The Birth of Theater from the Spirit of Philosophy

The Birth of Theater from the Spirit of Philosophy PDF Author: David Kornhaber
Publisher: Northwestern University Press
ISBN: 0810132621
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 385

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Book Description
Nietzsche's love affair with the theater was among the most profound and prolonged intellectual engagements of his life, but his transformational role in the history of the modern stage has yet to be explored. In this pathbreaking account, David Kornhaber vividly shows how Nietzsche reimagined the theatrical event as a site of philosophical invention that is at once ancestor, antagonist, and handmaiden to the discipline of philosophy itself. August Strindberg, George Bernard Shaw, and Eugene O'Neill— seminal figures in the modern drama's evolution and avowed Nietzscheans all—came away from their encounters with Nietzsche's writings with an impassioned belief in the philosophical potential of the live theatrical event, coupled with a reestimation of the dramatist's power to shape that event in collaboration with the actor. In these playwrights' reactions to and adaptations of Nietzsche's radical rethinking of the stage lay the beginnings of a new direction in modern theater and dramatic literature.

The Birth of Theater from the Spirit of Philosophy

The Birth of Theater from the Spirit of Philosophy PDF Author: David Kornhaber
Publisher: Northwestern University Press
ISBN: 0810132621
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 385

Get Book Here

Book Description
Nietzsche's love affair with the theater was among the most profound and prolonged intellectual engagements of his life, but his transformational role in the history of the modern stage has yet to be explored. In this pathbreaking account, David Kornhaber vividly shows how Nietzsche reimagined the theatrical event as a site of philosophical invention that is at once ancestor, antagonist, and handmaiden to the discipline of philosophy itself. August Strindberg, George Bernard Shaw, and Eugene O'Neill— seminal figures in the modern drama's evolution and avowed Nietzscheans all—came away from their encounters with Nietzsche's writings with an impassioned belief in the philosophical potential of the live theatrical event, coupled with a reestimation of the dramatist's power to shape that event in collaboration with the actor. In these playwrights' reactions to and adaptations of Nietzsche's radical rethinking of the stage lay the beginnings of a new direction in modern theater and dramatic literature.

Henrik Ibsen and the Birth of Modernism

Henrik Ibsen and the Birth of Modernism PDF Author: Toril Moi
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191502642
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 416

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Book Description
Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906) is the founder of modern theater, and his plays are performed all over the world. Yet in spite of his unquestioned status as a classic of the stage, Ibsen is often dismissed as a fuddy-duddy old realist, whose plays are of interest only because they remain the gateway to modern theater. In Henrik Ibsen and the Birth of Modernism , Toril Moi makes a powerful case not just for Ibsen's modernity, but for his modernism. Situating Ibsen in his cultural context, she shows how unexpected his rise to world fame was, and the extent of his influence on writers such Shaw, Wilde, and Joyce who were seeking to escape the shackles of Victorianism. Henrik Ibsen and the Birth of Modernism also rewrites nineteenth-century literary history; positioning Ibsen between visual art and philosophy, the book offers a critique of traditional theories of the opposition between realism and modernism. Modernism, Moi argues, arose from the ruins of idealism, the dominant aesthetic paradigm of the nineteenth century. She also shows why Ibsen still matters to us today, by focusing on two major themes-his explorations of women, men, and marriage and his clear-eyed chronicling of the tension between skepticism and the everyday. This radical new account places Ibsen in his rightful place alongside Baudelaire, Flaubert, and Manet as a founder of European modernism.

The Unfinished Art of Theater

The Unfinished Art of Theater PDF Author: Sarah J. Townsend
Publisher: Northwestern University Press
ISBN: 0810137429
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 428

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Book Description
A certain idea of the avant-garde posits the possibility of a total rupture with the past. The Unfinished Art of Theater pulls back on this futuristic impulse by showing how theater became a key site for artists on the semiperiphery of capitalism to reconfigure the role of the aesthetic between 1917 and 1934. The book argues that this “unfinished art”—precisely because of its historic weakness as a representative institution in Mexico and Brazil, where the bourgeois stage had not (yet) coalesced—was at the forefront of struggles to redefine the relationship between art and social change. Drawing on extensive archival research, Sarah J. Townsend reveals the importance of projects and texts that belie the rhetoric of rupture and immediacy associated with the avant-garde: ethnographic operas with ties to the recording industry, populist puppet plays, children’s radio programs about the wonders of technology, a philosophical drama about the birth of a new race, and an antifascist spectacle written for (but never performed at) a theater shut down by the police. Ultimately, the book makes the case that the very category of avant-garde art is bound up in the experience of dependency, delay, and the uneven development of capitalism.

The Theater Will Rock

The Theater Will Rock PDF Author: Elizabeth L. Wollman
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
ISBN: 0472034022
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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Book Description
"A much-needed study of the impact of rock music on the musical theater and its resulting challenges, complexities, failures, and successes. Anyone interested in Broadway will learn a great deal from this book." ---William Everett, author of The Musical: A Research Guide to Musical Theatre "As Wollman weaves her historical narrative, she compellingly returns to . . . the conflict between the aesthetics and ideologies of rock music and the disciplined and commercial practices of the musical stage." ---Theatre Research International "This well-written account puts the highs and lows of producing staged rock musicals in New York City into perspective and is well worth reading for the depth of insight it provides." ---Studies in Musical Theatre The tumultuous decade of the 1960s in America gave birth to many new ideas and forms of expression, among them the rock musical. An unlikely offspring of the performing arts, the rock musical appeared when two highly distinctive and American art forms joined onstage in New York City. The Theater Will Rock explores the history of the rock musical, which has since evolved to become one of the most important cultural influences on American musical theater, and a major cultural export. Despite the genre’s influence and fame, there are still some critics who claim that the term “rock musical” is an oxymoron. The relationship between rock and the musical theater has been stormy from the start, and even the comparatively recent success of Rent has done little to convince theater producers that rock musicals are anything but highly risky ventures. Elizabeth L. Wollman explores the reasons behind these problematic connections and looks at the socioeconomic forces that underlie aesthetic decisions. She weighs the influence on the rock musical by mass media, sound, and recording technology, and the economic pressures that have affected New York theater in general over the past three decades. Finally, Wollman offers a meditation on the state of the musical, its relation to rock, and, ultimately, its future. Packed with candid commentary by members of New York's vibrant theater community, The Theater Will Rock traces the rock musical’s evolution over nearly fifty years, in popular productions such as Hair, The Who's Tommy, Jesus Christ Superstar, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Little Shop of Horrors, Rent, and Mamma Mia!—and in notable flops such as The Capeman. Elizabeth L. Wollman is Assistant Professor of Music at Baruch College of the City University of New York.

The O'Neill

The O'Neill PDF Author: Jeffrey Sweet
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300195575
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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Book Description
"At the O'Neill, we were all engaged with full-hearted passion in sometimes the silliest of exercises, and all in service of finding that wiggly, elusive creature, a new play."—Meryl Streep "I would not be who or where I am today without the O'Neill."—Michael Douglas As the old ways of the commercial theater were dying and American playwriting was in crisis, the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center arose as a midwife to new plays and musicals, introducing some of the most exciting talents of our time (including August Wilson, Wendy Wasserstein, and Christopher Durang) and developing works that went on to win Pulitzer Prizes and Tony Awards. Along the way, it collaborated with then-unknown performers (like Meryl Streep, Michael Douglas, Courtney Vance, and Angela Bassett) and inspired Robert Redford in his creation of the Sundance Institute. This is the story of a theatrical laboratory, a place that transformed American theater, film, and television.

Birth and After Birth

Birth and After Birth PDF Author: Tina Howe
Publisher: Samuel French, Inc.
ISBN: 9780573696107
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 100

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Book Description
Comedy / 3m, 2f / Int. Newly revised! Recently produced in 2006 at the Atlantic Theatre Company in New York City, this witty and sophisticated satire by the author of One Shoe Off and other popular comedies, this play takes place during a child's fourth birthday party. The boy's parents have invited another couple, anthropologists renowned for their international studies of childhood behavior. The adults become so involved in debating various theories of child rearing and telling each other s

The Connection

The Connection PDF Author: Jack Gelber
Publisher: Grove Press
ISBN: 9780802132857
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 61

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Book Description


Moment Work

Moment Work PDF Author: Moises Kaufman
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 1101971789
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 338

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Book Description
A detailed guide to the collaborative method developed by the acclaimed creators of The Laramie Project and Gross Indecency--destined to become a classic. A Vintage Original. By Moisés Kaufman and Barbara Pitts McAdams with Leigh Fondakowski, Andy Paris, Greg Pierotti, Kelli Simpkins, Jimmy Maize, and Scott Barrow. For more than two decades, the members of Tectonic Theater Project have been rigorously experimenting with the process of theatrical creation. Here they set forth a detailed manual of their devising method and a thorough chronicle of how they wrote some of their best-known works. This book is for all theater artists—actors, writers, designers, and directors—who wish to create work that embraces the unbridled potential of the stage.

Before the Curtain Goes Up

Before the Curtain Goes Up PDF Author: India Blake Johnson
Publisher: Newman Springs Publishing, Incorporated
ISBN: 9781645310563
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 78

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Book Description
BEFORE THE CURTAIN GOES UP is a striking photographic journey of behind the scenes action of so many small-town theaters across the United States. A must read for any theater lover, or performer.

Theatre: A Very Short Introduction

Theatre: A Very Short Introduction PDF Author: Marvin Carlson
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191648612
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 153

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Book Description
From before history was recorded to the present day, theatre has been a major artistic form around the world. From puppetry to mimes and street theatre, this complex art has utilized all other art forms such as dance, literature, music, painting, sculpture, and architecture. Every aspect of human activity and human culture can be, and has been, incorporated into the creation of theatre. In this Very Short Introduction Marvin Carlson takes us through Ancient Greece and Rome, to Medieval Japan and Europe, to America and beyond, and looks at how the various forms of theatre have been interpreted and enjoyed. Exploring the role that theatre artists play — from the actor and director to the designer and puppet-master, as well as the audience — this is an engaging exploration of what theatre has meant, and still means, to people of all ages at all times. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.