100 LESSONS IN CLASS BALLET
Written for readers who have a passion for Shakespeare, Shakespeare''s Wordcraft takes a comprehensive look at Shakespeare''s stellar use of language devices throughout his plays, devices he used to ink memorable lines like these:ΓÇó I must be cruel only to be kindΓÇó Fair is foul, and foul is fairΓÇó Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more!ΓÇó Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears!In a clear, accessible, non-academic style - using plain terms, modern quotes, and several thousand examples - Shakespeare''s Wordcraft deftly reveals how these lasting lines were not accidental or coincidental, but designed and crafted by a master of the word.
Ranging from rollicking farce to gentle satire to bitter domestic drama, these plays - Torchbearers, The Show-Off, and Craig's Wife - reveal Kelly as a master theatrical craftsman, an unflinching observer of human character, and a playwright to be remembered.
HEAVEN AND HELL TO PLAY WITH
This lavishly-illustrated collection of writings on western movies covers close to a century of American cinematic achievement and includes almost a half-century of essays, commentary, and interviews. The history, mythology, and landscape of the western are skillfully explored.
In the 1930s the gangster film in the United States coincided with a very real and very sensational gangsterism at large in American society. ÊLittle CaesarÊ (1931) ÊThe Public EnemyÊ (1931) and ÊScarfaceÊ (1932) borrowed liberally from the newspapers and books of the era. With the release of just these three motion pictures in barely more than a year''s time Hollywood quintessentially defined the genre. The characters the situations and the icons ä from fast cars and tommy-guns to fancy fedoras and fancier molls ä established the audience expectations associated with the gangster film that remain in force to this day. As with their ÊFilm Noir ReaderÊ series using both reprints of seminal articles and new pieces editors Silver and Ursini have assembled a group of essays that presents an exhaustive overview of this still vital genre. Reprints of work by such well-known film historians as Robin Wood Andrew Sarris Carlos Clarens Paul Schrader and Stuart Kaminsky explore the evolution of the gangster film through the 1970s and ÊThe GodfatherÊ. Parts 2 and 3 comprise two dozen newer articles most of them written expressly for this volume by Ursini and Silver. These case studies and thematic analyses from ÊWhite HeatÊ to the remake of ÊScarfaceÊ to The Sopranos complete the anthology.
This 75th anniversary edition of the Theatre Yearbooks features a comprehensive and discerning look at the past. The highlights include an article by librettist Peter Stone on the evolution of the book of the musical over the last three-quarters of a century, a season-by-season listing of the 750 Best Plays, and rediscovered Al Hirschfeld drawings of some of the most memorable of those productions. It includes listings of all plays introduced on and off Broadway, award listings, vital statistics, editors'' choices of the ten Best Plays and excerpts from each. This edition includes: Three Tall Women ΓÇó Angels in America: Perestroika ΓÇó The Madness of George III ΓÇó Passion ΓÇó and more.
"...that rare thing, a piece of careful scholarship that is also superby entertaining...Starr, who is president of Oberlin College and has been associated with the Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies, is also a professional jazz musician, and his knowledgeable affection for the music shines through the text." - Andrea Lee, New York Times Book Review
A fat lavishly illustrated run through of...50 Hollywood movies from the 1930s up to a few years after World War II...valuable and entertaining today not only as a social record but as sheer entertainment...âZinmanã begins with Mae West''s classic ÊShe Done Him WrongÊ and touches all the cinematic landmarks including ÊCasablanca Citizen KaneÊ and ÊGone with the WindÊ... äPublisher''s Weekly
...the definitive life. I don''t think it will ever be superseded ... It is scholarly yet readable the fullest most objective and factually detailed book on virtually every aspect of Buster''s career and personality: artistic financial and pyschological ... full of the most interesting (and surprising) information. ä Dwight MacDonald The New York Review of BooksÞÞ A candid yet compassionate account of Keaton''s turbulent personal life...reveals the roots of his humanity ... his pessimism ... âhisã superb spirit of comic gloom ... ä Boston Globe
Distinguished Metropolitan Opera basso Jerome Hines provides a wealth of information and advice for all those who have embarked on or plan to embark upon a serious singing career. From basic information on how the head and body combine to produce vocal sound, he goes on to analyze the "four voices" encompassed by the singer''s one voice, always explaining how through proper technique and training the voice can achieve its ultimate in power, grace and beauty. The book also guides the singer through the labyrinth of choosing the right teacher, shows how physical and emotional health and care of the body relate to the vocal apparatus and considers such diverse matters as stage fright, dealing with conductors and managers and that final challenge - facing the critics.
Matt Wolf''s book chronicles ten amazing years for the Donmar and for Mendes combining accounts of numerous productions and extensive interviews with Mendes himself and more than sixty Donmar alumni: Sondheim Nicole Kidman Gwyneth Paltrow Alan Cumming Helen Mirren Stephen Dillane and Jennifer Ehle to name but a few. This celebration of the Donmar''s tenth anniversary is full of candid conversation analyses of its successes as well as its failures and trenchant behind-the-scenes reporting. It is also the Donmar''s farewell to Sam Mendes who is leaving the theatre to pursue other opportunities on the stage and screen. As director of ÊAmerican BeautyÊ for which he won an Academy Award and ÊRoad to PerditionÊ his future is as bright as his past.
While some of the thirty-two speeches included here - those from Hamlet, Henry V and As You Like It, for example - are well known and favorites for audition purposes, most are less familiar and so provide challenging new opportunities for an actor to grow. The author, a producer, director and teacher for more than 40 years, carefully analyzes the meaning of each monologue as a whole and various sentences and phrases within it. He goes on to explain point by point everything the actor needs to know about that moment in the play when the monologue is delivered. In her foreword, Joan Plowright extols, "...he''s done an excellent job of de-mystifying Shakespeare in his book...No actor attempting his first Shakespearean role (or even his second) should be without it."
"Michael Pennington...is sharply intelligent, scrupulously careful, hugely knowledgeable and, above all, wonderfully readable." -The Shakespeare Institute
"The story of Prince''s career is inseparable from the history of the American musical theatre for the past 40 years...In-depth accounts of musicals Fiddler on the Roof, West Side Story, Cabaret, Company, and Sweeney Todd will be of interest to any musical theatre buff." - American Theatre
Half a century after its opening ÊThe Third ManÊ remains an unquestioned masterpiece of film artistry and for many the greatest British movie ever made. Whether it is Harry Lime''s magical first appearance or the celebrated cuckoo clock speech or the climactic chase through the sewers beneath Vienna or the haunting theme music of Anton Karas the film contains some of the most memorable moments in screen history. Drawing on both contemporary documents and accounts of the people involved ÊIn Search of The Third ManÊ explores the many myths that over the years have grown around this extraordinary film and seeks to unravel the facts from the fiction.ÞÞ ...you''ll want to read The Third Man...The story of the film''s creation is as intriguing as the film itself äLeonard Maltin Playboy
ÊDetours and Lost HighwaysÊ begins with the Orson Welles film ÊTouch of EvilÊ (1958) which featured Welles both behind and in front of the camera. That movie is often cited as the end of the line noir''s rococo tombstone...the film after which noir could no longer be made or at least could no longer be made in the same way... It is my belief Hirsch writes that neo-noir does exist and that noir is entitled to full generic status. Over the past forty years since noir''s often-claimed expiration it has flourished under various labels. Among the movies he discusses as evidence: ÊChinatownÊ (1974) ÊBody HeatÊ (1981) John Woo''s Hong Kong blood-ballets (e.g. ÊThe KillerÊ 1989) and the pulpy oeuvre of Quentin Tarantino. ä ÊWashington Post Book WorldÊ
The exhilarating mix of humor, philosophy, fact and whimsy that marks these essays derives from more than 200 lectures Bruce Adolphe has given over most of the past decade, at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and at music festivals around the country. The composer of four operas as well as chamber music, concertos and orchestral works, Adolphe has written for Itzhak Perlman, David Shifrin, Beaux Arts Trio, the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and many other renowned musicians. His essays, however divergent their apparent subjects, all serve a common purpose: to deepen our understanding of how music comes to be and how it may be enjoyed.
Looking back on a century that witnessed the emergence of motion pictures to become, almost immediately, a dominant cultural force in our lives, this penetrating and provocative book argues that "movies (like cathedrals) cannot help but display the subconscious impulses oftheir society." From D.W. Griffith to the Marx Brothers to film noir, "what are conceived and consumed as innocent pop movies ... are in fact manifestations of wild horror, superstitious ignorance, fatalistic dread and bigoted savagery."
The luminous star of ÊMr. Smith Goes to Washington ShaneÊ and other classic films was as the subtitle aptly puts it the actress nobody knew. Jean Arthur (1900-91) kept her personal life private disdained the Hollywood publicity machine and was called difficult because of her perfectionism and remoteness from costars on the movie set. John Oller a lawyer tracked down kinsfolk and friends never before interviewed to capture the elusive personality of a free spirit best embodied in her favorite role Peter Pan. Arthur herself might have appreciated his warm respectful portrait. ...âAnã insightful painstakingly researched analysis of Arthur''s life and career raises the curtain on the complex conflicted person behind the screen persona...Captures the special shine of a unique star who turned out to be a genuine eccentric. ä ÊChicago TribuneÊ
Sam Peckinpah is by his own admission and that of almost everyone else in this richly entertaining book a director who needs adversity to get the juices flowing. As shooting goes on complications multiply and tensions increase. The wild man fortified by booze and shots of vitamin B12 rides the whirlwind he creates firing the incompetents beneath him baiting the ones over him and bullying and testing and goading the rest...âThis book givesã a nuts and bolts account of the...complex interplay of power and art or movie and myth-making as practiced by an idiosyncratic but skillfull manipulator. ä ÊNew York TimesÊ Book Review
The Third and most recent edition of The Vampire Film featuring a new chapter, "The Vampire at the Millennium " was released in October 1996 to coincide with the centennial of Stoker''s novel Dracula. More vampire films have been produced since the First Edition of The Vampire Film appeared in 1974 than in the entire history of motion pictures prior to that year. The first completely revised and updated edition was published in 1993. The Third Edition insures that what began as the first book-length study of the subject in 1974 remains the most comprehensive available.
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