Noël Coward's Long Island Sound

Noël Coward's Long Island Sound PDF Author: Barry Day
Publisher: Samuel French, Inc.
ISBN: 9780573628610
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 120

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Book Description
An English author on his first speaking tour in America is invited to spend a quiet and restful weekend at a new found friend's little place on Long Island Sound. In what might be described as a comedy of bad manners, he finds himself the guest curiosity at a large gathering of carousing theatrical and society people. Behavior he finds to be outrageous and lack of sleep (every time he tries to retire, his bedroom seems to attract a gathering or an amorous drunk) finally drive this mild mannered guest over the edge. Originally written in 1947 after Coward suffered similar experiences on both sides of the Atlantic, the play gathered dust for over fifty years because its characters were too recognizable to have the play produced in their lifetimes! This version, edited for presentation at TACT, trims the original cast of 27 to 22 while preserving the exquisite flavor of Coward's razor sharp comedy.

Noël Coward's Long Island Sound

Noël Coward's Long Island Sound PDF Author: Barry Day
Publisher: Samuel French, Inc.
ISBN: 9780573628610
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 120

Get Book Here

Book Description
An English author on his first speaking tour in America is invited to spend a quiet and restful weekend at a new found friend's little place on Long Island Sound. In what might be described as a comedy of bad manners, he finds himself the guest curiosity at a large gathering of carousing theatrical and society people. Behavior he finds to be outrageous and lack of sleep (every time he tries to retire, his bedroom seems to attract a gathering or an amorous drunk) finally drive this mild mannered guest over the edge. Originally written in 1947 after Coward suffered similar experiences on both sides of the Atlantic, the play gathered dust for over fifty years because its characters were too recognizable to have the play produced in their lifetimes! This version, edited for presentation at TACT, trims the original cast of 27 to 22 while preserving the exquisite flavor of Coward's razor sharp comedy.

Noël Coward

Noël Coward PDF Author: Russell Jackson
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350246077
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 233

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Book Description
This is the first book-length work to draw extensively on unpublished archive material to document the composition and reception of some of Noël Coward's most significant plays. It examines his working practices as a playwright, from manuscript to performance. This study argues that, while he did not embrace any of the more radical theatrical 'isms' of his time, Coward experimented with both form and content. He adapted the familiar 'well-made' formulas, while also emphasizing theatrical self-consciousness and an exploration of radical social and sexual relationships. After an overview of Coward's career and the reception of his plays, the work discusses selected texts from successive phases of Coward's career, including some unproduced or uncompleted work and perennially popular plays such as The Vortex, Hay Fever, Private Lives, Design for Living, Blithe Spirit and Present Laughter. This study also explores how, in the aftermaths of two world wars, as major changes in social and political circumstances suggested new approaches to dramaturgy, Coward's post-1945 work failed to achieve the same success he had enjoyed in earlier periods. The final chapter examines Coward's approach to his craft in response to the new theatrical and cultural environment, and the new freedom in the treatment of homosexuality represented by Suite in Three Keys and his final, uncompleted play, Age Cannot Wither.

The Noël Coward Reader

The Noël Coward Reader PDF Author: Noël Coward
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307474879
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 626

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Book Description
The Noël Coward Reader offers a wonderfully wide-ranging selection—the first of its kind—of the best of the Master’s oeuvre, entertainingly annotated and abundantly illustrated, and including material that has never before been published. Here are scenes from Coward’s famous plays, from Private Lives to Blithe Spirit, and his screenplays, from Brief Encounter to In Which We Serve. Here are four of his best short stories, scenes from his only novel, and a generous selection of his verse, alongside the lyrics of many of his most sublime songs, including “Mad Dogs and Englishmen,” “The Stately Homes of England,” and “Mad About the Boy.” The Noël Coward Reader is a must-have book both for those who adore his work and for those who are just discovering the many-faceted delights of his comic genius.

My Life with Noel Coward

My Life with Noel Coward PDF Author: Graham Payn
Publisher: Hal Leonard Corporation
ISBN: 9781557832474
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 420

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Book Description
Other men made fabulous careers out of the opportunities Noel Coward declined. But Coward's inner compass charted him on his own course to greatness. And when he couldn't find the destination on his maps, he invented Samolo, his own South Sea island complete with its own indigenous rituals and customs. And of course, we revisit Coward's worlds constantly in revivals of his classic plays, Hay Fever, Private Lives, Tonight at 8:30, Design for Living and Blithe Spirit. This is the definitive memoir of the private Noel Coward by the only man with the compassionate insight and first-hand experience to write it. Graham Payn, star of many of Coward's shows, shared the Master's professional and private life for thirty years. When Coward kept the rest of the world at bay, Payn remained at his side as confidant and friend. No one else was as privy to Coward's doubts and dreams.

Noel Coward

Noel Coward PDF Author: Philip Hoare
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1476737495
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 616

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Book Description
The definitive biography of one of the twentieth century’s most celebrated and controversial dramatists. To several generations, actor, playwright, songwriter, and filmmaker Noël Coward (1899-1973) was the very personification of wit, glamour, and elegance. Given unprecedented access to the private papers and correspondence of Coward family members, compatriots, and numerous lovers, Samuel Johnson Prize-winning biographer Philip Hoare has produced an illuminating and sophisticated biography of Coward, whose relentless drive for success and approval fueled the stunning bursts of creativity that launched the once-painfully middle class boy from the suburbs of London into a pantheon of theatrical deities that includes Gilbert and Sullivan, Oscar Wilde, and George Bernard Shaw. As much the embodiment of a lifestyle as an actual inhabitant of it, Coward’s carefully cultivated image defined the aspirations of untold numbers of actors, artists, and writers who succeeded him, and Hoare’s meticulously researched biography peels away the layers of this complex persona to reveal the man underneath it all, whom The Times of London decreed upon his death to be the most versatile of all the great figures of the English theater.

Theatre World Volume 58 - 2001-2002

Theatre World Volume 58 - 2001-2002 PDF Author: John Willis
Publisher: Hal Leonard Corporation
ISBN: 9781557836267
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 340

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Book Description
Now in its 58th year, Theatre World is the complete record of the Broadway and Off-Broadway season, touring companies, and professional regional companies throughout the United States.

The Letters of Noel Coward

The Letters of Noel Coward PDF Author: Noël Coward
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307537420
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 801

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Book Description
Lavishly illustrated and annotated, this first and definitive collection of letters to and from the great English playwright provides a divine portrait of an age, from the Blitz to the Ritz and beyond. "Superb.... The portrait of a complex, charming, driven, serious and, frankly, courageous artist." —The Wall Street Journal The incomparable Noël Coward loved to correspond with friends, enemies, the famous and infamous, the talented and the powerful, including Virginia Woolf, Winston Churchill, Greta Garbo, Laurence Olivier, Katharine Hepburn, Marlene Dietrich, Lawrence of Arabia, Somerset Maugham, and many more. Granted unlimited access to the Coward archive, Barry Day presents many never-published letters and has unearthed new, startling evidence of Coward's wartime work as a spy. Along with 191 rare photographs, these letters bring to life the people and events that shaped the twentieth century—and a remarkable man who made his own indelible mark at the heart of it.

Coward Plays: 8

Coward Plays: 8 PDF Author: Noël Coward
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1408177382
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 284

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Book Description
The eighth volume in the Coward Collection includes I'll Leave It To You and The Young Idea, the first of Coward's plays ever to be produced. These were, as he said, "enthusiastically acclaimed by the critics and ran five weeks and eight weeks respectively. In both of them I appeared with the utmost determination." This Was a Man, a slightly later play, was written in 1926, after the successes which made his name. It was originally banned by the Lord Chamberlain "for facetious adultery".

Coward Plays: 4

Coward Plays: 4 PDF Author: Noël Coward
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1408162172
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 476

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Book Description
Volume Four of Noël Coward's plays contains a selection of Coward's plays from the thirties and forties which includes Blithe Spirit, a comedy that centres around the spirit medium Madame Arcati. The play that mocks sudden death was produced at precisely the moment when bombs were bringing it to Britain "I shall ever be grateful, for the almost psychic gift that enabled me to write Blithe Spirit in five days during one of the darkest years of the war." The play was for years the longest-running comedy in the history of British theatre. Present Laughter follows the life of Garry Essendine, a world-weary, middle-aged projection of the dilettante, debonair persona - self-obsessed and dressing-gowned who struts through the play like an educated peacock. It is a comedy about the 'theatricals' that Noël best knew and loved, and was originally a star vehicle for himself. It is the closest to an autobiographical play that Coward ever wrote. This Happy Breed is a saga of a lower middle-class family; and three shorter pieces fromTonight at 8.30 - is a farce set in the South of France, and serves as an oblique tribute to Frederick Lonsdale; The Astonished Heart is about the decay of a psychiatrist's mind through personal sexual obsession. Red Peppers, which closes the volume, was a cynical tribute to the lost music halls of the First World War.

Coward Revue Sketches

Coward Revue Sketches PDF Author: Noël Coward
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1472503368
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 319

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Book Description
In the 1920s and 1930s Noël Coward mastered and defined the art of the revue sketch - short and often topical or satirical stage pieces, many of which were a lead-in to his famous songs. He wrote these sketches for the top revues of the 1920s and 1930s, including London Calling! (1923) and Cochrane's Revue of 1931. This volume collects Coward's best and most witty pieces, including Rain Before Seven, the only sketch he performed with Gertrude Lawrence, and the hilarious parody, Some Other Private Lives, in which Coward burlesques his own famous play, Private Lives. Also included are short one-act plays never before published. The collection includes an Introduction by Coward scholar Barry Day, setting the work in the context of its time and its dramatic form. A forgotten area of Coward's writing is now back in print.