Playing Offstage

Playing Offstage PDF Author: Sidney Homan
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 1498549756
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 217

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Book Description
Fourteen scholars who work on campus or in the theater address this issue of what it means to play offstage. With their individual definition of what “offstage” could mean, the results were, predictably, varied. They employed a variety of critical approaches to the question of what happens when the play moves into the audience or beyond the physical playhouse itself? What are the social, cultural, and political ramifications? Questions of “how” and “why” actors play offstage admit the larger “role” their production has for the world outside the theater, and hence this collection’s sub-title: “The Theater As a Presence or Factor in the Real World.” Among the various topics, the essays include: breaking the “fourth wall” and thereby making the audience part of the performance; the theater of political protest (one contributor staged Waiting for Godot in Zuccotti Park as part of the Occupy Wall Street protests); “landscape” or “town” theater using citizens as actors or trekking theater where the production moves among various locations in the community; the way principles of the theater can inform corporate management; the genre of semi-scripted comedy and quasi-impromptu spectacle (such as reality TV or flash mobs); digitalized performances of Shakespeare; the role of Greek Theater in the midst of the country’s current economic and political crisis; how the area outside the theater became part of the performance inside Shakespeare’s Globe; Timothy Leary’s Psychedelic Celebrations designed to reproduce the offstage experience of LSD; WilliamVollmann’s use of Noh theater to fashion a personal model and process of life-transformation; liminal theater which erases the line between onstage and off. The collection thus complements through actual performance criticism those studies that see the theater as a commentary on issues—social, political, economic; and it reverses the Editor’s own earlier collection TheAudience As Player, which examined interactive theater where the spectator comes onstage.

Playing Offstage

Playing Offstage PDF Author: Sidney Homan
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 1498549756
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 217

Get Book Here

Book Description
Fourteen scholars who work on campus or in the theater address this issue of what it means to play offstage. With their individual definition of what “offstage” could mean, the results were, predictably, varied. They employed a variety of critical approaches to the question of what happens when the play moves into the audience or beyond the physical playhouse itself? What are the social, cultural, and political ramifications? Questions of “how” and “why” actors play offstage admit the larger “role” their production has for the world outside the theater, and hence this collection’s sub-title: “The Theater As a Presence or Factor in the Real World.” Among the various topics, the essays include: breaking the “fourth wall” and thereby making the audience part of the performance; the theater of political protest (one contributor staged Waiting for Godot in Zuccotti Park as part of the Occupy Wall Street protests); “landscape” or “town” theater using citizens as actors or trekking theater where the production moves among various locations in the community; the way principles of the theater can inform corporate management; the genre of semi-scripted comedy and quasi-impromptu spectacle (such as reality TV or flash mobs); digitalized performances of Shakespeare; the role of Greek Theater in the midst of the country’s current economic and political crisis; how the area outside the theater became part of the performance inside Shakespeare’s Globe; Timothy Leary’s Psychedelic Celebrations designed to reproduce the offstage experience of LSD; WilliamVollmann’s use of Noh theater to fashion a personal model and process of life-transformation; liminal theater which erases the line between onstage and off. The collection thus complements through actual performance criticism those studies that see the theater as a commentary on issues—social, political, economic; and it reverses the Editor’s own earlier collection TheAudience As Player, which examined interactive theater where the spectator comes onstage.

Onstage and Offstage Worlds in Shakespeare's Plays

Onstage and Offstage Worlds in Shakespeare's Plays PDF Author: Anthony Brennan
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000350142
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 323

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Book Description
Originally published in 1989, this book focuses on the handling of the relationship between the onstage world and the offstage world, between the world that Shakespeare shows us and the one he tells us about. It is developed in two parts. Initially examined is the way reports are used in Shakespeare to relate the offstage and onstage worlds, building from simple examples within individual scenes in various plays to related sequences of reports which can be evaluated as part of broader strategies effecting the structure of a whole play. In the second part the author examines the ways in which several, or all, of these strategies work in individual plays, and what combined effect the prominent employment of them has in shaping the effect of the plays. In all cases the author is concerned to indicate why Shakespeare chose to handle matters as he does rather than in other ways available in the sources or in the speculative alternative methods which can be imaginatively constructed.

Williams Plays: 1

Williams Plays: 1 PDF Author: Roy Williams
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1408155095
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 198

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Book Description
The first collection of plays by the multi-award winning playwright and winner of the 2001 "Most Promising Playwright" Evening Standard Theatre Award THE NO BOYS CRICKET CLUB (1996): Living alone on a drab London council estate, Abi has long since lost sight of the good things in life, until an old friend takes her back to her glorious past in Jamaica as the greatest all-rounder of the No Boys Cricket Club. STARSTRUCK (1997): is a hilarious and moving snapshot of the hopes and broken dreams of a family in the Caribbean at a time when Hollywood heart-throb Stewart Granger lands in Kingston to shoot his latest movie. It was the winner of the John Whiting Award and the Alfred Fagon award (1997). LIFT OFF (1999): When old time school friends Mal and Tone begin to break their lifelong friendship, bitter prejudices are brought to the fore. Joint-winner of the George Devine Award 2000. "Williams' writing snaps and crackles, his characters burst with life, emotion and contradiction" Guardian "Williams, a young, prolific and successful black British writer...certainly has a gift" Sunday Times "Roy Williams shows himself to be a sassy, sophisticated diviner of the human heart" Evening Standard

Off-Off-Broadway Festival Plays

Off-Off-Broadway Festival Plays PDF Author: Ian August
Publisher: Samuel French, Inc.
ISBN: 9780573642425
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 108

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Book Description
"It starts with a Girl, and then adds a Boy. They meet amidst the colorful aisles of Le Supermarche. They blend well and marry, and move to a little cottage in the country. But the Girl begins to curdle in her milquetoast life, and returns to the market to find comfort and peace. Instead she finds a strange old man, who offers her a recipe for change; a delicious but dangerous solution to her marital woes. A Fairy Tale in Foodspeak, Le Supermarche is the story of cream colored romance and frosty revenge, wrapped in wit and warmth and topped with bits of bacon."--Publisher's website.

Off-Off Broadway Festival Plays

Off-Off Broadway Festival Plays PDF Author: Saviana Stanescu
Publisher: Samuel French, Inc.
ISBN: 0573699305
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 121

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Book Description
Skin Deep: Just because it¿s glitters, doesn¿t mean it¿s pretty! Told in mockumentary style through the eyes of six pageant-obsessed women, SKIN DEEP is a scathing comedy about the world of child beauty pageants. ** The Pigskin: A high school football star and son of a North Carolina preacher has a secret that won¿t make daddy proud¿and he¿s aching to tell. ** White Embers: In White Embers, the East confronts and comforts the West in this play about international adoptions and how can they impact a child¿s life in major and painful ways. ** The Bear: In The Bear (A Tragedy), Diane and Everett Feld must negotiate their marriage after the unexpected result of Everett¿s secret hunting excursions comes to light. ** Dance Lessons: In Dance Lessons, diner employees Sue and Norm get ready for another dreary day of dreary work in a dreary world ¿ until Norm reveals that he¿s secretly been taking dance lessons. ** The Mud is Thicker in Mississippi: In The Mud is Thicker in Mississippi, Dwight gets stuck neck deep in mud and is forced to seek help from the girlfriend he¿s been abusive to for years and her overprotective older brother.

Playing God

Playing God PDF Author: Henry Carl Bial
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
ISBN: 0472121510
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 261

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Book Description
Biblical texts have inspired more than 100 Broadway plays and musicals, ranging from early spectacles like Ben-Hur (1899) to more familiar works such as Godspell and Jesus Christ Superstar. What happens when a culture’s most sacred text enters its most commercial performance venue? Playing God focuses on eleven successful productions, as well as a few notable flops that highlight the difficulties in adapting the Old and New Testaments for the stage. The book is informed by both performance studies and theater history, combining analysis of play scripts with archival research into the actual circumstances of production and reception. Biblical plays, Henry Bial argues, balance religious and commercial considerations through a complex blend of spectacle, authenticity, sincerity, and irony. Though there is no magic formula for a successful adaptation, these four analytical lenses help explain why some biblical plays thrive while others have not.

Tennessee Williams: One Act Plays

Tennessee Williams: One Act Plays PDF Author: Tennessee Williams
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350161632
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 330

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Book Description
The peak of my virtuosity was in the one- act plays. Some of which are like firecrackers on a rope. Tennessee Williams Tennessee Williams's lesser-known one-act plays reveal a tantalising and fascinating perspective to one of the world's most important playwrights. Written between 1934 and 1980, the plays of the very young writer, then of the successful Tennessee Williams, and finally of the troubled man of the 1970s, this volume offers a panoramic yet detailed view of the themes, demons, and wit of this iconic playwright. The volume depicts American life during the Great Depression and after, populated by a hopelessly hopeful chorus girl, a munitions manufacturer ensnared in a love triangle, a rural family that deals "justice" on its children, an overconfident mob dandy, a poor couple who quarrel to vanquish despair, a young "spinster" enthralled by the impulse of rebellion, and, in The Magic Tower, a passionate artist and his wife whose youth and optimism are not enough to protect their 'dream marriage.' This collection gathers some of Williams's most exuberant early work and includes one-acts that he would later expand to powerful full-length dramas: 'The Pretty Trap,' a cheerful take on The Glass Menagerie, and 'Interior: Panic,' a precursor to A Streetcar Named Desire. Plays included are: At Liberty, The Magic Tower, Me, Vashya, Curtains for the Gentleman, In Our Profession, Every Twenty Minutes, Honor the Living, The Cast of the Crushed Petunias, Moony's Kid Don't Cry, The Dark Room, The Pretty Trap, Interior: Panic, Kingdom of Earth, I Never Get Dressed Till After Dark on Sundays and Some Problems for The Moose Lodge. The volume also features a foreword by Terence McNally.

Analytic Philosophy and the World of the Play

Analytic Philosophy and the World of the Play PDF Author: Michael Y. Bennett
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1315294710
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 235

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Book Description
Theatrical characters’ dual existence on stage and in text presents a unique, challenging case for the analytical philosopher. Analytic Philosophy and the World of the Play re-examines the ontological status of theatre and its fictional objects through the "possible worlds" thesis, arguing that theatre is not a mirror of our world, but a re-creation of it. Taking a fresh look at theatre’s key elements, including the hotly contested relationships between character and actor; onstage and offstage "worlds"; and the play-text and performance, Michael Y. Bennett presents a radical new way of understanding the world of the play.

Pageant Play

Pageant Play PDF Author: Matthew Wilkas
Publisher: Dramatists Play Service, Inc.
ISBN: 9780822223535
Category : Beauty contests
Languages : en
Pages : 60

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Book Description
THE STORY: Welcome to the hilarious, terrifying and surreal world of child beauty pageants. Pinky Corningfield will do anything to make sure her little angel wins the ultimate title, Supreme Queen. When Marge, a newcomer to the pageant circuit, sho

The French Play

The French Play PDF Author: Les Essif
Publisher: University of Calgary Press
ISBN: 1552382133
Category : College theater
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
Incorporating a wide array of subjects pertaining to planning, producing, analysing, and theorising theatre, this edition includes valuable strategies for re-creating theatre for students whose first language is not French.