The Longman Anthology of Drama and Theater, Compact Edition, is a fully-integrated text/anthology of drama with a global emphasis for the Introduction to Drama course. The Compact Edition is divided into three parts. Part One examines the roots of theater and the theoretical and critical foundations of theater and drama. Part Two, an anthology of Western Theater, and Part Three, an anthology of non-western theater, are divided into historical and geographical sections, each preceded by a brief overview of the cultural and historical context that shaped the plays. A map and timeline of key historical, cultural, and artistic events precedes each section in Parts II and III. Preceding each section of plays is a brief overview of the history of the theater from its origins in Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas to the present. The ideas that inspired the dramas are considered, as well as the particulars of each performance. In the interest of creating a clean, uncluttered text, selected bibliographies are at the end of the book. Questions for Discussion and Writing are included in the accompanying Instructor's Manual, as well as more thorough bibliographies and a comprehensive list of films and videos that illustrate the ideas in the text.

This collection of 31 American and international plays offers a truly global perspective of the drama and theater that has been produced during the past 150 years. In addition to essential plays from the West's modern canon, this anthology offers a richly varied selection of plays from regions underrepresented in other texts, such as Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean. The book's pedagogical features all work together to provide students with the historical and cultural background they need to read plays into context. Accessible, interesting, and inclusive, the broad range of plays in this anthology will inspire, intrigue, and provoke readers to understand more deeply the literary and production history of modern and contemporary drama. One reviewer says, The coverage is great: in terms of geography, gender, race, aesthetics, and cultural issues, the editors have selected plays that are recognized for their importance within an ongoing narrative history of world drama. I've seen no other anthology like this on the market. Matthew Roudan, Georgia State University

The relationship between the Catholic Church and theatre has a long and complicated history. This collection of fourteen critical essays seeks to demystify the ties--both practical and ideological--that have long bound Catholicism to theatrical production. This volume offers insights into medieval theatre, Jesuit drama, ballet and opera, modern stagings of medieval liturgical drama, Lorca and Lope de Vega as Catholic playwrights, Italian Catholic women's drama, Catholic play-wrighting and acting, and the unique challenges of teaching theatre in Catholic universities.

(Applause Books). Applause Theatre & Cinema Books is proud to announce the publication of the first collected anthology of gay and lesbian plays from the entire span of the twentieth century, sure to find wide acceptance by general readers and to be studied on campuses around the world. Among the ten plays, three are completely out of print. Included are The God of Venegeance (1918) by Sholom Ash, the first play to introduce lesbian characters to an English-language audience; Lillian Hellman's classic The Children's Hour (1933), initially banned in London and passed over for the Pulitzer Prize because of its subject matter; and Oscar Wilde (1938) by Leslie and Sewell Stokes, a major award-winning success that starred Robert Morley. More recent plays include Mart Crowley's The Boys in the Band (1968), the first hit "out" gay play that was the most realistic and groundbreaking portrayal of gays on stage up to that time; Martin Sherman's Bent (1978), which daringly focused on the love between two Nazi concentration camp inmates and starred Richard Gere; William Hoffman's As Is (1985), which was one of the first plays to deal with the AIDS crisis and earned three Tony Award nominations; and Terrence McNally's Love! Valour! Compassion! (1994), which starred Nathan Lane and won the Tony Award for Best Play. The other plays are Edouard Bourdet's The Captive (1926), Ruth and Augustus Goetz's The Immoralist (1954) and Frank Marcus' The Killing of Sister George (1967). Forbidden Acts includes a broad range of theatrical genres: drama, tragedy, romance, comedy and farce. They remain vibrant and relevant today as a testament of art's ability to persevere in the face of oppression.

This play-analysis textbook contains 50 short essays on geographically diverse, historically significant dramas -- among them Major Barbara, Our Town, Hamlet, A Streetcar Named Desire, Romeo and Juliet, Miss Julie, Electra, Death of a Salesman, The Balcony, The Cherry Orchard, Mother Courage, The Merry Wives of Windsor, and Old Times. The essays are supported by a Step-by-Step Approach to Play Analysis, a Glossary of Dramatic Terms, Study Guides, Topics for Writing and Discussion, Bibliographical Resources, and a comprehensive Index. Written for university and advanced high school students, these critical essays provide practical models to aid and promote writing and analytical skills. The author is a close reader committed to a detailed yet objective examination of the structure, style, imagery, and language of a play. He is concerned with dramatic analysis that can be of benefit to directors, designers, and even actors. Analysis of character, action, dialogue, and setting can thus be translated into concepts for theatrical production. The three key benefits of ANALYZING DRAMA are: 1. Most so-called play analysis texts are books about the methods and techniques of play analysis but contain few (if any) actual play analyses. The book describes the methods and techniques of play analysis while at the same time providing numerous examples of such analysis. 2. The Topics for Writing and Discussion and Study Guides provide a wide range of set tasks for students. 3. Readings are not biased by any particular social or political doctrine. Aimed at students, teachers, educated readers, and drama aficionados with an interest in world drama in particular and drama studies in general, as well as at theatregoers with an interest in the practice of play analysis and criticism.

Most students encounter drama as they do poetry and fiction – as literature to be read – but never experience the performative nature of theater. How to Teach a Play provides new strategies for teaching dramatic literature and offers practical, play-specific exercises that demonstrate how performance illuminates close reading of the text. This practical guide provides a new generation of teachers and theatre professionals the tools to develop their students' performative imagination. Featuring more than 80 exercises, How to Teach a Play provides teaching strategies for the most commonly taught plays, ranging from classical through contemporary drama. Developed by contributors from a range of disciplines, these exercises reveal the variety of practitioners that make up the theatrical arts; they are written by playwrights, theater directors, and artistic directors, as well as by dramaturgs and drama scholars. In bringing together so many different perspectives, this book highlights the distinctive qualities that makes theater such a dynamic genre. This collection offers an array of proven approaches for anyone teaching drama: literature and theater professors; high school teachers; dramaturgs and directors. Written in an accessible and jargon-free style, both instructors and directors can immediately apply the activity to the classroom or rehearsal. Whether you specialize in drama or only teach a play every now and again, these exercises will inspire you to modify, transform, and reinvent your own role in the dramatic arts. Online resources to accompany this book are available at:https://www.bloomsbury.com/how-to-teach-a-play-9781350017528/.

The future of theatre history studies requires consideration of theatre as a global phenomenon. The Challenge of World Theatre History offers the first full-scale argument for abandoning an obsolete and parochial Eurocentric approach to theatre history in favor of a more global perspective. This book exposes the fallacies that reinforce the conventional approach and defends the global perspective against possible objections. It moves beyond the conventional nation-based geography of theatre in favor of a regional geography and develops a new way to demarcate the periods of theatre history. Finally, the book outlines a history that recognizes the often-connected developments in theatre across Eurasia and around the world. It makes the case that world theatre history is necessary not only for itself, but for the powerful comparative and contextual insights it offers to all theatre scholars and students, whatever their special areas of interest.