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Dangerous Rhythm: Why Movie Musicals Matter
by Richard BarriosSingin' in the Rain, The Sound of Music, Camelot--love them or love to hate them, movie musicals have been a major part of all our lives. They're so glitzy and catchy that it seems impossible that they could have ever gone any other way. But the ease in which they unfold on the screen is deceptive. Dorothy's dream of finding a land "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" was nearly cut, and even a film as great as The Band Wagon was, at the time, a major flop. In Dangerous Rhythm: Why Movie Musicals Matter, award winning historian Richard Barrios explores movie musicals from those first hits, The Jazz Singer and Broadway Melody, to present-day Oscar winners Chicago and Les Misérables. History, film analysis, and a touch of backstage gossip combine to make Dangerous Rhythm a compelling look at musicals and the powerful, complex bond they forge with their audiences. Going behind the scenes, Barrios uncovers the rocky relationship between Broadway and Hollywood, the unpublicized off-camera struggles of directors, stars, and producers, and all the various ways by which some films became our most indelible cultural touchstones -- and others ended up as train wrecks. Not content to leave any format untouched, Barrios examines animated musicals and popular music with insight and enthusiasm. Cartoons have been intimately connected with musicals since Steamboat Willie. Disney's short Silly Symphonies grew into the instant classic Snow White, which paved the way for that modern masterpiece, South Park: Bigger, Longer, & Uncut. Without movie musicals, Barrios argues, MTV would have never existed. On the flip side, without MTV we might have been spared Evita. Informed, energetic, and humorous, Dangerous Rhythm is both an impressive piece of scholarship and a joy to read.
Dangerous Rhythm: Why Movie Musicals Matter
by Richard BarriosSingin' in the Rain, The Sound of Music, Camelot--love them or love to hate them, movie musicals have been a major part of all our lives. They're so glitzy and catchy that it seems impossible that they could have ever gone any other way. But the ease in which they unfold on the screen is deceptive. Dorothy's dream of finding a land "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" was nearly cut, and even a film as great as The Band Wagon was, at the time, a major flop. In Dangerous Rhythm: Why Movie Musicals Matter, award winning historian Richard Barrios explores movie musicals from those first hits, The Jazz Singer and Broadway Melody, to present-day Oscar winners Chicago and Les Misérables. History, film analysis, and a touch of backstage gossip combine to make Dangerous Rhythm a compelling look at musicals and the powerful, complex bond they forge with their audiences. Going behind the scenes, Barrios uncovers the rocky relationship between Broadway and Hollywood, the unpublicized off-camera struggles of directors, stars, and producers, and all the various ways by which some films became our most indelible cultural touchstones -- and others ended up as train wrecks. Not content to leave any format untouched, Barrios examines animated musicals and popular music with insight and enthusiasm. Cartoons have been intimately connected with musicals since Steamboat Willie. Disney's short Silly Symphonies grew into the instant classic Snow White, which paved the way for that modern masterpiece, South Park: Bigger, Longer, & Uncut. Without movie musicals, Barrios argues, MTV would have never existed. On the flip side, without MTV we might have been spared Evita. Informed, energetic, and humorous, Dangerous Rhythm is both an impressive piece of scholarship and a joy to read.
Daniels Plays: Ripen Our Darkness; The Devil's Gateway; Masterpiece; Neaptide; Byrthrite (Contemporary Dramatists)
by Sarah DanielsRipen Our Darkness was the play that established Sarah Daniels as a writer; The Devil's Gateway carries the flavour of life in Bethnal Green in the 1980s; Masterpieces, Daniels' most controversial play is a radical take on the porn industry and caused outrage among critics - "The play has bite, anger and tenacity and many of its arguments are true... the supreme merit of Ms Daniels' combative work is that it makes me want to argue back." (Michael Billington, Guardian) Neaptide looks at lesbianism and prejudice - "A lacerating wit" (City Limits), whilst Byrthrite is set in the 17th century, at the point when the role of the healer was taken over by the male profession of doctor, it examines the implications and dangers of reproductive technology - "Daniels puts her case with vigour and wit." (Financial Times)
Daniels Plays: Gut Girls; Beside Herself; Head-rot Holiday; Madness of Esme and Shaz (Contemporary Dramatists)
by Sarah DanielsSarah Daniels is "a writer with a natural talent for disturbance" (Observer)Set in the gutting sheds of the slaughterhouse at the Cattle Market in late Victorian Deptford, The Gut Girls shows how the lives of the girls are changed when their work is made illegal - "Regarded as little better than whores by their contemporaries the gut girls are...a boisterous, beer-swilling, strong-minded bunch, handy with a knife both in the gutting shed and outside it, defiantly independent in attitude and scornful of the illusion of male supremacy." Malcolm Hay (Time Out). Beside Herself is the first of three plays in this volume that deal with women and madness - "a dramatic analogue of a contemporary social tragedy which exists on a scale we are only just beginning to comprehend" (Observer); Head-Rot Holiday commissioned by Clean Break theatre company for ex-offenders, portrays the fate of women detained in special hospitals, a euphemism for an institution for the "criminally insane" - "There is a fine, hard humour, as well as compassion, in the way Head-Rot Holdiay examines the contradictions entangling these women's lives"; The Madness of Esmé and Shaz is "A weird and wondrous black comedy." (Spectator)
Daniels Plays: Ripen Our Darkness; The Devil's Gateway; Masterpiece; Neaptide; Byrthrite (Contemporary Dramatists)
by Sarah DanielsRipen Our Darkness was the play that established Sarah Daniels as a writer; The Devil's Gateway carries the flavour of life in Bethnal Green in the 1980s; Masterpieces, Daniels' most controversial play is a radical take on the porn industry and caused outrage among critics - "The play has bite, anger and tenacity and many of its arguments are true... the supreme merit of Ms Daniels' combative work is that it makes me want to argue back." (Michael Billington, Guardian) Neaptide looks at lesbianism and prejudice - "A lacerating wit" (City Limits), whilst Byrthrite is set in the 17th century, at the point when the role of the healer was taken over by the male profession of doctor, it examines the implications and dangers of reproductive technology - "Daniels puts her case with vigour and wit." (Financial Times)
Daniels Plays: Gut Girls; Beside Herself; Head-rot Holiday; Madness of Esme and Shaz (Contemporary Dramatists)
by Sarah DanielsSarah Daniels is "a writer with a natural talent for disturbance" (Observer)Set in the gutting sheds of the slaughterhouse at the Cattle Market in late Victorian Deptford, The Gut Girls shows how the lives of the girls are changed when their work is made illegal - "Regarded as little better than whores by their contemporaries the gut girls are...a boisterous, beer-swilling, strong-minded bunch, handy with a knife both in the gutting shed and outside it, defiantly independent in attitude and scornful of the illusion of male supremacy." Malcolm Hay (Time Out). Beside Herself is the first of three plays in this volume that deal with women and madness - "a dramatic analogue of a contemporary social tragedy which exists on a scale we are only just beginning to comprehend" (Observer); Head-Rot Holiday commissioned by Clean Break theatre company for ex-offenders, portrays the fate of women detained in special hospitals, a euphemism for an institution for the "criminally insane" - "There is a fine, hard humour, as well as compassion, in the way Head-Rot Holdiay examines the contradictions entangling these women's lives"; The Madness of Esmé and Shaz is "A weird and wondrous black comedy." (Spectator)
Danj?r?’s Girls: Women on the Kabuki Stage (Palgrave Studies in Theatre and Performance History)
by L. EdelsonDanjuro ' s Girls is a fascinating history of Japan's female kabuki troupes, offering a penetrating investigation into three generations of kabuki actresses associated with the renowned Ichikawa Danjuro acting dynasty. Contextually grounding early female precedents in kabuki, the book focuses on the Ichikawa Girls' Kabuki Troupe, a unique and trailblazing company founded after Japan's defeat in World War II. The troupe became a national sensation in the 1950s, briefly becoming part of the otherwise impenetrable all-male kabuki establishment. Drawing on numerous interviews, as well as written and visual primary sources, Danjuro ' s Girls challenges readers to re-examine conventional notions about gender, performance, and traditional Japanese theatre.
Danny the Champion of the World: Plays for Children
by Roald Dahl Quentin Blake David WoodA collection of short plays for schools and drama groups, adapted from Roald Dahl's brilliant story, Danny the Champion of the WorldCould you be Danny, or his dad, or even red-faced Mr Victor Hazell? Danny thinks his dad is the most marvellous and exciting father a boy could wish for. Now you can join in their daring and devilish plots with these fun-to-perform plays adapted by David Wood.
Dante: The Divine Comedy, 2nd Edition (PDF)
by Robin KirkpatrickIn this accessible critical introduction to Dante's Divine Comedy Robin Kirkpatrick principally focuses on Dante as a poet and storyteller. He addresses important questions such as Dante's attitude towards Virgil, and demonstrates how an early work such as the Vita nuova is a principal source of the literary achievement of the Comedy. His detailed reading reveals how the great narrative poem explores the relationship that Dante believed to exist between God as creator of the universe and the human being as a creature of God. In addition, Kirkpatrick takes due account of the historical and philosophical dimensions of the poem.
Danton's Death (Modern Plays)
by Georg Buchner Howard BrentonThis is your rhetoric translated. These wretches, these executioners, the guillotine are your speeches come to life. You have built your doctrines out of human heads... Why should an event that transforms the whole of humanity not advance through blood? 1794: the French Revolution reaches its climax. After a series of bloody purges the life-loving, volatile Danton is tormented by his part in the killing. His political rival, the driven, ascetic Robespierre, decides Danton's fate. A titanic struggle begins. Once friends who wanted to change the world, now one stands for compromise the other for ideological purity as the guillotine awaits. A revolutionary himself, George Büchner was 21 when he wrote the play in 1835, while hiding from the police. With its hair-raising on-rush of scenes and vivid dramatisation of complex, visionary characters, Danton's Death has a claim to be the greatest political tragedy ever written. In his newly-revised translation, Howard Brenton captures Büchner's exhilarating energy as Danton struggles to avoid his inexorable fall.
Danton's Death (Modern Plays)
by Georg Buchner Howard BrentonThis is your rhetoric translated. These wretches, these executioners, the guillotine are your speeches come to life. You have built your doctrines out of human heads... Why should an event that transforms the whole of humanity not advance through blood? 1794: the French Revolution reaches its climax. After a series of bloody purges the life-loving, volatile Danton is tormented by his part in the killing. His political rival, the driven, ascetic Robespierre, decides Danton's fate. A titanic struggle begins. Once friends who wanted to change the world, now one stands for compromise the other for ideological purity as the guillotine awaits. A revolutionary himself, George Büchner was 21 when he wrote the play in 1835, while hiding from the police. With its hair-raising on-rush of scenes and vivid dramatisation of complex, visionary characters, Danton's Death has a claim to be the greatest political tragedy ever written. In his newly-revised translation, Howard Brenton captures Büchner's exhilarating energy as Danton struggles to avoid his inexorable fall.
The Dao of Unrepresentative British Chinese Experience: (Butterfly Dream) (Modern Plays)
by Daniel York Loh… I'm not even properly Chinese I'm only half and half so that makes me feel all wrong and I just want to blend out and fit in and not stand out and with you I stand outWeStand OutThere's no safety in numbersSorryThe 'British Chinese'. So often regarded as a 'model minority'. Quiet, high-achieving, polite, invisible…But when someone who is 'British Chinese' spends their life taking drugs, getting thrown out of school, claiming benefits, being chased in stolen cars, getting locked up, then rehabilitating onto the stage, where do they fit in? Oh, and they're not quite 'Chinese' enough anyway. Semi-autobiographical, free-form and explosive, Daniel York Loh's psychedelic gig-theatrical punk pop rap rock riff The Dao of Unrepresentative British Chinese Experience (Butterfly Dream) asks what path to choose, which identity politics to embrace or whether it's just easier to follow the 'Dao' of ancient Chinese philosopher Zhuangzi and dream you're a butterfly. Or, be a butterfly dreaming of being 'Chinese'….This edition was published to coincide with the world premiere Kakilang production at London's Soho Theatre in June 2024.
The Dao of Unrepresentative British Chinese Experience: (Butterfly Dream) (Modern Plays)
by Daniel York Loh… I'm not even properly Chinese I'm only half and half so that makes me feel all wrong and I just want to blend out and fit in and not stand out and with you I stand outWeStand OutThere's no safety in numbersSorryThe 'British Chinese'. So often regarded as a 'model minority'. Quiet, high-achieving, polite, invisible…But when someone who is 'British Chinese' spends their life taking drugs, getting thrown out of school, claiming benefits, being chased in stolen cars, getting locked up, then rehabilitating onto the stage, where do they fit in? Oh, and they're not quite 'Chinese' enough anyway. Semi-autobiographical, free-form and explosive, Daniel York Loh's psychedelic gig-theatrical punk pop rap rock riff The Dao of Unrepresentative British Chinese Experience (Butterfly Dream) asks what path to choose, which identity politics to embrace or whether it's just easier to follow the 'Dao' of ancient Chinese philosopher Zhuangzi and dream you're a butterfly. Or, be a butterfly dreaming of being 'Chinese'….This edition was published to coincide with the world premiere Kakilang production at London's Soho Theatre in June 2024.
Daring Adaptations, Creative Failures and Experimental Performances in Iberian Theatre (Contemporary Hispanic and Lusophone Cultures #26)
In this volume, we are particularly interested in approaching theatre and performance as a dynamic and evolving practice of continuous change, regeneration and cultural mobility. Neither the dramatic texts nor their stage versions should be viewed as finished products but as creative processes in the making. Their richness lies in their unfinished and never-ending potential energy and their openness to constant revision, rehearsal, revival, and collective enterprise. This edited collection aims to create a dialogue on the artistic processes implicated in the various ways of working with the play text, the staging practices, the way audiences and critical reception can impact a production, and the many lives of Iberian theatre beyond the page or the stage. That is, its cultural and social legacies.
Daring to Play: A Brecht Companion
by Manfred WekwerthTranslated into English for the first time, Daring To Play: A Brecht Companion is the study of Bertolt Brecht’s theatre by Manfred Wekwerth, Brecht’s co-director and former director of the Berliner Ensemble. Wekwerth aims to challenge prevailing myths and misconceptions of Brecht’s theatre, instead providing a refreshing and accessible approach to his plays and theatrical craft. The book is rich in information, examples and anecdotal detail from first-hand acquaintance with Brecht and rehearsal with the Berliner Ensemble. Wekwerth provides a detailed practical understanding of how theatre operates with a clear perspective on the interface between politics and art. Warm and engaging, whilst also being provocative and challenging, Daring to Play displays the continued vitality of Brecht’s true approach to theatre makers today.
Daring to Play: A Brecht Companion
by Manfred WekwerthTranslated into English for the first time, Daring To Play: A Brecht Companion is the study of Bertolt Brecht’s theatre by Manfred Wekwerth, Brecht’s co-director and former director of the Berliner Ensemble. Wekwerth aims to challenge prevailing myths and misconceptions of Brecht’s theatre, instead providing a refreshing and accessible approach to his plays and theatrical craft. The book is rich in information, examples and anecdotal detail from first-hand acquaintance with Brecht and rehearsal with the Berliner Ensemble. Wekwerth provides a detailed practical understanding of how theatre operates with a clear perspective on the interface between politics and art. Warm and engaging, whilst also being provocative and challenging, Daring to Play displays the continued vitality of Brecht’s true approach to theatre makers today.
Dario Fo: Revolutionary Theatre
by Tom BehanFor three decades Dario Fo has been the world's most performed living playwright and Europe's leading radical dramatist. He was awarded the 1997 Nobel Prize for Literature at the age of 71 for his contributions as a writer, actor and mime artist over half a century. A controversial figure, he has also been a communist for most of his life. In the first political biography of Dario Fo, Tom Behan traces Fo's life and work from his beginnings in cabaret and mime in postwar Italy and his early writings for television and radio, to the development of his political ideas and the influence of his plays both inside and outside Italy. Behan broadens his study to examine the importance of Fo's theatre and explores the relationship between mass leftwing movements and Fo's activities as playwright and performer. To illustrate these links, Behan makes a detailed analysis of the key themes in Fo's plays – state repression in The Accidental Death of an Anarchist, rebellion in Can't Pay, Won't Pay, the tragedy of leftwing terrorism in Trumpets and Raspberries, and the anti-Clerical satire of Mistero Buffo .
Dario Fo and Franca Rame
by David HirstDario Fo is Italy's most celebrated contemporary dramatist. His plays have also achieved wide recognition in Britain. This book examines the work of Dario Fo, his major plays and his remarkable contribution to performance.
The Dark (Oberon Modern Plays)
by Nick MakohaA new live literature experience by award-winning poet Nick Makoha.On a November evening in 1978 after eight years of civil war, Nick Makoha and his mother fled their homeland of Uganda. Many people were displaced, thrown into unfamiliar environments and forced to find their new home in the world.The Dark is Nick’s own poetic retelling of his experience and that of others affected by it - a series of voices echoing from varying states of darkness. What unfolds is a story of those who find themselves exiled, with allegiances split between their birthplace and their new country.
Dark Earth
by David HarrowerWhen Valerie and Euan's car breaks down in remote countryside near the Antonine Wall they have a problem. With their mobiles left at home and an evening out arranged in Glasgow, they have to find help fast.This comes in the form of Petey and Ida and their twenty-year-old daughter Christine, a farming family who live and breathe the history and traditions of the small area of earth they've made their home. Dark Earth premiered at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, in July 2003.
The Dark Earth and the Light Sky
by Nick DearDeep in the Hampshire countryside Edward Thomas, disaffected husband, exhausted father and tormented writer, scrapes a living. In 1913 he meets American poet Robert Frost and everything changes. As their friendship blossoms Edward writes, emerging from his cocoon of self-doubt into one of the most influential poets of the twentieth century. But he makes the drastic decision to enlist, confounding his friends and family.The Dark Earth and the Light Sky, which premiered at the Almeida Theatre, London, in November 2012, delves into the life of this enigmatic and complex character in an era of change and destruction.
The Dark Flower
by John GalsworthyThe keen insight and multidimensional characters that enliven the works of English novelist John Galsworthy, such as The Forsyte Saga, are also brought to bear in The Dark Flower. This emotionally gripping tale focuses on the intertwined fates of four women, each of whom is facing a critical juncture in her life.
The Dark Lady of the Sonnets
by Bernard ShawThe Dark Lady of the Sonnets is a 1910 short comedy by George Bernard Shaw in which William Shakespeare, intending to meet the "Dark Lady", accidentally encounters Queen Elizabeth I and attempts to persuade her to create a national theatre.
Dark Matter: Invisibility in Drama, Theater, and Performance (Theater: Theory/Text/Performance)
by Andrew SoferDark Mattermaps the invisible dimension of theater whose effects are felt everywhere in performance. Examining phenomena such as hallucination, offstage character, offstage action, sexuality, masking, technology, and trauma, Andrew Sofer engagingly illuminates the invisible in different periods of postclassical western theater and drama. He reveals how the invisible continually structures and focuses an audience’s theatrical experience, whether it’s black magic in Doctor Faustus, offstage sex in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, masked women in The Rover, self-consuming bodies in Suddenly Last Summer, or surveillance technology in The Archbishop’s Ceiling. Each discussion pinpoints new and striking facets of drama and performance that escape sight. Taken together, Sofer’s lively case studies illuminate how dark matter is woven into the very fabric of theatrical representation. Written in an accessible style and grounded in theater studies but interdisciplinary by design, Dark Matter will appeal to theater and performance scholars, literary critics, students, and theater practitioners, particularly playwrights and directors.
The Dark Philosophers (Oberon Modern Plays)
by Carl GroseNational Theatre Wales and Told by an Idiot bring their critically acclaimed celebration of Gwyn Thomas – one of the most distinctive Welsh voices of the last century – and an outstanding Welsh cast to the Edinburgh Festival. Taking as its inspiration Thomas’ ink-black comic tales, The Dark Philosophers is a funny, violent and passionate depiction of a community teetering on the brink of humanity. Using Told by an Idiot’s trademark anarchic physicality and inventive storytelling, this adaptation brings out the bleak, wild humour in tales laced with sex, murder and Thomas’ devastating Valleys wit.