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Numerous attempts have been made in the modern and postmodern era to recreate the staging conventions of Shakespeare's theatre, from William Poel to the founders of the New Globe. This volume examines the work of these directors, analyzing their practical successes and failures; it also engages with the ideological critiques of early modern staging advanced by scholars such as W.B. Worthen and Ric Knowles. The author argues that rather than indulging in archaism for its own sake, the movement looked backward in a progressive attempt to address the challenges of the twentieth century. The book begins with a re-examination of the conventional view of Poel as an antiquarian crank. Subsequent ch...
Acting for the Stage is a highly accessible guide to the business of theater acting, written for those interested in pursuing acting as a profession. This book is a collection of essays by and interviews with talented artists and businesspeople who have built successful careers in the theater; it’s a goldmine of career advice that might take years to find on your own. Herein, the myths around professional acting are dispelled, and the mysteries revealed. Acting for the Stage illuminates practical strategies to help you build a life as a theater professional and find financial rewards and creative fulfillment in the process. Contains essays by and interviews with working stage actors, acting coaches, directors, writers, and agents. Features discussions on selecting a graduate school program, choosing acting classes and workshops, making the most out of your showcase, landing an agent, networking and promoting yourself, and the business of casting. Covers issues of money management, balancing the highs and lows of the profession, finding work to nourish your acting career, and building your creative team and support network.
Inspired by a meeting with Tennessee Williams, American playwright William Inge found success early, winning a Pulitzer for drama and an Academy Award for best screenplay. His small-town upbringing profoundly influenced his writing, and one of his major recurring themes was the traditional roles of gender. This close study of Inge's work focuses particularly on his technique of "gendermandering," patterns of gender-role reversals which Inge exploits not only for dramatic effect but also to subvert social expectations. Fully considered are stereotypes and established gender roles, especially as they were reinforced socially during the 1940s and 1950s. The author concentrates largely on materi...
Shakespeare and Latinidad is a collection of scholarly and practitioner essays in the field of Latinx theatre that specifically focuses on Latinx productions and appropriations of Shakespeare’s plays.
Presenting some of the best work from the 2017 Comparative Drama Conference at Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida, this collection highlights the latest research in comparative drama, performance and dramatic textual analysis. Contributors cover a broad range of topics, from the "practical ethnography" of directing foreign language productions to writing for theoretical stages to the "radical deaf theater" of Aaron Sawyer's The Vineyard. A full transcript of the keynote conversation with American playwright and screenwriter Lisa Loomer is included.
This volume reimagines the first-century reception of the Gospel of Mark within a reconstructed (yet hypothetical) performance event. In particular, it considers the disciples' character and characterization through the lens of performance criticism. Questions concerning the characterization of the disciples have been relatively one-sided in New Testament scholarship, in favor of their negative characterization. This project demonstrates why such assumptions need not be necessary when we (re-)consider the oral/aural milieu in which the Gospel of Mark was first composed and received by its earliest audiences.
Examining the work of the Elizabethan playwright, Robert Greene, this book argues that Greene's plays are innovative in their use of spectacle. Its most striking feature is the use of the one-to-one analogies between Greene's drama and modern cinema, in order to explore the plays' stage effects.
Shakespeare's history plays make up nearly a third of his corpus and feature iconic characters like Falstaff, the young Prince Hal, and Richard III--as well as unforgettable scenes like the storming of Harfleur. But these plays also present challenges for teachers, who need to help students understand shifting dynastic feuds, manifold concepts of political power, and early modern ideas of the body politic, kingship, and nationhood. Part 1 of this volume, "Materials," introduces instructors to the many editions of the plays, the wealth of contextual and critical writings available, and other resources. Part 2, "Approaches," contains essays on topics as various as masculinity and gender, using the plays in the composition classroom, and teaching the plays through Shakespeare's own sources, film, television, and the Web. The essays help instructors teach works that are poetically and emotionally rich as well as fascinating in how they depict Shakespeare's vision of his nation's past and present.
This study of Shakespeares Falstaff versus Shakespeare Criticism takes a view of Falstaff that is critically unorthodox but which is supported by the text. This reading of the Falstaff plays sees the playwright basing his fiction on natural law, but bending natural law to present a world of personified natural phenomena. This reading is logically consistent, and conforms to all fictional requirements for necessity and probability, thus eliminating the supposed errors that criticism, which sees the plays as strictly realistic vehicles, appears to find in these plays.