(Applause Books). This book traces three tumultuous decades of avant-garde theatre in the U.S. It begins with the Living Theatre, and explores diverse ensembles such as The Open Theatre, The Performance Group, and Bread and Puppet Theatre. It also looks at the women's theatre movement, and examines the work of Robert Wilson, Meredith Monk, Richard Foreman and more. There are sections devoted to ritual concepts, theatre in the streets, radical participation of the spectator, workshops in prisons, spectacles such as the Greenwich Village Halloween Parade, and much more. This giant colloquium involves the people who changed the face of theatre from the '60s onward. Filled with photos, drawings, private notes and fliers, it is part ongoing history, part document, part journal, part complaint and part blessing.

Piscator founded the Workshop after emigrating to New York, having collaborated with Brecht to create "epic theatre" in Germany. The Piscator Notebook documents the author Malina's intensive and idiosyncratic training at Piscator's school.

An annotated collection of more than 300 unusually interesting and detailed passages includes views by observers from ancient Greece to modern times on acting, directing, make-up, costuming, props, much more.

This handy 6" x 9" lined notebook is A great inexpensive gift idea for any occasion.it makes a great birthday, Thanksgiving, Christmas or couple anniversary Gift For Theater Lovers 6X9 inch, 110 pages, lightly lined, matte softcover

Rose Lewenstein's new play Cougar is about what - and who - we consume. It premiered at the Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond, in February 2019.

This book examines why, when, how and where the scenic stage began in England. Little has been written about the development of theatrical scenery and how it was used in England in the seventeenth century, and what is known about the response to this innovation is fragmentary and uncertain. Unlike in Italy and France where scenery had been in use since the sixteenth century, the general public in England did not see plays presented against a painted location until Sir William Davenant presented The Siege of Rhodes at Lincoln's Inn Fields in 1661. Painted landscapes or seascapes, perspective views of cities or palaces, lighting effects, gods or goddesses flying down on to the stage in a chariot, all these had only been seen before on the masque stage at court or in the occasional private play performance. This study argues that Sir William Davenant (1606-1668) was involved almost from the beginning of the process and that his influence continued after his death; that, although painted scenery as such would undoubtedly have appeared on the public stage after 1660, it would not have been in the same way, for Davenant made particular positive contributions which brought about certain changes in both the presentation and reception of plays which would not have happened as they did without his work and influence. This is new work which uses dramaturgical and scenographical analysis of selected plays and masques, against known theatrical history, to discover how the staging of painted settings was organised from c1605 to c1700. This kind of investigation into the links between masque staging and the staging of plays has not been done in quite this way before. The study begins with Davenant's involvement with Inigo Jones and John Webb. It analyses the staging of the court masques and discusses what Davenant took from this and how he used the information. It suggests that the move towards verisimilitude in the drama on the scenic stage was due in part to Davenant's imaginative use of certain of the physical components of masque staging in presentations by the Duke's Company. It argues that he encouraged dramatists to integrate the scenery into their plots, particularly to provide for disclosures and discoveries, in ways not possible before. How, in so doing, he implicitly changed the stage conventions of time and place which audiences had accepted from the platform stage. It also argues that the parallel development of operatic spectacle derived mainly from the use by Killgrew and the King's Company of the techniques for engineering the spectacular effects of the transformation scenes of the masque stage to embellish the heroic drama by Dryden and others. It suggests that the two staging methods combined in the later seventeenth century to give more sophisticated ways of using the scenery and thus involved the scenic stage with the dialogue and the action in all genres, but that such experimentation ended when financial and commercial considerations made it no longer viable. Nevertheless it concludes that, by the eighteenth century, theatre practitioners had learnt to use the stage craft and mechanical techniques of the masque stage to integrate the visual with the aural aspects of a production, and that dramatists, once concerned solely with the aural expression of their theme, had become playwrights who allowed for the visual elements in their texts. Over fifty illustrations exemplify the discussion. This is an important book in the history of theatre, essential background for the staging of the court masque, and for the scenography of the Restoration theatre.

Aphra Behn was England's first professional woman writer, but her status as a major author has only recently become clear. Between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries, Behn was denigrated for her 'unwomanly' subject matter and intellectual immodesty. In the twentieth century she has been increasingly viewed as an important dramatist and poet of the Restoration and a founder of the English novel. This book sets Behn firmly in an historical context of political factions, theatre developments and colonial encounters, and includes chapters on each of the genres in which she wrote: drama, fiction, poetry and translation, and on other aspects of her life, from her publishing struggles to her involvement in American slavery. It is an important resource for those studying seventeenth-century English literature and drama, and to those interested in the development of women's writing.

Etherege & Wycherley is the first book-length study devoted solely to these two leading comic dramatists of the early Restoration period. B.A. Kachur explores the major plays by George Etherege and William Wycherley within the context of the cultural, social and political changes that marked the reign of Charles II, and addresses issues such as marriage, manners, heroism, sovereignty and anxieties over class hierarchies which preoccupied late seventeenth-century England. The book provides studies of the following plays: - She Would If She Could - The Man of Mode - The Country Wife - The Plain Dealer In addition to examining the plays as cultural and historical texts, Kachur offers: - Biographical sketches detailing the dramaturgical styles of the two playwrights - An overview of Charles II's reign, including its effects on the dramatic literature of the era - A survey of Carolean theatre and drama outlining innovations in staging, and major dramatic genres - Performance histories which illuminate the ways in which twentieth-century directors have interpreted the comedies to make them accessible to modern audiences