Merely Players? marks a groundbreaking departure in Shakespeare studies by giving direct voice to the Shakespearean performer. It draws on three centuries worth of actors' written reflections on playing Shakespeare and brings together the dual worlds of performance and academia, providing a unique resource for the student and theatre-lover alike.

And now comes a modern sculptor who takes this Medusa mask and makes it the vehicle of expression of ideas and emotions to which antiquity was a stranger, for they are the bitter fruitage of that sky-hiding tree we name "modern civilization." -on artist Oskar J. W. Hansen Claude Bragdon was an architect and stage designer who dabbled in theosophy and the occult... and wrote about all his expansive experiences with spirit, passion, and a penetrating insight. This 1929 collection of compulsively readable essays is a fascinating journey through life in the theater, the meaning of modern art, diverse traditions of spirituality coming together in contemporary culture, and the fascination with the paranormal that gripped Bragdon and his times. The impressive range of Bragdon's erudition serves as a fascinating overview of the popular intellectualism of the early 20th century. Other works by Bragdon available from Cosimo Classics: Oracle, The Eternal Poles, Yoga for You, Four-Dimensional Vistas, Projective Ornament, The Beautiful Necessity, Architecture and Democracy, Episodes from An Unwritten History, and A Primer of Higher Space (The Fourth Dimension). American architect, stage designer, and writer CLAUDE FAYETTE BRAGDON (1866-1946) helped found the Rochester Architectural Club, in the city where he made his greatest mark as a building designer with structures including Rochester Central Station, Rochester Institute of Technology, and the First Universalist Church; he also designed Peterborough Bridge in Ontario. In later life, Bragdon worked on Broadway as scenic designer for 1930s productions of Cyrano de Bergerac and Hamlet, among others.

A DCI Percy Peach mystery - Adam Cassidy is one of Brunton’s most famous residents. He plays the lead role in a successful TV detective show. It is now his time for a crack at Hollywood and he doesn’t care who he has to betray in order to fulfil his dream. Meanwhile, DCI Percy Peach is in danger of being drawn into the local anti-terrorism initiative. What he needs is a high-profile murder case to sink his teeth into – and he may be about to get what he wishes for . . .

Two aspiring actresses meet in London in 1958 - the era of the Angry Young Man and the sexual revolution - Paula, a runaway from council care and Isabel, daughter of a theatrical knight and a Hollywood film star. It is to be the beginning of an unlikely and enduring friendship.Over the next two decades their lives will intertwine as the story moves between London, New York and Los Angeles. The conflict between their personal and professional ambitions will force both women to make difficult choices which prove to have unforeseen and far-reaching consequences as their lives are dogged by violence, scandal and heartbreak, and overshadowed by their love, and sometimes hatred, for the same man.Merely Players captures the atmosphere of the theatrical world and maps out the landscape of the male and female heart, evoking the struggles, hopes, fears and illusions that lurk behind the surface glamour of actors' lives.'There are more twists and turns than you'd get from a full bag of corkscrews . . . gripping, moving, intelligent and, quite simply, brilliant.' LE1 Magazine'Her writing is compelling and so are her characters - gritty, engaging, infuriating, engrossing, absolutely true to life.' Reay Tannahill.

This definitive history of Rush includes both biographical portraits of the band members and a comprehensive discography, biography, equipment list, lyrics analysis, tour itineraries and set lists for the world's premier heavy rock band who were voted "Musicians of the Century" in an end-of-the millennium poll on the canoe.ca music website.

From handshakes and toasts to chant and genuflection, ritual pervades our social interactions and religious practices. Still, few of us could identify all of our daily and festal ritual behaviors, much less explain them to an outsider. Similarly, because of the variety of activities that qualify as ritual and their many contradictory yet, in many ways, equally legitimate interpretations, ritual seems to elude any systematic historical and comparative scrutiny. In this book, Catherine Bell offers a practical introduction to ritual practice and its study; she surveys the most influential theories of religion and ritual, the major categories of ritual activity, and the key debates that have shaped our understanding of ritualism. Bell refuses to nail down ritual with any one definition or understanding. Instead, her purpose is to reveal how definitions emerge and evolve and to help us become more familiar with the interplay of tradition, exigency, and self-expression that goes into constructing this complex social medium.