Methuen Drama – serie

This powerful anthology brings together reflective and raw plays by American playwrights surrounding the psychic and political boundaries of the many faces and shadows of terrorism. Allan Havis’s introduction addresses a variety of terrorism cases from the last 25 years, examines several theories of the root causes of modern terrors, and underscores how theatre forms a unique contour to social and philosophical thought on terrorism. With a foreword from Robert Brustein, the anthology features:Break of Noon by Neil LaBute7/11 by Kia CorthronOmnium Gatherum by Theresa Rebeck and Alexandra Gersten-VassilarosColumbinus by PJ Paparelli and Stephen KaramWhy Torture is Wrong, and the People Who Love Them by Christopher Durang

Drawing on Ken Rea’s 35 years’ teaching experience and research, as well as interviews with top actors and directors, The Outstanding Actor identifies seven key qualities that the most successful actors manifest, along with practical exercises that help nurture those qualities and videos to demonstrate them. Featuring contributions and insights from Ewan McGregor, Jude Law, Judi Dench, Al Pacino, Lily James, Rufus Norris and many more, The Outstanding Actor gives you techniques that you can immediately put into practice in rehearsals, classes or private preparation. It also shows you how to increase the chances of having a more successful career.This new edition covers topical issues such as the #MeToo movement, gender balance and race issues, and how these affect working conditions and careers. There are also brand new links to video resources that bring the valuable exercises to life.The book also includes forewords by Damian Lewis and Lily James.

From Oklahoma! and West Side Story, to Spring Awakening and Hamilton, dance remains one of the most important and key factors in musical theatre. Through the integration of song and dance in the 'dream ballets' of choreographers like Agnes De Mille; the triple threat performances of Jerome Robbins’ dancers; the signature style creation by choreographers like Bob Fosse with dancers like Gwen Verdon; and the contemporary, identity-driven work of choreographers like Camille A. Brown, the history of the body in movement is one that begs study and appreciation. Dance in Musical Theatre offers guidelines in how to read this movement by analyzing it in terms of composition and movement vocabulary whilst simultaneously situating it both historically and critically. This collection provides the tools, terms, history, and movement theory for reading, interpreting, and centralizing a discussion of dance in musical theatre, importantly, with added emphasis on women and artists of color. Bringing together musical theatre and dance scholars, choreographers and practitioners, this edited collection highlights musical theatre case studies that employ dance in a dramaturgically essential manner, tracking the emergence of the dancer as a key figure in the genre, and connecting the contributions to past and present choreographers. This collection foregrounds the work of the ensemble, incorporating firsthand and autoethnographic accounts that intersect with historical and cultural contexts. Through a selection of essays, this volume conceptualizes the function of dance in musical: how it functions diegetically as a part of the story or non-diegetically as an amplification of emotion, as well as how the dancing body works to reveal character psychology by expressing an unspoken aspect of the libretto, embodying emotions or ideas through metaphor or abstraction.Dance in Musical Theatre makes dance language accessible for instructors, students, and musical theatre enthusiasts, providing the tools to critically engage with the work of important choreographers and dancers from the beginning of the 20th century to today.

Drawing on thirty years of making theatre with objects, this field-defining book maps the terrain of applied puppetry.Through a range of case studies both personal and practical, Matt Smith offers a reflective and engaging study which provides makers, thinkers and students alike with a toolkit for thinking about and making puppetry in community settings.Through eight chapters, Smith muses on the nature of creativity, explores approaches to puppetry through ecology, and considers how puppets and objects affect the act of making and – in turn – how they affect those who make, use and experience them in performance.Along the way, Applied Puppetry offers practical exercises in theatre-making, demonstrates the political power of puppetry beyond borders, and interrogates the limitations and possibilities of puppetry and object theatre in local communities, volatile contexts and difficult circumstances.

Since its founding by Joseph Papp in the 1950s, The Public Theater has been an American artistic leader defined by its breadth of programming, from Hair and A Chorus Line, to Free Shakespeare in the Park. With the recent critical and financial success of Fun Home and Hamilton, and its emphasis on new play development, The Public’s contemporary history has been equally remarkable, even as world crises and social changes have tested the mettle of its foundation of accessible and “radically inclusive” theatre for all. One Public: New York’s Public Theater in the Era of Oskar Eustis presents the broader organization, its creative methodology, and its enormous growth over the past 20 years. Framed by the tenure and leadership of its current artistic director, the book tells the contemporary story, recorded over many interviews with iconic practitioners and performers ranging from Diane Paulus, Tony Kushner and Lynn Nottage to Kevin Kline, Chelsea Clinton and Lin-Manuel Miranda.Case-study driven, One Public uses oral history accounts and authorial experience to illuminate The Public Theater, Eustis and their cultural influence on the city of New York and the greater United States. The story highlights the successes and challenges of an institution at once espousing a mission of inclusivity and community-based arts creation, while also developing Broadway hits and international fame.

This in-depth and original study examines 100 productions and analyses why George Abbott's name became synonymous with the 'golden age' of Broadway. What did Abbott contribute? How did he work? How did he innovate the industry? How did he survive so long? All of these inquiries, and more, lead to the most fundamental question of all: what exactly was the famous “Abbott touch”?For sixty years, George Abbott was a vital force in the American theatre. As an actor, playwright, director, librettist, play doctor, and producer, he laid his "touch" on approximately 100 New York productions, from The Pajama Game and Damn Yankees through to Once Upon a Mattress and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.Spanning this incredible figure’s work chronologically, each chapter of The Abbott Touch examines a period of creativity in his life, culminating in how he became the famous multi-hyphenate artist he is now celebrated as. Beginning with his early career in 1913 through to his work on the 1994 revival of Damn Yankees, this book analyses his key contributions to his primary works, all of which have relied on his genius. The first study of its kind, The Abbott Touch provides key insights into the working life of one of the 20th Century's most prolific theatre practitioners, as well as a vital history for theatre scholars and fans alike.

This volume responds to a renewed focus on tragedy in theatre and literary studies to explore conceptions of tragedy in the dramatic work of seventeen canonical American playwrights. For students of American literature and theatre studies, the assembled essays offer a clear framework for exploring the work of many of the most studied and performed playwrights of the modern era. Following a contextual introduction that offers a survey of conceptions of tragedy, scholars examine the dramatic work of major playwrights in chronological succession, beginning with Eugene O'Neill and ending with Suzan-Lori Parks. A final chapter provides a study of American drama since 1990 and its ongoing engagement with concepts of tragedy.The chapters explore whether there is a distinctively American vision of tragedy developed in the major works of canonical American dramatists and how this may be seen to evolve over the course of the twentieth century through to the present day. Among the playwrights whose work is examined are: Susan Glaspell, Langston Hughes, Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, Edward Albee, Lorraine Hansberry, Amiri Baraka, August Wilson, Marsha Norman and Tony Kushner. With each chapter being short enough to be assigned for weekly classes in survey courses, the volume will help to facilitate critical engagement with the dramatic work and offer readers the tools to further their independent study of this enduring theme of dramatic literature.