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...

Opera is a visceral, emotional experience. No prior knowledge is needed to enjoy a soaring aria, or to be moved to laughter and to tears by popular operas like Carmen and La Boheme. But to fully appreciate this centuries-old art form, one must know its...

Here is the story, told firsthand through electric, deeply engaged writing, of America's living theater, high and low, mainstream and experimental. Drawing on history, criticism, memoir, fiction, poetry, and parody, editor Laurence Senelick presents...

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...

David Barnett invites readers, students and theatre-makers to discover new ways of apprehending and making use of Brecht in this clear and accessible study of Brecht's theories and practices. The book analyses how Brecht's ideas can come alive in...

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...

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...

From the author of Hiding the Elephant and The Glorious Deception comes a collection of five essays that shows how the great stage illusions were integrally products of their time, based on the traditions and fashions of the people, and the offspring of...

In 1776 Foote's was the most talked-of name in the English-speaking world. By 1777 it was almost unmentionable. Samuel Foote, friend of David Garrick and Dr Johnson, is the greatest lost figure of the eighteenth century; his story defies belief and has...

In this cutting-edge text, Trish Reid offers a concise overview of the shifting roles of theatre and theatricality in Scottish culture. She asks important questions about the relationship between Scottish theatre, history and identity, and celebrates the...

'A spicy work of biographical conjecture ... It's also a rousing reminder of the countless creative women who have been written out of history or have had to fight relentlessly to make themselves heard.' EVENING STANDARD 'The great virtue of Lloyd...

Contemporary theatrical productions as diverse in form as experimental performance, new writing, West End drama, musicals and live art demonstrate a recurring fascination with adapting existing works by other artists, writers, filmmakers and stage...

This study explores the ways in which playtexts have evolved in relation to the sociocultural and cognitive conditions of a mediatized age, and how they, in form and content, respond to this environment and open up new critical possibilities in text 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...

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

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...

First Published in 2005. A Dictionary of Theatre Anthropology subtly juxtaposes visual demonstrations of the performer's craft, from a wealth of Eastern and Western sources. More than just a dictionary, this is a handbook for theatre practitioners and a...

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,...

Don Chapman tells for the first time the story of the "Oxford Playhouse", to coincide with the seventieth anniversary of its present home in Beaumont Street, Oxford. He traces the history of this great theater back to its earliest roots in a production...

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...

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 9780262528436Author Alastair BrotchieFormat PaperbackPage Count 424Imprint MIT PressPublisher MIT Press LtdDimensions(mm) 229mm * 178mm * 29mm

Robert Lepage/Ex Machina: Revolutions in Theatrical Space provides an ideal introduction to one of our most innovative companies - and a much-needed and timely reappraisal of Lepage's oeuvre. International, interdisciplinary and intercultural to the...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.AwardsWinner of Pulitzer Prize (Drama/Theater) 1996. Short-listed for Lambda Literary Awards (Drama/Theater) 1997.Book InformationISBN 9780688154370Author Jonathon LarsonFormat...

A vastly entertaining and unique history of the interaction between spying and showbiz, from the Elizabethan age to the Cold War and beyond.'A treasure trove of human ingenuity' The TimesWritten by two experts in their fields, Stars and Spies is the...

This acclaimed volume is the first to provide a comprehensive overview of Jerzy Grotowski's long and multi-faceted career. It is essential reading for anyone interested in Grotowski's life and work.Edited by the two leading experts on Grotowski, the...

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...

Neoliberalism, Theatre and Performance tackles one of the most slippery but significant topics in culture and politics. Neoliberalism is defined by the contributors as a political-economic system, and the ideas and assumptions (individualism, market...

Sarah Ruhl is a mother of three and one of America's best-known playwrights. She has written a stunningly original book of essays whose concerns range from the most minimal and personal subjects to the most encompassing matters of art and culture. The...

Augusto Boal's workshops and theatre exercises are renowned throughout the world for their life-changing effects. At last this major director, practitioner, and author of many books on community theatre speaks out about the subjects most important to him...

The Nick Hern Books Page to Stage series - highly accessible guides to the world's best-known plays, written by established theatre professionals to show how the plays come to life on the stage. Director Stephen Unwin takes you scene by scene through...

Charles Morgan was the dramatic critic of The Times for most of the years between 1922 and 1939.The reviews for this small selection are taken from thousands written for The Times and from his weekly articles for the New York Times on the London theatre...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781438485461Author Kurt GanzlFormat PaperbackPage Count 298Imprint State University of New York PressPublisher State University of New York...

Audiences for musical theater are predominantly women, yet shows are frequently created and produced by men. Onstage, female characters are depicted as victims or sex objects and lack the complexity of their male counterparts. Offstage, women are...

Shakespeare's absolute pre-eminence is simply unparalleled. His plays pack theatres and provide Hollywood with block-buster scripts; his works inspire mountains of scholarship and criticism every year. He has given us many of the very words we speak, and...

Just like Robert Tanitch's critically acclaimed book on the London stage in the twentieth century, this wonderful new book is 'fascinating - absolutely wonderful for finding what you aren't looking for'. Presented chronologically, the concise and...

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...

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...

Authenticity is one of the major values of our time. It is visible everywhere, from clothing to food to self-help books. While it is such a prevalent phenomenon, it is also very evasive. This study analyses the 'culture of authenticity' as it relates to...

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...