Drama

Gibson, William The Miracle Worker eBook

Sat, 19 Jul 2008 47:07:37 GMT

Based on the remarkable true story of Helen Keller and her teacher Annie Sullivan, this inspiring and unforgettable play has moved countless readers and become an American classic. Young Helen Keller, blind, deaf, and mute since infancy, is in danger of being sent to an institution because her inability to communicate has left her frustrated and violent. In desperation, her parents seek help from the Perkins Institute, which sends them a ""half-blind Yankee schoolgirl"" named Annie Sullivan to tutor their daughter. Despite the Kellers' resistance and the belief that Helen ""is like a little safe, locked, that no one can open,"" Annie suspects that within Helen lies the potential for more, if only she can reach her. Through persistence, love, and sheer stubbornness, Annie breaks through Helen's walls of silence and darkness and teaches her to communicate, bringing her into the world at last.

Rosivach, Vincent J. WHEN A YOUNG MAN FALLS IN LOVE eBook

Sat, 19 Jul 2008 47:07:37 GMT

When A Young Man Falls in Love is an arresting and important book, which poses important questions about the dramatic portrayal of women in the Roman world.

Beesley, Michael Privatization, Regulation and Deregulation (Adobe Reader) eBook

Sat, 19 Jul 2008 47:07:37 GMT

In this second edition of IPrivatization, Regulation and Deregulation, the author has updated and augmented the original material to take account of developments over the last 5 years. This volume includes ten completely new chapters, replacing papers which have been overtaken by further work or cover the same ground, all with the added advantage of hindsight. With coverage of the critical period from 1981 to the present, the book provides a unique insight into the privatization and regulatory procedure. In addition, the work presents a significant contribution to the basic economic arguments underlying these reforms. As such, it will be a valuable guide to both students and practitioners involved in privatization and regulation.

Truth or Dare: Art & Documentary (Adobe Reader) eBook

Sat, 19 Jul 2008 47:07:37 GMT

Increased experimentation by filmmakers such as Michael Moore and Morgan Spurlock means that the walls between art and documentary are collapsing, generating innovative ideas and attracting an entirely new audience. Truth or Dare is the innovative product of a Whitechapel Gallery conference, bringing together renowned artists, filmmakers, writers and curators. Pearce and McLaughlin's book reveals the debates that flared that day surrounding the binary of art and documentary and the tensions of freedom and responsibility. The ethics of this new wave of documentary are also questioned, since the authenticity of documentary seems to clash with the experimentation and imagination of art. As the distinction between different art forms becomes more and more blurred, Truth or Dare explores the shift from two separate entities of documentary film and contemporary art to the obscuring of boundaries. The discussion extends to new technological developments that allow crossover and opportunities for collaboration. All of these issues are explored in written chapters and edited transcripts of conversation from the conference, illustrated with stills of moving image work and accompanied by a DVD of the artists' experimentation. This is a unique and timely collection of reflection and analysis by documentary makers and artists concerning where they position their art forms in relation to each other, and the shape of filmmaking to come. The cross-disciplinary opinions and mixed media format of Truth or Dare engages the reader, so that they too become part of the ongoing debate.

Rabey, David Ian Lovefuries: The Contracting Sea; The Hanging Judge; Bite or Suck (Adobe Reader) eBook

Sat, 19 Jul 2008 47:07:37 GMT

"Lovefuries offers a double bill of performance pieces that explode national and personal pressures to keep silent, and explore the surprising and shocking resurgences of life that break through grief. In The Contracting Sea, the fiance of a just-shipwrecked sailor is challenged by a feminine elemental force of catastrophe to throw off the shackles of her common humanity. The second play, The Hanging Judge, explores from the inside an occurrence of sexual abuse in a contemporary Welsh context, and how one survivor finds the courage to discover defiance. This second volume of dramatist-director Rabey's plays for his own Lurking Truth/Gwir sy'n Llechu theatre company also includes the short two-hander Bite or Suck, completing a collection of innovative drama that restlessly explores what is possible at the extreme boundaries of human language and physicality. David Ian Rabey is Professor of Drama and Theatre Studies at Aberystwyth University, and Artistic Director of Lurking Truth/Gwir sy'n Llechu theatre company, which he co-founded in 1985."

A Companion to Shakespeare's Works: The Histories (Adobe Reader) eBook

Sat, 19 Jul 2008 47:07:37 GMT

The four-volume Companion to Shakespeare's Works, compiled as a single entity, offers a uniquely comprehensive snapshot of current Shakespeare criticism. This volume looks at Shakespeare’s histories.

Contains original essays on every history play from Henry VI to Henry V.
Includes fourteen additional articles on such topics as censorship in Shakespeare's histories, the relation of Shakespeare's plays to other dramatic histories of the period, Shakespeare's histories on film, the homoerotics of Shakespeare's history plays, and nation formation in Shakespeare's histories.
Brings together new essays from a diverse, international group of scholars.
Complements David Scott Kastan's A Companion to Shakespeare (1999), which focused on Shakespeare as an author in his historical context.
Offers a provocative roadmap to Shakespeare studies.

A Companion to Shakespeare's Works: The Comedies (Adobe Reader) eBook

Sat, 19 Jul 2008 47:07:37 GMT

Contains original essays on every comedy from The Two Gentlemen of Verona to Twelfth Night.
Includes twelve additional articles on such topics as the humoral body in Shakespearean comedy, Shakespeare's comedies on film, Shakespeare's relation to other comic writers of his time, Shakespeare's cross dressing comedies, and the geographies of Shakespearean comedy.
Brings together new essays from a diverse, international group of scholars.
Complements David Scott Kastan's A Companion to Shakespeare (1999), which focused on Shakespeare as an author in his historical context.
Offers a provocative roadmap to Shakespeare studies.

Boltwood,Scott Brian Friel, Ireland, and The North (Adobe Reader) eBook

Sat, 19 Jul 2008 47:07:37 GMT

After nearly five decades as one of Ireland's most celebrated playwrights, Brian Friel has been the subject of ten books and dozens of articles. This study expands Friel criticism into a sizeable body of new material and into a new interpretative direction. Along with considering Friel's most recent plays, the book analyzes his interviews and essays to chart the author's ideological evolution throughout a career of more than forty years. Moreover, a chapter is devoted to his previously ignored articles for The Irish Press (1962-1963), a series that reveals unsuspected insights into Friel's disposition towards the Irish Republic. Refining our understanding of Friel's relationship to Republicanism is central to the argument; rather than assuming that the author embraces nationalist ideology, the book relocates the conceptual concerns of his work away from Dublin and to The North, this bridge between Ireland and the British province of Northern Ireland.

Thain,Marion 'Michael Field' (Adobe Reader) eBook

Sat, 19 Jul 2008 47:07:37 GMT

'Michael Field' (18841914) was the pseudonym of two women, the aunt and niece Katharine Bradley and Edith Cooper, who lived and wrote together as 'lovers'. The large oeuvre contains poems, dramas, and a vast diary. Marion Thain recounts the development of a fascinating and idiosyncratic poetic persona that, she argues, itself became a self-reflexive study in aestheticism. The constructed life and work of 'Michael Field' is used here to deepen and complicate our understanding of many of the most distinctive aesthetic debates of the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries; a process unified by the recurring engagement with theories of time and history that structures this book. This analysis of poetry, aestheticism and the fin de si cle, through the performance of 'Michael Field', has implications that reach far beyond an understanding of one poet's work. Scholars of both Victorian and modernist literature will learn much from this innovative and compelling study.

Bigsby,Christopher Neil LaBute (Adobe Reader) eBook

Sat, 19 Jul 2008 47:07:37 GMT

Neil LaBute is one of the most exciting new talents in theatre and film to have emerged in the 1990s. Influenced and inspired by such writers as David Mamet, Edward Bond and Harold Pinter, he is equally at home writing for the screen as for the stage, and the list of films he has written and directed includes The Wicker Man (2006), Possession (2002) and In the Company of Men (1998). As a playwright, screenwriter, director, and author of short stories, he has staked out a distinctive, and disturbing, territory. In the first full-length study on LaBute, Christopher Bigsby examines his darkly funny work which explores the cruelties, self-concern and manipulative powers of individuals who inhabit a seemingly uncommunal world. Individual chapters are dedicated to particular works, and the book also includes an interview with LaBute, providing a fascinating insight into the life of this influential and often controversial figure.

JOHN WEBSTER eBook

Sat, 19 Jul 2008 47:07:37 GMT

The Critical Heritage gathers together a large body of critical sources on major figures in literature. Each volume presents contemporary responses on a writer's work, enabling student and researcher to read the material themselves.

Dalrymple, A J Riddlers Three (Adobe Reader) eBook

Sat, 19 Jul 2008 47:07:37 GMT

Riddlers Three is a play that has been written with the intent to tease the mind of those who watch or read it. It attempts to explore the mysteries of murder, psychological problems, relationships, and wordplay - all at once. At the opening of the script, Mick, the sort of master of ceremonies, appears, asking the audience to pay attention and see if they can guess what is going on in the play. A rock star appears on a gurney, attended by doctors and nurses. He has overdosed, and they place him in the psychiatric ward. Here he is the unwitting eyewitness to the goings-on of the hospital. He meets Patsy, a hopeful starlet who attempts to bring him back with music. Nurse Streater and Ann Adach are revealed to be having an affair, and when Adach gets promoted above a sinister figure name MacPath, he kills Ann and frames Patsy for it. The kid, as he is known, witnesses the entire scene and mimes it for Patsy when she returns and discovers the evidence in her guitar case. They run away and are followed by MacPath. An odd group assembles at an inn where there is to be a singing competition - MacPath, the kid, Blue (the kid's chosen muse), Patsy, and a woman named Marlena whom the kid had mentioned in his inner monologue at the beginning of the play. It is revealed that MacPath killed Marlena's mother, and that she was out for revenge. The outcome of Riddlers Three depends on whom the audience chooses after their performances; either MacPath will receive an award or he will go down to hell via the Stygean orchestra. Those who enjoy post-modern plays may enjoy this work.

Manns, Robert The Smithson Matter (Adobe Reader) eBook

Sat, 19 Jul 2008 47:07:37 GMT

The Smithson Matter, together with its one-act Introduction, recounts the personal and political maneuvers behind the creation of the great Smithsonian Institute. The Introduction presents James Smithson, n Macie, the illegitimate son of the Duke of Northumberland and the fashionable Elizabeth Macie. Frustrated by the English class society that stigmatizes him and inspired by the equality of the new American States, he resolves to leave his fortune to that country, to be used to create an institute "for the dissemination of knowledge to the common man."

The Smithson Matter itself takes place during the presidency of Andrew Jackson. While former president-now Massachusetts representative-John Quincy Adams struggles to maintain the original intent of the Smithson bequest, other congressmen lobby for a piece here and a slice there to please their own constituencies. Clearly, politics has not changed much in the past 175 years.

Told with wit and wisdom, The Smithson Matter delves into the personalities of James Smithson and John Quincy Adams with affection and historical accuracy.

Manns, Robert The Wasp (Adobe Reader) eBook

Sat, 19 Jul 2008 47:07:37 GMT

In an age of miniaturization, the one-act play should find itself at home.

People do attend concertized etudes, most often for the piano, and that is precisely what a one-act play is-an etude. Sometimes it's a character study, others a piece of action, still others a complete little story, and several strung together selectively can make a program.

de Vigny, Alfred Shylock, The Merchant of Venice (Adobe Reader) eBook

Sat, 19 Jul 2008 47:07:37 GMT

As with many of his French contemporaries, Alfred de Vigny (1797-1863) enjoyed the challenge of reworking William Shakespeare's classic plays for a modern audience. "Shylock" (1830) eliminates many of the comic elements of the master's original, and focuses on the darker themes of racial prejudice and the relationship between Jew and gentile. The result is another stunning resurrection and reinterpretation of a dramatic masterwork.

Translated for the very first time into English!

Since retiring from the legal profession, FRANK J. MORLOCK has translated over a hundred plays from eighteenth- and nineteenth-century French originals, and has also penned a number of original dramas of his own. In 2006 he was honored with an award from the North American Jules Verne Society. He lives and works in Maryland.

Media Between Culture and Commerce: An Introduction eBook

Sat, 19 Jul 2008 47:07:37 GMT

This book addresses the consequences of the main changes the media have undergone over the last 10 years: increasing commercialisation, concentration, convergence and internationalisation. The contributors reflect on the debate and the concern about the role of the media in a rapidly changing society. All contributions have been written originally for this volume and have not been published elsewhere. Contributors include eighteen academics from fifteen European countries, all of them experts in media research. The book is an invaluable resource for researchers and students in communication sciences, as well as for general readers interested in the role played by the media in social developments at large. This is volume 4 in the Changing Media, Changing Europe book series, supported by the European Science Foundation.

Hockley, Luke Frames of Mind: A Post-Jungian Look at Film, Television and Technology (Adobe Reader) eBook

Sat, 19 Jul 2008 47:07:37 GMT

Frames of Mind provides a fresh and stimulating introduction to the world of Post-Jungian film and television studies. To orientate the reader the book starts with an overview of analytical psychology and how it has been used to analyze films. From that starting point it broadens out to include topics such as: why we have genuine emotional responses to films which we know to be unreal; how and why we watch television; the unconscious motifs of advertising; and the psychological role that technology plays in contemporary society. Film and television programmes considered in Frames of Mind include: Chinatown (Polanski) and Star Trek: The Next Generation. A number of television advertisements are also considered. This book will appeal to students, researchers, academics and practitioners interested in either media and, or, analytical psychology.

Browning, Mark David Cronenberg: Author or Film-maker? eBook

Sat, 19 Jul 2008 47:07:37 GMT

For more than thirty years, David Cronenberg has made independent films such as Scanners and A History of Violence which aim to disturb, surprise, and challenge audiences. He has also repeatedly drawn on literary fiction for inspiration, adapting themes from authors like William Burroughs, J. G. Ballard, and Patrick McGrath for the big screen; David Cronenberg: Author or Filmmaker? is the first book to explore how underground and mainstream fiction have influenced-and can help illuminate-his labyrinthine films.

Wooster, Roger Contemporary Theatre in Education (Adobe Reader) eBook

Sat, 19 Jul 2008 47:07:37 GMT

Theatre in Education emerged in the mid-sixties as a unique hybrid of performance and child-centred learning. Contemporary Theatre in Education charts the creation and adaptation of this 'hybrid' through the changing political, economic and educational environment. It also takes a 'snapshot' of the TIE being created today, considering all the projects being performed in Wales during a single month. The projects are analysed and every TIE director interviewed about the work and the policies of their companies. It becomes very clear that that the distinction between TIE and Children's Theatre is being blurred. Is it possible for the hybrid to survive? Or have the economics of schools, the post-National Curriculum educational philosophy and the lack of understanding from a new breed of teachers created an environment that has forced a mutation? Perhaps theatre in education has just evolved, but perhaps just forty years after it began it is facing extinction.

Katz, Leon Metamorphoses (Adobe Reader) eBook

Sat, 19 Jul 2008 47:07:37 GMT

A cycle of thirteen episodes told in Story Theater form, a narrator speaking and life-sized puppets performing simultaneously, Metamorphoses tells the stories from Greek mythology-from the first moments of creation to its version of the flood, and the trials, tribulations, and joys during Zeus' long reign. It brings to life some of the most memorable episodes and characters in that saga: the Titans, the Cyclops, Zeus himself, Echo and Narcissus, Cupid and Psyche, Theseus, Orpheus and Eurydice, and many, many more. This version of the stories by playwright Leon Katz is based on the Roman poet Ovid's epic poem, Metamorphoses, the most popular and witty retelling of the tales in Western literature. Metamorphoses has an impressive track record. It ran for ten years in the Vagabond Puppets Company's production and, during that time, toured throughout the U.S. Its appeal has been strong with both young audiences and adults alike and was seen by thousands of theatergoers. A reading sample, author bio and picture can be found at bosonbooks.com.

McGinn, Colin Shakespeare's Philosophy eBook

Sat, 19 Jul 2008 47:07:37 GMT

Shakespeare's plays are usually studied by literary scholars and historians and the books about him from those perspectives are legion. It is most unusual for a trained philosopher to give us his insight, as Colin McGinn does here, into six of Shakespeare's greatest plays––A Midsummer Night's Dream, Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth, King Lear, and The Tempest.

In his brilliant commentary, McGinn explores Shakespeare's philosophy of life and illustrates how he was influenced, for example, by the essays of Montaigne that were translated into English while Shakespeare was writing. In addition to chapters on the great plays, there are also essays on Shakespeare and gender and his plays from the aspects of psychology, ethics, and tragedy.

As McGinn says about Shakespeare, "There is not a sentimental bone in his body. He has the curiosity of a scientist, the judgement of a philosopher, and the soul of a poet." McGinn relates the ideas in the plays to the later philosophers such as David Hume and the modern commentaries of critics such as Harold Bloom. The book is an exhilarating reading experience, especially at a time when a new audience has opened up for the greatest writer in English.

Blocker, Frank Stage This, TOO! More Ten-Minute Plays (Adobe Reader) eBook

Sat, 19 Jul 2008 47:07:37 GMT

Stage This, TOO! More Ten-Minute Plays is the second biennial ten-minute playwriting collection from E-Merging Writers and New York-based theatre company, Fn Productions. We gathered a wide range of theatre and playwriting professionals to adjudicate more than 100 plays from around the world, then selected those plays we felt should be staged and whose authors should be promoted.

E-Merging Writers was born in the early 1990s as an extension of Mojoski.com, providing entertaining web content, blogging before it was cool, then moving into service and resources for playwrights. By 2000, E-Merging was producing plays and publishing. Fn Productions was formed in early 2007, and its first production was a set of selections from this book at the 78th Street Theatre Lab, New York, New York.

Here, then, is a collection of the best 17 ten-minute plays and solo plays chosen from E-Merging Writers and Fn Productions' 2007 competition. Plays in this volume represent a diverse set of character-driven, mini-gems of theatre by deserving playwrights. So, come on. Stage this! We did.

Matz, Milton NINE PLAYS IN SEARCH OF AN END eBook

Sat, 19 Jul 2008 47:07:37 GMT

Resolve Your Ethical Dilemmas!

Read a Play!

The theme of this collection of plays by award-winning playwright Milton Matz is clear: every life is a play, and we are all playwrights in search of good endings.

A retired clinical psychologist and Reform rabbi, Matz has thousands of case studies of interpersonal dilemmas crammed into his memory. He decided to explore some of them by writing nine fictional plays, three full plays with controversial endings and six short plays with no endings at all.

Each play focuses on a major personal issue: marital infidelity, end of life choices, family religious conflict, reconciliation of enemies, gay relations, supernatural experience, sexual abuse, race relations, and marriage for seniors.

Matz believes we understand others best when we put ourselves in their shoes. Plays, more than other literary forms, allow readers to do so. We can imagine ourselves, in turn, in each of the key roles and can ask ourselves, "What ending do I want, and why do I want it?"

Sharing our answers with open-minded friends makes for even more powerful experience. No longer right or wrong, social dilemmas become clear questions with reasonable choices for answers.

So! Read a play! And luck with your endings.

Armenian Literature: Comprising Poetry, Drama, Folklore, and Classic Traditions (Adobe Reader) eBook

Sat, 19 Jul 2008 47:07:37 GMT

This volume is an essential reading for all who love literature, especially for those who would like to familiar themselves with the essence of the Armenian literature. Readers familiar with the Armenian literature will also benefit from this. The dramatic works such as the The Woe of Araxes epic poetry, or David of Sassoun (Sasountsi David ) heroic tail will bring back the nostalgic feelings associated with revisiting the Armenian classic literature. The especial introduction of Robert Arnot, an expert in Armenian Literature, is a valuable part of this volume that the reader will most probably find it informative and intriguing in terms of adequately depicting the state and the nature of the Armenian literature.

Levine, Elliott The Remembered (Adobe Reader) eBook

Sat, 19 Jul 2008 47:07:37 GMT

The Vietnam War claimed the lives of over 58,000 Americans, and the effects of "America's longest war" continue to be widespread. Based on the letters and remembrances of visitors to the "Virtual" Vietnam Veterans Memorial, The Remembered is a reflective dialogue that lets us see and feel how the Vietnam War changed families across America forever.

Known as "The Wall," the memorial in Washington DC attracts more than four million visitors annually, and many more have visited the Wall online. It's from this Virtual Wall that Elliott Levine weaves together different voices as they discuss war and loss, and how they should process the haunting list of so many names. Writing in the form of a play, Levine accomplishes the emotional highs and lows that cause us to stir and be humbled by great sacrifice and patriotism.

The Remembered provides a unique glimpse into the hearts of our generation, and our sense of grateful empathy and unbridled honor for the men and women who died in America's most contested war.