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Applied Theatre: Creative Ageing (Applied Theatre)
by Sheila McCormick Sheila Preston Michael BalfourApplied Theatre: Creative Ageing examines the complex social, political and cultural needs of a diverse group in our society and asks how contemporary applied theatre responds to those needs. It allows an examination of innovative national and international practice in applied theatre that responds to the needs of older adults to encourage outcomes such as wellbeing and social inclusion. The book does this while also questioning how we, as a society, wish to respond to the complex needs of older adults and the process of ageing and how applied theatre practices can help us do so in a way that is both positive and inclusive. In Part One Sheila McCormick reviews and historicises the practice of applied theatre with, for and by the elderly. It argues that pioneering applied theatre strategies are vital if the creative practice is to respond to the growing needs of older members of society, and reflects on particular cultural responses to ageing and the elderly.The second part of the book is made up of essays and case studies from leading experts and practitioners from Britain, America and Australia, including consideration of applied theatre approaches to dementia, health, wellbeing, social inclusion and Alzheimer's disease.
The Disney Musical on Stage and Screen: Critical Approaches from 'Snow White' to 'Frozen'
by George RodosthenousThe Disney Musical: Critical Approaches on Stage and Screen is the first critical treatment of the corporation's hugely successful musicals both on screen and on the stage. Its 13 articles open up a new territory in the critical discussion of the Disney mega-musical, its gender, sexual and racial politics, outreach work and impact of stage, film and television adaptations. Covering early 20th century works such as the first full-length feature film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), to The Lion King - Broadway's highest grossing production in history, and Frozen (2013), this edited collection offers a diverse range of theoretical engagements that will appeal to readers of film and media studies, musical theatre, cultural studies, and theatre and performance. The volume is divided into three sections to provide a contextual analysis of Disney's most famous musicals: · DISNEY MUSICALS: ON FILM· DISNEY ADAPTATIONS: ON STAGE AND BEYOND· DISNEY MUSICALS: GENDER AND RACE The first section employs film theory, semiotics and film music analysis to explore the animated works and their links to the musical theatre genre. The second section addresses various stage versions and considers Disney's outreach activities, cultural value and productions outside the Broadway theatrical arena. The final section focuses on issues of gender and race portraying representations of race, hetero-normativity, masculinity and femininity in Newsies, Frozen, High School Musical, Aladdin and The Jungle Book. The various chapters address these three aspects of the Disney Musical and offer new critical readings of a vast range of important works from the Disney musical cannon including Enchanted, Mary Poppins, Hunchback of Notre Dame, The Lion King and versions of musicals for television in the early 1990s and 2000s. The critical readings are detailed, open-minded and come to surprising conclusions about the nature of the Disney Musical and its impact.
Free Fall (Modern Plays)
by Vinay PatelWe're not playing Grandmother's fucking Footsteps, mate! Stay away, or I'll jump! Midnight at the Dartford Crossing; Roland's settled in for another thrilling night supervising the toll machines; Andrea's pretty sure she's come to kill herself. Neither of them wants to be there. Both think the other's crazy. Still, it's nice to have company. Two strangers on a bridge in the dead of night, a game of dominoes, and a value ready meal – HighTide Escalator playwright Vinay Patel's new play explores humanity, desperation and hope. Following on from the success of his debut play, True Brits, which premiered at the 2014 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Free Fall was Vinay Patel's first full-length play to be staged in London.
The Hand on the Shakespearean Stage: Gesture, Touch and the Spectacle of Dismemberment
by Farah Karim CooperThis ground-breaking new book uncovers the way Shakespeare draws upon the available literature and visual representations of the hand to inform his drama. Providing an analysis of gesture, touch, skill and dismemberment in a range of Shakespeare's works, it shows how the hand was perceived in Shakespeare's time as an indicator of human agency, emotion, social and personal identity. It demonstrates how the hand and its activities are described and embedded in Shakespeare's texts and about its role on the Shakespearean stage: as part of the actor's body, in the language as metaphor, and as a morbid stage-prop. Understanding the cultural signifiers that lie behind the early modern understanding of the hand and gesture, opens up new and sometimes disturbing ways of reading and seeing Shakespeare's plays.
Shakespeare and Posthumanist Theory (Shakespeare and Theory)
by Karen RaberShakespeare and Posthumanist Theory charts challenges in the field of Shakespeare studies to the assumption that the category “human” is real, stable, or worthy of privileging in discussions of the playwright's work. Drawing on a variety of methodologies - cognitive theory, systems theory, animal studies, ecostudies, the new materialisms - the volume investigates the world of Shakespeare's plays and poems in order to represent more thoroughly its variety, its ethics of inclusion, and its resistance to human triumphalism and exceptionalism. Karen Raber, a leading scholar in the field, clearly and cogently guides the reader through complex theoretical terrain, providing fresh, exciting readings of plays including Othello, The Tempest, Titus Andronicus, Troilus and Cressida and Henry IV Part 1.
Shakespeare's Creative Legacies: Artists, Writers, Performers, Readers
by Peter Holbrook Paul EdmondsonWe celebrate Shakespeare as a creator of plays and poems, characters and ideas, words and worlds. But so too, in the four centuries since his death in 1616, have thinkers, writers, artists and performers recreated him. Readers of this book are invited to explore Shakespeare's afterlife on the stage and on the screen, in poetry, fiction, music and dance, as well as in cultural and intellectual life. A series of concise introductory essays are here combined with personal reflections by prominent contemporary practitioners of the arts. At once a celebration and a critical response, the book explores Shakespeare as a global cultural figure who continues to engage artists, audiences and readers of all kinds. Includes contributions from: John Ashbery, Shaul Bassi, Simon Russell Beale, Sally Beamish, David Bintley, Michael Bogdanov, Kenneth Branagh, Debra Ann Byrd, John Caird, Antoni Cimolino, Wendy Cope, Gregory Doran, Margaret Drabble, Dominic Dromgoole, Ellen Geer, Michael Holroyd, Gordon Kerry, John Kinsella, Juan Carlos Liberti, Lachlan Mackinnon, David Malouf, Javier Marías, Yukio Ninagawa, Janet Suzman, Salley Vickers, Rowan Williams, Lisa Wolpe, Greg Wyatt.All proceeds from the sale of this volume will be donated to the International Shakespeare Association, to support the study and appreciation of Shakespeare around the world.
Beckett's Creatures: Art of Failure after the Holocaust
by Joseph AndertonIn the shadow of the Holocaust, Samuel Beckett captures humanity in ruins through his debased beings and a decomposing mode of writing that strives to 'fail better'. But what might it mean to be a 'creature' or 'creaturely' in Beckett's world? In the first full-length study of the concept of the creature in Beckett's prose and drama, this book traces the suspended lives and melancholic existences of Beckett's ignorant and impotent creatures to assess the extent to which political value marks the divide between human and inhuman. Through close readings of Beckett's prose and drama, particularly texts from the middle period, including Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable, Waiting for Godot and Endgame, Anderton explicates four arenas of creaturely life in Beckett. Each chapter attends to a particular theme – testimony, power, humour and survival – to analyse a range of pressures and impositions that precipitate the creaturely state of suspension. Drawing on the writings of Adorno, Agamben, Benjamin, Deleuze and Derrida to explore the overlaps between artistic and political structures of creation, the creature emerges as an in-between figure that bespeaks the provisional nature of the human. The result is a provocative examination of the indirect relationship between art and history through Beckett's treatment of testimony, power, humour and survival, which each attest to the destabilisation of meaning after Auschwitz.
The Late Work of Sam Shepard
by Shannon Blake SkeltonHailed by critics during the 1980s as the decade's 'Great American Playwright', Sam Shepard continued to produce work in a wide array of media including short prose, films, plays, performances and screenplays until his death in 2017. Like Samuel Beckett and Tennessee Williams in their autumnal years, Shepard relentlessly pressed the potentialities and possibilities of theatre. This is the first volume to consider Shepard's later work and career in detail and ranges across his work produced since the late 1980s.Shepard's motion picture directorial debut Far North (1988) served as the beginning of a new cycle of work. He returned to the stage with the politically engaged States of Shock (1991) which resembled neither his earlier plays nor his family cycle. With both Far North and States of Shock, Shepard signaled a transition into a phase in which he would experiment in form, subject and media for the next two decades. Skelton's comprehensive study includes consideration of his work in films such as Hamlet (2000), Black Hawk Down (2001), The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007) and Brothers (2009); issues of authenticity in the film and screenplay Don't Come Knocking (2005) and the play Kicking a Dead Horse (2007); of memory and trauma in Simpatico, The Late Henry Moss and When the World was Green, and of masculine and conservative narratives in States of Shock and The God of Hell.Lauded by critics in his lifetime and since his death in July 2017 as 'one of the most important and influential writers of his generation' (NY Times), Shepard 'excelled as an actor, screenwriter, playwright and director' (Guardian); this is a timely and important assessment of his work spanning the last three decades of his life.
Seneca: Oedipus (Companions to Greek and Roman Tragedy)
by Susanna BraundOedipus, king of Thebes, is one of the giant figures of ancient mythology. Through the centuries, his story has inspired works of epic poetry, lyric poetry, tragedy, opera, a gospel musical and more. Famous today thanks to Sigmund Freud's famous phrase 'the Oedipus complex', the most famous version of the Oedipus myth from antiquity is the Greek play by Sophocles. But there is another version, the Latin drama by the Roman philosopher and politician Seneca.Seneca's play reflects concerns special to the author and his Roman audience. Moreover, it exercised a much greater influence on European literature and thought than has usually been suspected. This book offers a compact and incisive study of the multi-faceted Oedipus myth, of Seneca as dramatist, of the play's distinctive characteristics and of the most important aspects of the reception of the play in European drama and culture to the current day. No knowledge of Latin or other foreign languages is required.
The Politics of Performing Shakespeare for Young People: Standing up to Shakespeare
by Jan WozniakThis book examines performance projects of Shakespeare's plays for young people in terms of their value for their young audiences. Using interviews with theatre workers and workshops with young people, the book argues that it is by trusting young people's experience of performances, rather than promoting a range of pre-determined textual understandings of the plays, that they might gain most benefit. It argues that by privileging the meanings young people make of Shakespeare, new and exciting interpretations of his work might be found.
Another Place (Modern Plays)
by Dc MooreIt's forty million miles. Two and a half years, yeah? It takes a radiowave - right? Travelling at the speed of fucking light, 13 minutes, to get back from Mars. So . . . if anything goes wrong - anything at all - out there . . . they're really . . . they're on their own, you know?When Earth is the loneliest planet, where else is there to go?Paul is a specialist in cognitive behaviour, tasked with designing a twenty-year mission to Mars. Daniel is a husband and new father struggling with the reality of marriage and the monotony of everyday life. Nat is a twin sister, disillusioned by the world's obsession with space travel and sorry that she didn't say goodbye. And Amy asks a lot of questions . . . Following his critically acclaimed The Empire at the Royal Court, and The Swan at the National Theatre, DC Moore's Another Place is a compelling play about our obsession to uncover the secrets of space, and the tragedy of what we leave behind. Full of dark humour, razor-sharp wit and intricately portrayed characters, this is a gripping play about what it means to be human.Another Place received its world premiere at the Theatre Royal Plymouth on 6 November 2014.
Macbeth, Macbeth (Beyond Criticism)
by Ewan Fernie Simon PalfreyThe tragedy is done, the tyrant Macbeth dead. The time is free. But for how long? As Macduff pursues dreams of national revival, smaller lives are seeding. In the ruins of Dunsinane, the Porter tries to keep his three young boys safe from the nightmare of history. In a nunnery deep in Birnam Wood, a girl attempts to forget what she lost in war. Flitting between them, a tortured clairvoyant shakes with the knowledge of what's to come. An unprecedented collaboration between two leading Shakespeareans, Macbeth, Macbeth sparks a whole new world from the embers of Shakespeare's great tragedy. The crow makes wing to the rooky wood...
Pomona (Modern Plays)
by Alistair McDowallI think I'd sleep a lot easier if I knew none of us would wake up tomorrow.Ollie's sister is missing. Searching Manchester in desperation, she finds all roads lead to Pomona - an abandoned concrete island at the heart of the city.Here at the centre of everything, journeys end and nightmares are born. A sinister and surreal thriller from Alistair McDowall, Pomona received its world premiere at the Orange Tree Theatre, London, on 12 November 2014.
Wildefire (Modern Plays)
by Roy WilliamsDo wrong, you get done, simple as. Gail Wilde is an average policewoman, but one who lives up to her nickname, 'Wildefire' – and in the precarious world of modern policing, being wild or full of fire is hardly likely to be appropriate for the job in hand . . . Suspicions surrounding Gail's professional conduct reach fever pitch when a fellow officer is involved in a serious incident on the beat. Conspiracy theories and rumours are rife – not only at work but at home too – and a cycle of accusations and recrimination ensues, spiralling out of control. Roy Williams's riveting thriller looks at the maelstrom of urban policing, and the mental and physical impact it has on the people we rely on to keep the peace. This edition published to coincide with the world premiere at Hampstead Theatre, London.
The Argument (Modern Plays)
by William BoydThat's why we shout and scream at each other. Clears the air. A kind of truth begins to emerge. We see clearer.Pip and Meredith have had a bust-up. It was only about their opinion of a film, but it's led to more significant differences coming to light. Pip has been having an affair for the past three months with a young colleague at work. Meredith's slate doesn't seem to be entirely clean either.As their families and friends become embroiled in Pip and Meredith's separation, past prejudices, harsh judgements and painful truths come to light. The arguments that ensue go beyond just being about Pip and Meredith, and what they should do about their marriage. In nine taut scenes, William Boyd explores what it is to argue with those we love - and those we should love. He looks at our propensity to judge others and our power to hurt. Alongside this, he shows how it can sometimes be the superficial problems in a relationship that keep it going.Both bleak and funny in its tone, The Argument offers a Strindberg-like take on human dynamics and received its world premiere at Hampstead Theatre Downstairs in March 2016.
Greek Tragedy: Themes and Contexts (Classical World)
by Laura SwiftThe latest volume in the Classical World series, this book offers a much-needed up-to-date introduction to Greek tragedy, and covers the most important thematic topics studied at school or university level. After a brief analysis of the genre and main figures, it focuses on the broader questions of what defines tragedy, what its particular preoccupations are, and what makes these texts so widely studied and performed more than 2,000 years after they were written. As such, the book will be of interest to students taking broad courses on Greek tragedy, while also being suitable for the general reader who wants an overview of the subject. All passages of tragedy discussed are translated by the author and supplementary information includes a chronology of all the surviving tragedies, a glossary, and guidance on further reading.
Costume in Performance: Materiality, Culture, and the Body
by Donatella BarbieriThis beautifully illustrated book conveys the centrality of costume to live performance. Finding associations between contemporary practices and historical manifestations, costume is explored in six thematic chapters, examining the transformative ritual of costuming; choruses as reflective of society; the grotesque, transgressive costume; the female sublime as emancipation; costume as sculptural art in motion; and the here-and-now as history. Viewing the material costume as a crucial aspect in the preparation, presentation and reception of live performance, the book brings together costumed performances through history. These range from ancient Greece to modern experimental productions, from medieval theatre to modernist dance, from the 'fashion plays' to contemporary Shakespeare, marking developments in both culture and performance. Revealing the relationship between dress, the body and human existence, and acknowledging a global as well as an Anglo and Eurocentric perspective, this book shows costume's ability to cross both geographical and disciplinary borders. Through it, we come to question the extent to which the material costume actually co-authors the performance itself, speaking of embodied histories, states of being and never-before imagined futures, which come to life in the temporary space of the performance.With a contribution by Melissa Trimingham, University of Kent, UK
National Theatre Connections 2015: Plays for Young People: Drama, Baby; Hood; The Boy Preference; The Edelweiss Pirates; Follow, Follow; The Accordion Shop; Hacktivists; Hospital Food; Remote; The Crazy Sexy Cool Girls' Fan Club
by Anthony BanksDrawing together the work of ten leading playwrights - a mixture of established and emerging writers - this National Theatre Connections anthology is published to coincide with the 2015 festival, which takes place across the UK and Ireland, finishing up at the National Theatre in London. The programme offers young performers between the ages of thirteen and nineteen everywhere an engaging selection of plays to perform, read or study. Each play is specifically commissioned by the National Theatre's literary department with the young performer in mind. The plays are performed by approximately 200 schools and youth theatre companies across the UK and Ireland, in partnership with multiple professional regional theatres where the works are showcased.The anthology contains all ten of the play scripts, and notes from the writer and director of each play, addressing the themes and ideas behind the play, as well as production notes and exercises.The National Theatre Connections series has been running for twenty years and the anthology that accompanies it, published for the last five years by Methuen Drama, is gaining a greater profile by the year. This year's anthology includes plays by Jamie Brittain, Katherine Chandler, Elinor Cook, Ayub Khan Din, Katie Douglas, Cush Jumbo, Ben Ockrent, Eugene O'Hare, Stef Smith and Sarah Solemani.
Contact.com (Modern Plays)
by Michael KingsburyTo be like this. All the swagger and front, deals and deadlines, and keep you head down and your mouth shut might just one day bring him nearer to this. Different worlds.Matthew and Naomi await the arrival of Ryan and Kelly. They'll meet for one night of unlimited pleasure, then part, that's the agreement, that's the plan . . . but can they stick to it? Contact.com is a taut drama of sexual and class politics, first performed at the Park Theatre, London, in January 2015.
The Theatre of Eugene O’Neill: American Modernism on the World Stage (Critical Companions)
by Kurt EisenThe Theatre of Eugene O'Neill offers a new comprehensive overview of O'Neill's career and plays in the context of the American theatre. Organised thematically, it considers his Modernist intervention in the theatre, offers readers detailed analysis of the plays, and assesses the recent resurgence in his reputation and new approaches to staging his work. It includes a study of all his major plays - The Emperor Jones, The Hairy Ape, The Iceman Cometh, Long Day's Journey into Night, A Moon for the Misbegotten and Desire Under the Elms - besides numerous other full length and one act dramas.Eugene O'Neill is generally credited with inventing modern American drama, in a time of cultural ferment and lively artistic and intellectual change. Yet O'Neill's theatrical instincts were always shaped by American stage traditions that were inextricable from his sense of himself and his own national culture. This study shows that his theatrical modernism represents not so much a break from these traditions as a reinvention of their scope and significance in the context of international stage modernism, offering an image of national culture and character that opens new possibilities for the stage while remaining rooted in its past.Kurt Eisen traces O'Neill's Modernism throughout the dramatists's work: his attempts to break from the themes, plots, and moral conventions of the traditional melodramatic theatre; his experiments in stagecraft and theme, and their connection to traditional theatre and his European modernist contemporaries; the turn toward direct and indirect self-representation; and his critique of the family and of American 'pipe dreams' and the allure of success. The volume additionally features four contributed essays providing further critical perspectives on O'Neill's work, besides a chronology of the writer's life and times.
Piranha Heights (Modern Plays)
by Philip Ridley'Look - they're fading. Those liars. Dissolving . . . It's the end of their world . . . The birth of a new one . . . Our one . . . Our world.' It's Mother's Day and mother is dead. Now her two sons gather in her home to argue about the truth of their childhood. But a storm is approaching . . . with a violent new truth all of its own. Piranha Heights is non-stop, filthily poetic and a searing insight into the disenchantment of young people today. This edition, featuring a revised script, published to coincide with play's revival at the Old Red Lion, London, in November 2014.Praise for Leaves of Glass: 'Like a shard of glass plunged straight to the heart . . . superb.' Guardian
Fifty Playwrights on their Craft
by Caroline Jester Caridad SvichIn a series of interviews with fifty playwrights from the US and UK, this book offers a fascinating study of the voices, thoughts, and opinions of today's most important dramatists. Filled with probing questions, Fifty Playwrights on their Craft explores ideas such as how does playwriting help a global dialogue; where do dramatists find the ideas that become the stories and narratives within their plays; how can the stage inform the writer's creative process; how does crossing boundaries between art forms push the living art form of theatre-making forward; and will there be playwrights in another 50 years? Through these interrogating interviews we come to understand how and why playwrights write what they do and gain insight into their processes and motivations. Together, the interviews provide an inter-generational dialogue between dramatists whose work spans over six decades. Featuring interviews with playwrights such as Edward Bond, Katori Hall, Chris Goode, David Greig, Willy Russell, David Henry Hwang, Alecky Blythe, Anne Washburn and Simon Stephens, Jester and Svich offer an unprecedented view into the multiple perspectives and approaches of key playwrights on both sides of the Atlantic.
The Qur'an: A Historical-Critical Introduction
by Nicolai SinaiExplores the potential for an original ethics based on Deleuze’s unique interpretation and use of Kantian critique
The European Avant-Gardes, 1905-1935: A Portable Guide
by Sascha BruA history of independent cinema in the US from an industrial perspective
Performing Opera: A Practical Guide for Singers and Directors (Performance Books)
by Michael EwansIn Performing Opera: A Practical Guide for Singers and Directors Michael Ewans provides a detailed and practical workbook to performing many of the most commonly produced operas. Drawing on examples from twenty-four operas ranging in period from Gluck and Mozart to Britten and Tippett, it illustrates exactly how opera functions as dramatic form. Grounded in close analyses of performances of thirty scenes and five whole operas by first-rate singers and celebrated directors, Performing Opera provides readers with an appreciation of the unique challenges and skills required by performers and directors. It will assist them in their own performance and equip them with detailed knowledge of works most commonly featured in the repertoire. In the first part of the book the analysis progresses from scenes in which the singers are silent, via arias and monologues, duets and confrontations, up to ensembles. Wider issues are subsequently addressed: encounters with offstage events, encounters with the numinous, characterization, and the sense of inevitability in tragic opera.