Shakespeare’s plays abound with kings and leaders who crave a public stage and seize every opportunity to make their lives a performance: Antony, Cleopatra, Richard III, Othello, and many others. Such self-dramatizing characters appear in the work of other playwrights of the era as well, Marlowe’s Edward II and Tamburlaine among them. But Elizabethan playwrights were not alone in realizing that a sense of theater was essential to the exercise of power. Real rulers knew it, too, and none better than Queen Elizabeth. In this fascinating study of political stagecraft in the Elizabethan era, Garry Wills explores a period of vast cultural and political change during which the power of make-believe to make power real was not just a theory but an essential truth. Wills examines English culture as Catholic Christianity’s rituals were being overturned and a Protestant queen took the throne. New iconographies of power were necessary for the new Renaissance liturgy to displace the medieval church-state. The author illuminates the extensive imaginative constructions that went into Elizabeth’s reign and the explosion of great Tudor and Stuart drama that provided the imaginative power to support her long and successful rule.

Presents over 125 activities and projects for creative fun with young children, including storybook play, cooking, costumes and masks, puppets, fingerpaints, games, and mini-plays.

In The Case for Make Believe, Harvard child psychologist Susan Linn tells the alarming story of childhood under siege in a commercialized and technology-saturated world. Although play is essential to human development and children are born with an innate capacity for make believe, Linn argues that, in modern-day America, nurturing creative play is not only countercultural—it threatens corporate profits. A book with immediate relevance for parents and educators alike, The Case for Make Believe helps readers understand how crucial child's play is—and what parents and educators can do to protect it. At the heart of the book are stories of children at home, in school, and at a therapist's office playing about real-life issues from entering kindergarten to a sibling's death, expressing feelings they can't express directly, and making meaning of an often confusing world. In an era when toys come from television and media companies sell videos as brain-builders for babies, Linn lays out the inextricable links between play, creativity, and health, showing us how and why to preserve the space for make believe that children need to lead fulfilling and meaningful lives.

Recovering from a long illness, Boston businessman Carl Stanton is unable to accompany his fiancée Cornelia on a mid-winter trip to warm and sunny Jacksonville. Lonely, bored, and disappointed in Cornelia's lack of affection, Carl decides to answer an advertisement from the Serial-Letter Company, which promises real letters, delivering comfort and entertainment, from imaginary persons. Carl signs up for their love letter program, thinking he might have a bit of fun, and teach his fiancée a lesson in the process.

"In Unbridled, scholar of religion William Robert uses Peter Shaffer's enigmatic 1973 play Equus, about a boy passionately devoted to horses, to think about and teach religion. For Robert, a play like Equus tangles together text, performance, practice, embodiment, and reception. Studying a play involves us in playing different roles, as ourselves and others, and those roles, as well as the imaginative work they require, are critical to the study of religion. By approaching Equus with the reader, Robert transforms standard approaches to the study of religion, engaging with key themes including ritual, sacrifice, worship, power, desire, violence, and sexuality, as well as major thinkers such as Marx, Freud, Nietzsche, and contemporary theorists such as J. Z. Smith and Judith Butler. As Robert shows, the way themes and theories play out in Equus challenges us to imagine the study of religion anew through open questioning, contrasting perspectives, and alternative modes of interpretation and appreciation"--

Presents more than 100 ideas for constructing costumes using materials found at home.

Unlock the power of imagination! Using easy-to-follow instructions and materials that can be found around the house, Making Make-Believe offers over 125 projects and activities sure to foster children's creativity. Little ones will learn to see the world in a new way as they transform things like old sheets, rubber gloves, egg cartons, and pebbles into toys, costumes, forts, and storytelling games. With plenty of drawings and step-by-step guidelines, this book will show you how to: Create wacky hats, fabric-mâché masks, and other silly dress-up outfits Turn your living room into a magical blanket land or a daring obstacle maze Put on a play starring puppets made from socks, sticks, spoons, or even shadows Whip up culinary delights like edible moon rocks, goldfish aquariums, and butterfly bagels Make crafts and forts inspired by storybooks like Curious George, Madeline, and The Very Hungry Caterpillar Play pretend as an artist, carpenter, scientist, treasure-hunter, veterinarian, and more! Perfect for inspiring independent play or for side-by-side fun with a grown-up, Making Make-Believe is packed with ideas for hours of creative adventure!

Unlock the power of imagination! Using easy-to-follow instructions and materials that can be found around the house, Making Make-Believe offers over 125 projects and activities sure to foster children's creativity. Little ones will learn to see the world in a new way as they transform things like old sheets, rubber gloves, egg cartons, and pebbles into toys, costumes, forts, and storytelling games. With plenty of drawings and step-by-step guidelines, this book will show you how to: Create wacky hats, fabric-mÂchÉ masks, and other silly dress-up outfits Turn your living room into a magical blanket land or a daring obstacle maze Put on a play starring puppets made from socks, sticks, spoons, or even shadows Whip up culinary delights like edible moon rocks, goldfish aquariums, and butterfly bagels Make crafts and forts inspired by storybooks like Curious George, Madeline, and The Very Hungry Caterpillar Play pretend as an artist, carpenter, scientist, treasure-hunter, veterinarian, and more! Perfect for inspiring independent play or for side-by-side fun with a grown-up, Making Make-Believe is packed with ideas for hours of creative adventure!

A stalker, a journalist and a librarian converge in small-town Saskatchewan in this brilliantly quirky and entertaining novel of love, obsession and the pursuit of fame. Broken Head has only one famous resident, and Joan Swift, the local librarian, is about to find out all about him. Darwin Andrew Goodwin hails from nearby Venus, Alberta, and is renowned for stalking Stephanie Rush, a Canadian-born starlet who lives in L.A. with her movie director husband. We learn all about Goodwin's obsession from Joan, and when Joan begins her own sultry affair with Jason Warwick, a new arrival from Toronto who is a reporter for the local newspaper, The Standard, the stage is set for a story filled with surprises. To spice up small-town life even more, Joan, who bears a striking resemblance to Stephanie Rush, agrees to impersonate the starlet as part of Jason's plan to write a book. Their hope is to entice Goodwin into telling his side of the story to the look-alike. And when Goodwin is charged and Joan shows up in court dressed as Stephanie, the town starts to buzz with rumour and speculation, and Goodwin's own extraordinary tale of love is told.

Marcus offers this animated history of the visionaries--editors, illustrators, and others--whose books have transformed American childhood and American culture.