Since the late 1970s, more than 200 biographical plays about famous artists (composers, fine artists, poets, actors etc.) were written and staged in the United Kingdom. The book analyses the range of these plays, arguing that the dramatists often place the main artist character(s) in an adverse situation, inward (e.g., mental illness) or outward (a personal enemy, or an anonymous power, such as war). Against the background of such adverse forces, the artist characters tend come across as flawed human beings. At the same time, most plays take care to provide good insights into the artists’ genius and their artistic integrity in the face of the adversity. The book also addresses the question why there have been so many biographical plays about famous artists over the past twenty-five years, providing answers in the context of theatre history and developments across academic disciplines and society as a whole.

This biography coloring book is all about teaching kids about the lives of famous artists while encouraging their own creativity through coloring and creating. Almost 100 coloring pages include 15 original biographies written just for children with age approximate language and content. After they learn about each incredible artist, they can color a portrait of the artist and use two more coloring pages to create their own work in the style of the artist. Famous Artists: Children will learn about the lives of a diverse group of artists including: Hilma af Klint, Salvador Dali, Leonardo da Vinci, Keith Haring, Frida Kahlo, Wassily Kandinsky, Yayoi Kusama, Rene Magritte, Henri Matisse, Michelangelo, Georgia O'Keeffe, Pablo Picasso, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Vincent Van Gogh. And Andy Warhol. Features & Highlights: Large black and white line drawings allow children to create original artwork and designs Age appropriate easy to read biographies written by a former teacher contain simple language and explain art concepts to children Designed to teach and inspire creativity in girls and boys ages 5-12, while giving them an opportunity to express themselves creatively A Great Gift for Any Child If you're looking for an activity for your kindergartner or school-aged child, this educational activity book is a great way to engage children in the arts. This is not just a coloring book. Children will actually learn about the lives of famous artists! Perfect for Young Artists This book is a great choice for budding artists. The paper is heavier than most coloring books and works well with art supplies like crayons, colored pencils, gel pens and most markers. Lots of pages where young artists can create their own original works of art!

The study of consciousness has developed considerably over the past ten years, with an emphasis on seeking to explain subjective experience. Our understanding of key questions relating to the performing arts, in theory and practice, benefits from the insights of consciousness studies. Theatre, Opera and Consciousness discusses selected concerns of theatre history from a consciousness studies perspective, develops a new perspective on ethical implications of theatre practice, reassesses the concept of the guru, and offers a new approach to the actor’s cool-down. The book expands the framework from theatre to opera, and presents a new consideration of the spiritual aspects of singing in opera, conducting for opera, and the opera experience for singers and spectators alike.

Marilyn Monroe, Vincent van Gogh or the victims of rendition flights – the number and variety of historical and contemporary figures represented on British stages is amazing. This book develops a new theoretical framework for the representation of real life figures on stage and examines different ways in which they can be included in performances.

This collection centers on the remarkable life and career of the writer and actor Elizabeth Inchbald (1753–1821), active in Great Britain in the late eighteenth century. Inspired by the example of Inchbald’s biographer, Annibel Jenkins (1918–2013), the contributors explore the broad historical and cultural context around Inchbald’s life and work, with essays ranging from the Restoration to the nineteenth century. Ranging from visual culture, theater history, literary analyses and to historical investigations, the essays not only present a fuller picture of cultural life in Great Britain in the long eighteenth century, but also reflect a range of disciplinary perspectives. The collection concludes with the final scholarly presentation of the late Professor Jenkins, a study of the eighteenth-century English newspaper The World (1753-1756).

To the question of &lquo;what is art?&rquo;, it is often simply responded that art is whatever is produced by the artist. For John Molyneux, this clearly circular answer is deeply unsatisfying. In a tour de force spanning renaissance Italy and the Dutch Republic to contemporary leading figures, The Dialectics of Art instead approaches its subject matter as a distinct field of creative human labour that emerges alongside and in opposition to the alienation and commodification brought about by capitalism. The pieces and individuals Molyneux examines — from Michelangelo’s Slaves to Rembrandts Jewish Bride to the vast drip paintings of Jackson Pollock – are presented as embodying the social contradictions of their times, giving art an inherently political relevance. In its relationship of creative and dialectical tension to prevailing social relationships and norms, such art points beyond the existing order of things, hinting at a potential future society not based on alienated labour in which creative production becomes the property and practice of all.

Insecure siblings fighting for their parents’ attention; bickering spouses who can’t stand to be together or apart; adultery and sexual experimentation; even the struggle to balance work and family: These are themes as much at home in our time as they were in the twelfth century. In James Goldman’s classic play The Lion in Winter, domestic turmoil rises to an art form. Keenly self-aware and motivated as much by spite as by any sense of duty, Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine maneuver against each other to position their favorite son in line for succession. By imagining the inner lives of Henry, Eleanor, and their sons, John, Geoffrey, and Richard, Goldman created the quintessential drama of family strife and competing ambitions, a work that gives visceral, modern-day relevance to the intrigues of Angevin England. Combining keen historical and psychological insight with delicious, mordant wit, the stage play has become a touchstone of today’s theater scene, and Goldman’s screenplay for the 1968 film adaptation won him an Academy Award. Told in “marvelously articulate language, with humor that bristles and burns” (Los Angeles Times), The Lion in Winter is the rare play that bursts into life on the printed page.

This book maps the history of literary celebrity from the early nineteenth century to the present, paying special attention to the authors’ crafting of their writerly self as well as the afterlife of their public image. Case studies are John Keats, Edgar Allan Poe, Eliza Cook, Herman Melville, Oscar Wilde, Gertrude Stein, J.D. Salinger and Zadie Smith. Literary celebrity is part and parcel of modern literary culture, yet it continues to raise intriguing questions about the nature of authorship, writerly fame and the tension between authorial self-fashioning and public appropriation. This volume provides unique insights into the phenomenon.