Publishing USAPublisher Bloomsbury Publishing USAWeight(grams) 574g

This critical and inclusive edited collection offers an overview of the musical in relation to issues of race, culture and identity. Bringing together contributions from cultural, American and theatre studies for the first time, the chapters offer fresh...

Beginning with Aristotle and the Greeks and ending with semiotics and post-structuralism, Theories of the Theatre is the first comprehensive survey of Western dramatic theory. In this expanded edition the author has updated the book and added a new...

London's West End is a global success story, staging phenomenal hit shows that have delighted millions of spectators and generated billions of pounds in revenue. In Good Nights Out, Aleks Sierz provides a thematic survey of such popular theatre shows...

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...

Since entering the performance lexicon in the 1970s, the term Live Art has been used to describe a diverse but interrelated array of performance practices and approaches. This volume offers a contextual and critical introduction to the scene of...

The idea of staging a nation dates from the Enlightenment, but the full force of the idea emerges only with the rise of mass politics. Comparing English, French, and American attempts to establish national theatres at moments of political crisis-from the...

Lojek provides extensive analysis of space in plays by living Irish playwrights, applying practical understandings of staging and the insights of geographers and spatial theorists to drama in an era increasingly aware of space.About the AuthorHELEN...

Queer exceptions is a study of contemporary solo performance in the UK and Western Europe that explores the contentious relationship between identity, individuality and neoliberalism. With diverse case studies featuring the work of La Ribot, David Hoyle,...

Ever since the signing of the Armistice in 1918, theatre has played an important part in reflecting the experience of the 'war to end all wars'. But on the Home Front, what role did those involved with British theatre play during those tumultuous four...

Part of a larger project to examine the Elizabethan politics of representation, this work refigures the social and cultural context within which Elizabethan drama was created. The author first locates the public and professional theatre within the...

This book, the first devoted to the history and contemporary forms of Irish performance art in the north and south of Ireland, brings together contributions by prominent Irish artists and major academics. It features rigorous critical and theoretical...

Greasepaint Puritan details the life and work of Bradford Ropes, author of the bawdy 1932 novel 42nd Street, on which the classic film and its stage adaptation are based. Each of Ropes's long-forgotten novels was inspired by his own experiences as a...

From the Greeks and Shakespeare to the "Ramayana" and the "Mahabharata", war has often been a major theme of dramatic performances. However, many of the most extraordinary theater projects in recent years not only have been about war but also have...

"Paleoperformance" is a pioneering work which examines the emergence of theatricality at the birth of human societies. In the Upper Paleolithic period, over 30,000 years ago, archaeological and art historical evidence reveals the very beginnings of...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9780472068111Author Anthony KubiakFormat PaperbackPage Count 256Imprint The University of Michigan PressPublisher The University of Michigan...

Acts of Conspicuous Compassion investigates the relationship between performance culture and the cultivation of charitable sentiment in America, exploring the distinctive practices that have evolved to make the plea for charity legible and compelling...

On a wharf in Provincetown, Massachusetts, where Greenwich Village bohemians gathered in the summer of 1916, Susan Glaspell was inspired by the sensational murder trial she had covered as a young reporter to write Trifles, a play about two women who...