- Table View
- List View
Death of a Salesman
by Arthur Miller Enoch BraterDeath of a Salesman is Miller's tragic masterpiece and one of the greatest plays of the twentieth century. Awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1949, the play remains a classic work of literature and drama that is studied and performed around the world. This critical edition offers a wealth of authoritative and helpful commentary by one of the leading international Miller scholars. Prepared in consultation with the author's estate, it is the definitive edition of the work.Willy Loman is an ageing travelling salesman haunted and driven by empty dreams of prosperity and success. Justly celebrated as one of the most famous dramatisations of the failure of the American Dream, the play's moral and political purpose is perfectly counterbalanced by a powerful and moving human drama of a man trying to make his way in the world and of the human flaws that lead to the shattering of his family and of their idol.This Student Edition features an extensive introduction by Enoch Brater which makes it the perfect edition for students of literature and drama. It includes a chronology of Miller's life and times; a summary of the plot, commentary on the characters, themes, language and context, a production history of the play and questions for further study.
A View from the Bridge
by Arthur Miller Steve MarinoThis Student Edition of A View from the Bridge is perfect for students of literature and drama and offers an unrivalled guide to Miller's play. It features an extensive introduction by Steve Marino which includes: a chronology of Miller's life and times; a summary of the plot and commentary on the characters, themes, language, context and production history of the play. Together with over twenty questions for further study and detailed notes on words and phrases from the text, this is the definitive edition of the play. Set among Italian-Americans on the Brooklyn waterfront, A View from the Bridge is the story of longshoreman Eddie Carbone. When his wife's cousins arrive as illegal immigrants from Italy, he is honoured to take them into his house. But when his niece begins to fall in love with one of them Eddie grows increasingly suspicious, eventually precipitating his violation of the moral and cultural codes of his community and leading to the play's tragic finale. With its examination of the themes of sexuality, responsibility, betrayal and vengeance, the play is vintage Miller and a modern classic.
All My Sons
by Arthur Miller Toby ZinmanThis Student Edition of All My Sons is perfect for students of literature and drama and offers an unrivalled guide to Miller's play. It features an extensive introduction by Toby Zinman which includes: a chronology of Miller's life and times; a summary of the plot and commentary on the characters, themes, language, context and production history of the play. Together with over twenty questions for further study and detailed notes on words and phrases from the text, this is the definitive edition of the play. As Miller's first successful play on Broadway, All My Sons launched his career and established Miller as America's social critic. A devastating indictment of war-profiteering, the play exposes the awful price paid by self-interest and greed fostered by capitalism. Set in 1947 in the Keller family's home in the mid-west, a shattered apple tree stands as a reminder of the pilot-son, lost during the war. Joe Keller has evaded justice for his part in the deaths of pilots caused by faulty engine parts manufactured in his factory, but the family is unable to put the past behind them.
A Memory of Two Mondays
by Arthur MillerThis Student Edition of A Memory of Two Mondays is perfect for students of literature and drama and offers an unrivalled and comprehensive guide to Miller's play. It features an extensive introduction by Joshua Polster which includes a chronology of Miller's life and times, a summary of the plot and commentary on the characters, themes, language, context and production history of the play. Together with over twenty questions for further study and detailed notes on words and phrases from the text, this is the definitive edition of the play.The one-act play A Memory of Two Mondays (1955) is one of Miller's most overtly autobiographical works. It chronicles the playwright at the age of eighteen during the early 1930s when he briefly worked at an auto parts warehouse in New York to save enough money to attend college. More than just autobiographical, the play captures the sociopolitical climate of the Great Depression. It deeply resonates and brings to the surface the cultural concerns and anxieties of the period. The setting, characters, theme, style, structure and language all exemplify the social and economic tensions of the country when it was at its lowest point in the Depression, and when the country, as Miller saw it, needed a sense of hope, endurance, and solidarity. At the same time, the play speaks to the 1950s, when the country was being torn apart by McCarthyism. A Memory of Two Mondays responded to a culture caught in the grip of a Communist hysteria that turned people against each other.
After the Fall
by Arthur MillerThis Student Edition of After the Fall is perfect for students of literature and drama and offers an unrivalled and comprehensive guide to Miller's play. It features an extensive introduction by Brenda Murphy which includes a chronology of Miller's life and times, a summary of the plot and commentary on the characters, themes, language, context and production history of the play. Together with over twenty questions for further study and detailed notes on words and phrases from the text, this is the definitive edition of the play. After the Fall (1964) is embedded in historical events that were bound up with Arthur Miller's personal life. It is an intensely personal psychological study of its protagonist Quentin and a moral and philosophical commentary on the Holocaust, McCarthyism, and the career and death of Marilyn Monroe. The play marks the full realisation of Miller's modernist experimentation in trying to create a form that dramatises both human consciousness or subjectivity and its interrelationship with social and familial dynamics. A drama that takes place in the mind and thoughts of its protagonist, where memories are overshadowed by the Holocaust, the play is a moving study of human consciousness, morality and how we should live our lives once we have come to the realisation that we exist 'after the Fall'.
The Last Yankee
by Arthur MillerThis Student Edition of After the Fall is perfect for students of literature and drama and offers an unrivalled and comprehensive guide to Miller's play. It features an extensive introduction by Katherine Egerton which includes a chronology of Miller's life and times, a summary of the plot and commentary on the characters, themes, language, context and production history of the play. Together with over twenty questions for further study and detailed notes on words and phrases from the text, this is the definitive edition of the play. Set in a New England state mental hospital in the early 1990s when Prozac was routinely adminstered to treat depression, The Last Yankee sees Miller exploring aspects of the American Dream through the lives of four characters who question and grapple with definitions of success, health and fulfillment. Described by Miller as 'a comedy about a tragedy' the one act play highlights conflicts between men and women, between the working class and the capitalist businessman and between interior and exterior realities.
Broken Glass
by Arthur MillerThis Student Edition of Broken Glass is perfect for students of literature and drama and offers an unrivalled and comprehensive guide to Miller's play. It features an extensive introduction by Alan Ackerman which includes a chronology of Miller's life and times, a summary of the plot and commentary on the characters, themes, language, context and production history of the play. Together with over twenty questions for further study and detailed notes on words and phrases from the text, this is the definitive edition of the play.Set in Brooklyn in 1938, Broken Glass is Miller's moving study of marital relations, Jewish identity and anti-Semitism that won the Olivier Award for Best New Play in 1994. Sylvia Gellburg is stricken by a mysterious paralysis in her legs for which the doctor can find no cause. He soon realises that she is obsessed by the devastating news from Germany, where government thugs have begun smashing Jewish stores. But through a series of meetings with her husband Phillip he learns that this experience is intermeshed with their strange relationship and the deceptions and hostilities that lie at the heart of their marriage.Professor Alan Acklerman's expertly edited edition of the play provides a wide-ranging study of Kristallnacht, and of American and European responses to the Holocaust, the situation of Jews in America from the 1930s to the 1990s, the Great Depression and other Holocaust and Jewish drama.
Broken Glass
by Arthur Miller'Broken Glass is a brave, bighearted attempt by one of the pathfinders of postwar drama to look at the tangle of evasions and hostilities by which the soul contrives to hide its emptiness from itself.' John Lahr (The New Yorker)Brooklyn, 1938: Sylvia Gellburg is stricken by a mysterious paralysis in her legs for which the doctor can find no cause. He soon realizes that she is obsessed by the devastating news from Germany, where government thugs have begun smashing Jewish stores. But this experience is intermeshed with what he learns is her strange relationship with her husband Philip. When the two seemingly unrelated situations concatenate, a tragic flare of light opens on the age.'His strongest play for many years, a gripping and at times powerfully affecting drama. As almost always in his work, it balances private lives with public morality...It is also an amazingly full-blooded piece, bursting with pain and passion.' (Charles Spencer Daily Telegraph)
Semiotics and Pragmatics of Stage Improvisation (Bloomsbury Advances in Semiotics)
by Domenico PietropaoloAnalysis of improvisation as a compositional practice in the Commedia dell'Arte and related traditions from the Renaissance to the 21st century. Domenic Pietropaolo takes textual material from the stage traditions of Italy, France, Germany and England, and covers comedic drama, dance, pantomime and dramatic theory, and more. He shines a light onto 'the signs of improvised communication'.The book is comprehensive in its analysis of improvised dramatic art across theatrical genres, and is multimodal in looking at the spoken word, gestural and non-verbal signs. The book focusses on dramatic text as well as: - The semiotics of stage discourse, including semantic, syntactic and pragmatic aspects of sign production - The physical and material conditions of sign-production including biomechanical limitations of masks and costumes.Semiotics and Pragmatics of Stage Improvisation is the product of an entire career spent researching the semiotics of the stage and it is essential reading for semioticians and students of performance arts.
The Hostage
by Brendan BehanAn essential text in the development of modern British dramaFirst staged by Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop company at the Theatre Royal, Stratford East, London, in 1958, The Hostage is a play about a Cockney soldier held as a hostage in a Dublin lodging house in exchange for an IRA man who is to be hanged in Belfast. Civic Guards accidentally shoot him in a raid on the house. It is a witty and often profound comment on Anglo-Irish relationships and on the Irish themselves. This is Behan's best-known and most popular play and a classic of the modern stage.A magnificent entertainment which "crowds in tragedy and comedy, bitterness and love, caricature and portrayal, ribaldry and eloquence, patriotism and cynicism..." (Harold Hobson, The Times)
Behan Complete Plays
by Brendan BehanThis volume contains everything Brendan Behan wrote in dramatic form in EnglishContains the three famous full-length plays: The Quare Fellow, set in an Irish prison ("In Brendan Behan's tremendous new play language is out on a spree, ribald, dauntless and spoiling for a fight ... with superb dramatic tact, the tragedy is concealed beneath layer after layer of rough comedy" Observer); The Hostage, set in a Dublin lodging-house of doubtful repute where a young English soldier is being kept prisoner, "shouts, sings, thunders and stamps with life...a masterpiece" (The Times); and Richard's Cork Leg, set in a graveyard, "a joyous celebration of life" (Guardian). The volume also contains three one-act plays, originally written for radio and all intensely autobiographical, Moving Out, A Garden Party and The Big House.
Absolutely Perhaps
by Luigi PirandelloA brand new adaptation of Pirandello's first play.No one has ever seen Signor Ponza's wife and her mother, Signora Frola together. Also, the neighbours have become suspicious because Signora Ponza never leaves her home and start asking questions. Ponza claims that this wife is really his second wife, the first having died in an earthquake that destroyed all records. Meanwhile his wife only pretends to be Signora Frola's daughter to humour Signora Frola, who, he claims, is insane. Thoroughly bewildered, Agazzi demands to meet Ponza's wife, who arrives heavily veiled proclaiming herself as both the daughter of Signora Frola and the second wife of Signor Ponza. Absolutely! {Perhaps} is brilliant comedy on the elusive nature of identity and reality and, like all of Pirandello's work, shows truth as subjective and relative and drama itself a mystery.Absolutely! {Perhaps} is published to coincide with the production at London's Wyndham's theatre starring Joan Plowright and directed by Franco Zeffirelli.
The White Whale (Modern Plays)
by James PhillipsYou remember when we started to hunt whales again?We fought monsters and we killed them and wrestled the oil from their dead bodies and we sold it.In the future we hunt whales for the oil in their bodies. Just like they did in centuries past. The oil of a single whale can run an army for a week. This is new science. This is our future. So we send gangs of men out onto the dark, cold sea to bring back the things we need.The crew of the Pequod are going to sea because it's their job. But Ahab, captain of the Pequod, is not going to sea for the oil or for the money. Ahab is going for revenge. Revenge on the vast whale that took him down into the black depths of the ocean. Revenge on the greatest whale in all the oceans: a perfectly white whale. And Ishmael, a young man new to whaling, is going to sea seeking a hunter's violence, trying to stop the thoughts of violence in his heart.And we are all going with them.The White Whale premiered on 4 September 2014, at Leeds Dock, UK in a production by Slung Low theatre company.
American Theatre: History, Context, Form (Baas Paperbacks Ser.)
by Theresa SaxonArgues for the recognition of American theatre history as long, rich, diverse and critically compelling. Embracing all epochs of theatre history, from pre-colonial Native American performance rituals and the endeavours of early colonisers in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, to the end of the twentieth century, Theresa Saxon situates American theatre as a lively, dynamic and diverse arena. She considers the implications of political manoeuvrings, economics - state-funding and commercial enterprises - race and gender, as well as material factors such as technology, riot and fire, as major forces in determining the structure of America's playhouses and productions. She goes on to investigate critical understandings of the term 'theatre,' and assesses ways in which the various values of commerce, entertainment, education and dramatic production have informed the definition of theatre throughout America's history.
Dreams Of Anne Frank
by Bernard Kops"In celebrating the spirit of optimism that shines through the thoughts and dreams of one extraordinary thirteen-year-old during the darkest of times, Bernard Kops has created a dramatic masterpiece" (Time Out)"This play has been a catalyst in stimulating young people not only to question the past but also to confront the very real issues of racism today." (Jenny Culank, Artistic Director of Classworks Theatre, Cambridge)In 1942 Anne Frank, a young Jewish girl, was forced into hiding with seven others in a secret annexe in Amsterdam. Dreams of Anne Frank vividly brings her story to life in a poignant and highly charged drama. Using actors, movement and song Bernard Kops re-imagines and explores Anne Frank's hidden world, a world in which she lived, fell in love and dreamed of freedom.Dreams of Anne Frank won the 1993 Time Out award for best children's production and has been performed around the world.Commentary and notes by Bernard Kops
Your Home In The West
by Rod WoodenWinner of the 1990 Mobil Playwriting Competition for the Royal Exchange Theatre Manchester.A gutsy tragi-comic drama set in a run-down Newcastle housing estate where Jean, divorced from the violent, foul-mouthed Micky, rules over a household that teeters on the brink of disaster whenever her ex-husband bursts through the front door.
Land of our Fathers (Modern Plays)
by Chris Urch"I can't believe we're arguing over a Blue Riband""I can't believe we're stuck down a mine.""Yet here we are"3rd May 1979, South Wales. Thatcher is counting her votes, Sid Vicious is spinning in his grave, and six Welsh miners are trapped down a coal mine. Within two weeks everything these men believe in and everything they know will have changed. A darkly comic drama looking at the dramatic two weeks in which a group of Welsh miners are trapped underground.Chris Urch's debut full-length play is packed full of blistering comedy and summons a generation of lost voices.
Ghost From A Perfect Place (Modern Plays)
by Philip RidleyIf you think I'm threatened by you, you're wrong. I'm Travis Flood. I was threatening people before you were born.Back in the sixties, Travis Flood and his gang terrorised Bethnal Green. Now, after an absence of 25 years, Travis returns and meets Rio, whose haunting beauty leads him to confront a story that bears no relation to his own distorted memory. And then there's the Cheerleaders . . . a present-day gang, more vicious and terrifying that anything Travis led in the past.This edition of Ghost from a Perfect Place was published to coincide with the first major revival of the play at the Arcola Theatre, London, in September 2014.
The World of Extreme Happiness (Modern Plays)
by Frances Ya-Chu CowhigWhen Sunny is born in rural China, her parents leave her in a slop bucket to die because she's a girl. She survives, and at 14 leaves for the city, where she works a low-paying factory job and attends self-help classes to improve her chances at securing a coveted office position. When Sunny's attempts to pull herself out of poverty lead to dire consequences for a fellow worker, she is forced to question the system she's spent her life trying to master – and stand up against the powers that be. Savage, tragic and desperately funny, The World of Extreme Happiness is a stirring examination of a country in the midst of rapid change, and individuals struggling to shape their own destinies.This new edition is published to coincide with the US premiere of the play at the Goodman Theatre, Chicago, which then transfers to the Manhattan Theater Club, NYC.
The Waste Ground Party (Modern Plays)
by Shaun DunneThis area is gone to the fucking dogs. Gary returns home from college to confront age-old rivalries, bitter disputes, and bin bags that just won't stop falling from the sky. As Gary and his old friend Martin fight to find their place in the world, their mothers desperately search for meaning in a life that has already passed them by. Will Gary leave the estate forever or return to the rubbish heap? The Waste Ground Party was published to coincide with the Abbey Theatre debut of award-winning playwright Shaun Dunne.
Each Slow Dusk (Modern Plays)
by Rory MullarkeyThe Private misses the farm. The Captain dreams of painting. The Corporal relishes the fight. And a hundred years later, The Woman seeks to understand. 1916 – In the darkness of the French night, three young soldiers, a private, a corporal and a captain, cross no man's land towards the enemy trench. Stealth is key to their survival and so they walk in silence, with nothing to communicate the thoughts in their heads save for the barest of gestures. 2014 – A woman goes on a day trip to visit the touristic monuments commemorating the Battle of the Somme at Vimy Ridge and the Loghnagar Crater – the site of a mine explosion that killed over 6,000 people – where she encounters remembrance, restaurants and bright, themed gift shops.Each Slow Dusk is a startling play about action, humanity, and the legacy of war. Immersing you in the reality of conflict through vivid, thrilling detail, it gives you a fresh way of thinking about war – from the past soldiers' perspective to the woman's present-day experience.Each Slow Dusk was published to coincide with the first production and national tour of the play by Pentabus Rural Theatre Company, in autumn, 2014.
ShakesFear and How to Cure It: The Complete Handbook for Teaching Shakespeare
by Ralph Alan CohenFor teachers and lovers of Shakespeare, ShakesFear and How to Cure It provides a comprehensive approach to the challenge and rewards of teaching Shakespeare and gives teachers both an overview of each of Shakespeare's 38 plays and specific classroom tools for teaching it. Written by a celebrated teacher, scholar and director of Shakespeare, it shows teachers how to use the text to make the words and the moments come alive for their students. It refutes the idea that Shakespeare's language is difficult and provides a survey of the plays by someone who has lived intimately with them on the page and on the stage.
Antigone: Sophocles (Modern Plays)
by Sophocles Roy WilliamsWhen Creon refuses to bury the body of Antigone's unruly brother, Antigone's anger quickly turns to defiance. Creon condemns her to a torturous death: she's to be buried alive.Acclaimed playwright Roy Williams takes Sophocles' play and, by placing it into a contemporary setting, brings this classic tale vividly to life.A timeless story about loyalty and truth, about how we make meaning out of life and death, and what in the end really does matter. Roy Williams's adaptation of Antigone received its world premiere on 19 September at Derby Theatre, in a co-production between Pilot Theatre, Derby Theatre and Theatre Royal, Stratford East, before going on a national tour.
Bright Phoenix (Modern Plays)
by Jeff YoungI am flying. I swoop over the rooftops of Liverpool, over the waterfront and out to sea, following a trawler as it drags its nets through the wild sea. I am a sixteen-year-old bird boy, addicted to seagull blood, flying through sea-storms, up to the moon . . .On the run from tragedy, Lucas escaped Liverpool - then a city cast aside, a city crumbling.Now he's back, the old gang don't rush to welcome him home and ghosts haunt the ruins of their childhood playgrounds. The city chases renaissance: could his love affair with childhood sweetheart Lizzie blossom again too?Bright Phoenix is a wild, dream-like play about the carnival of the city at night; about a gang of rebel kids who still don't quite fit in as grown-ups; and about their love for a dying cinema and their mad plan to bring it back to life like a phoenix. Featuring live music, Jeff Young's epic and poetic play reveals the magic of forgotten places and dreaming beneath the stars.The play received its world premiere at the Liverpool Everyman on 3 October 2014.
The House That Will Not Stand (Modern Plays)
by Marcus GardleyYou may be the wealthiest colored woman in New Orleans, but you built this house on sand, lies and dead bodies.New Orleans, 1836. Following an era of French colonial rule and relative racial acceptance, Louisiana's 'free people of color' are prospering. Beatrice, a free woman of colour, has become one of the city's wealthiest women through her relationship with a rich white man. However, when her lover mysteriously dies, Beatrice imposes a six-month period of mourning on herself and her three daughters. But, as the summer heat intensifies, the foundations of freedom she has built for herself and their three unwed daughters begin to crumble. Society is changing, racial divides are growing and, as the members of the household turn on each other in their fight for survival, it could cost them everything. A bewitching new drama of desire, jealousy, murder and voodoo, The House That Will Not Stand received its world premiere at Berkeley Rep, US, in January 2014, and was subsequently produced at the Tricycle Theatre, London, on 9 October 2014.This edition features an introduction by Professor Ayanna Thompson, Columbian College of Arts and Sciences.