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Revolutionary Theatre is the first full-length study of the dynamic theatre created in Russia in the aftermath of the Bolshevik Revolution. Fired by social and political as well as artistic zeal, a group of directors, playwrights, actors and organizers collected around the charismatic Vsevolod Meyerhold and attempted to achieve in the theatre what Lenin and his comrades had achieved in politics: the complete overthrow of the status quo and the installation of a new, utterly different regime.

Until now the efforts and influence of this idealistic and radical group of theatrical avant-gardes has been largely unacknowledged as the oppressive reign of Stalin condemned many of them to death and their work to oblivion. In this enlightening work Robert Leach reveals in fascinating detail their roots, their achievements and their legacy. ... Read more

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This study's intellectual center of gravity is Reinhardt's experimental early work in Wilhelm and Berlin, culminating in the 1913/14 Deutsches' Theater Shakespeare Cycle, but touching as well on large-scale postwar productions at the Grossess Schauspielhaus. More than a half-century after his death, Max Reinhardt (1873-1943) and the once vibrant theater associated with his name remain only a vague and distant memory. In America he is remembered chiefly for large-scale spectacular productions, for Everyman because of its continued association with the Salzburg Festival, and for the memorable 1935 Midsummer Night's Dream film, one of Hollywood's costliest productions up to that time. Other significant aspects of Reinhardt's distinguished career, such as his fascination and lifelong experimentation with all manner of theatrical styles, emerging stage technologies, acting techniques, and theatrical venues have by now mostly been forgouen. In Europe, where memory runs deeper, Reinhardt's genius and achievements are still periodically celebrated. Generally speaking, however, the work of this trend-setting director has largely been relegated to a footnote of theater history.This is due, in no small measure, to the fact that his once novel conceptions have been assimilated into standard theatrical practice or superseded by more contemporary ideas and techniques. Moreover, not being a theorist in the formal sensc that Appia, Craig and Stanislavsky were, Reinhardt's conceptions were not enshrined in paper pronouncements - we have only select promptbooks, occasional working notes, and a limited correspondence - as much as forged in the laboratory of actual performance, whose once numerous practitioners are now practically all deceased. It is therefore fortuitous, for American audiences especially, that Frederick Tollini has produced this exemplary work on Reinhardt's Shakespeare productions, bounded roughly by the epochal 1905 Midsummer Night's Dream production that won the young actor the directorship of Berlin's Deutsches Theater and the similarly memorable 1935 Warner Brothers' Midsummer Night's Dream film. As actor, playwright, scene designer, impresario all in one, Shakespeare epitomized Reinhardt's broadly humanistic conception of theater (all the world's a stage) and served as a lifelong role model.Indeed, in the period 1905-1930, Reinhardt's Berlin theaters alone produced well over 2,500 performances of 22 Shakespeare plays - A Midsummer Night's Dream. The Merchant of Venice, Twelfth Night, and Hamlet being the most popular and often performed (in that order), down to Coriolanus, with a "mere" nine performances - a frequency more than double that of the nearest contender (George Bernard Shaw, surprisingly). What Tollini has been able to accomplish so admirably is to reconstitute some of the original vitality of these Shakespeare productions by drawing variously on Reinhardt's own promptbook conceptions, scene design descriptions as integral to the production, commentaries and recollections by actors and close associates (e.g., Ernst Stern, Arthur Kahane, and Heinz Herald), and the best contemporaneous critical literature, with particularly reference to Siegfried Jacobsohn, that barometer of the prewar Berlin theater scene. The author allows his discussion to proceed integrally from the inside out, blending the craftsman-like assurance of the practitioner (Tollini is himself an actor) with the considered reflection of the scholar and teacher.By successfully integrating the diverse components and subtleties that make up a Reinhardt staging into a coherent whole - for example, reconciling Reinhardt's promptbook sketch with Karl Walser's design drawing for the opening scene of the 1907 Romeo and Juliet - Tollini's reading takes on considerable conviction and explanatory force. The organizing metaphor for this study, clearly given in the title, refers to A Midsummer Night's Dream, Reinhardt's favorite play and one he staged repeatedly in many guises throughout his lifetime. But in a more fundamental sense, Reinhardt's entire theatrical corpus occupies the borderland between dream and reality. Shakespeare's plays in particular are viewed as seminal texts for understanding both the substance and development of Reinhardt's dramaturgy as well as throwing light on his encompassing humanism. In an introductory section the author indicates how Reinhardt's ongoing dramatic experiments progressively dissolved existing stage limitations in favour of a dynamic three-dimensional realism that conflated word and action, stage and image, actor and audience into a new theater of participation.Nor does Professor Tollini neglect the technological aspects of Reinhardt's theatrical revolution, which perceptively utilized many new potentialities for staging and scene design, even prefigured later cinematic techniques (despite Reinhardt's general aversion to this eanned medium). This study's intellectual center of gravity is Reinhardt's experimental early work in Wilhelmian Berlin, culminating in the 1913/14 Deutsches Theater Shakespeare Cycle, but touching as well on large-scale postwar productions at the Grosses Schauspielhaus. Flirting briefly with Expressionism toward the end of the war, Reinhardt soon eschewed its subjective and stylized vision as too inherently untheatrical. After an unsuccessful attempt to promote mass theater from a bourgeois (rather than proletarian) perspective, he disavowed the political and social uncertainties that accompanied the birth of the Weimar Republic and sought refuge instead in the perennial "baroque" folk traditions of his native Austria.This Austrian return forms the shorter second section of the book, shorter in part because Shakespeare was no longer as central to Reinhardt's theatrical vision in rural Salzburg or nostalgic postwar Vienna as it had been earlier in liberal-progressive Berlin. Despite periodic triumphant returns to the German capital prior to the Nazi takeover, Reinhardt during the 1930s became increasingly peripatetie, guest directing prestigious productions in Italy, England and America (to which he immigrated before the Anschluss) but increasingly without the sure instincts, clear focus, or experimental vision of earlier times. Said differently, he progressively lost his patrons, audience, and purpose. The opposition between dream and reality, beyond providing a better understanding of Reinhardt's Shakespeare productions, serves as a useful starting point for situating Reinhardt in a larger cultural-historical context. To begin with, while his early theatrical experimentation and reputation as a director were made in Wilhelmian Berlin, his most deep-seated formative influences derived from Habsburg Vienna.As more than one observer has noted, Vienua was not merely the Austro-Hungarian capital but a "state of mind" dedicated to cultural aestheticism and largely indifferent to political and social concerns. In a milieu that encouraged the pursuit of pleasure for its own sake, sociability and play-acting had long been cultivated as fine arts. The interconnectedness between artist and audience was best exemplified by the Vienna Burgtheater, a centuries-old institution now in decline, but whose playwrights and actors were still lionized and universally admired. Vienna's art-absorbed public, moreover, could be extremely arrogant and self-satisfied, prompting the well known love-hate relationship for Vienna that was analyzed so perceptively by native writers like Hermann Bahr. Although the term "Viennese Impressionism" is no longer current, it was once widely used to characterize the writers of Young Vienna (notably Bahr, Schnitzler, and Peter Altenberg) and by extension turn-of-the-century Viennese society and culture as a whole. The historian William Johnston recently reassessed the validity and usefulness of this concept, and my discussion is indebted to his formulations.Johnston underscores the affinity between impressionism and positivism, in that both concepts acknowledge the primacy of verifiable sense perception, except that impressionism scrutinizes these data with greater finesse and intensity. Like Monet in painting or Debussy in music, the Viennese Impressionist (more likely a writer) reasseinbles fleeting components of reality into an architectonic whole, a process that excites admiration through the sheer virtuosity of being able to combine minute detail with broad vision, analysis with synthesis. The ability to create a compelling vision out of previously unconsidered or ignored aspects of reality is the defining characteristic of the impressionist. Turn-of-the-century Vienua functioned as a magnet for impressionistic endeavors in scholarship, science, culture, and the arts. Several of Reinhardt's closest associates and supporters - Bahr, Schnitzler, Hofmannsthal, Egon Friedell among them - typified the stylistic and philosophical postures of Viennese Impressionism. (Not surprisingly Reinhardt's harshest critic, Karl Kraus - for whom the "play" got lost in all the "show" - was decidedly not in this camp.)Bahr himself was the quintessential impressionist, always receptive to new impulses, continually revising previous opinions, striving to be in the vanguard of the latest developments. Hofmannsthal, too, was fascinated by the impressionist mentality, which characterized his early life and work, but which he later repudiated. While Impressionism is most often associated with Paris, it also flourished elsewhere - in Munich and Dresden, less so in Berlin, where Naturalism (and later Expressionism) held sway - and seems to have had a particular resonance in fin-de-siecle Vienna. Impressionism certainly attracted Vienna's many young Jewish intellectuals, who could view its eclectic pluralism as reflective and supportive of their own divided allegiances on the road to assimilation. Moreover, the multilingual and multiethnic nature of the Habsburg Empire offered an ideal setting for an impressionist worldview in that, given the many possible points of view on any issue, each having its own validity, impressionism could accept the right of all to somehow coexist.Impressionism implies the dissolution of the ... ... Read more

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Records the year-long production of a Shakespearean play which was performed by a high school class and related to all aspects of the curriculum. ... Read more

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Jacobean Public Theatre re-evaluates this longneglected yet vital part of English theatrical history. Presenting theplays as scripts rather than literary texts, Alexander Leggatt usesthem to examine contemporary acting, production and performancevalues. In addition to its close study of popular dramaturgy andperformance conventions, Jacobean Public Theatre surveys thenature of the popular audience, its culture and contribution to theperformance. Leggatt concludes with a close examination of four majorplays, (including King Lear), which draw creatively on theconventions of popular theatre. ... Read more

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"A theatre which is able to speak to each spectator in a different and penetrating language is not a fantastic idea, nor a utopia. This is the theatre for which many of us, directors and leaders of groups, trained for a long time....." - from the Introduction

On Directing is Eugenio Barba's unprecedented account of his own life and work. This is a major retrospective of Barba's working methods, his practical techniques, and the life experiences which fed directly into his theatre-making.

On Directing is an inspirational resource. It is a dramaturgy of dramaturgies, and a professional autobiography, from one of the most significant and influential directors and theorists working today. It provides unique insights into a philosophy and practice of directing for the beginning student, the experienced practitioner, and everyone in between.

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There are fascinating discussions and illustrations of the productions of Living Theatre, the Wooster Group, Open Theatre and Performance Group, among many others. Aronson also examines why avant-garde theatre declined and virtually disappeared at the end of the twentieth century. ... Read more

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The Irish Renaissance encompassed one of the western world's most powerful dramatic movements. But most lists of productions have only included certain premieres, while ignoring all revivals and the productions of lesser-known theatres. This reference is a comprehensive list of all theatrical productions of the early modern Irish dramatic movement, including all premieres and revivals. The volume includes productions from the 1899 founding of the Irish Literary Theatre through the April 1916 Easter Rising, when British martial law significantly altered the course of Irish drama. Entries are provided for more than 1,000 productions, with each entry offering the play's title, author, producing organization, building, city, and dates of performance. The chronological arrangement of the entries reveals the development of Irish theatre, and an extensive index allows alphabetical access to the contents. ... Read more

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Public and Performance in the Greek Theatre explores Greek drama in performance, emphasizing the practical staging of these plays and how the buildings themselves imposed particular constraints on actors and writers alike. Examining each aspect of production, the author elucidates the organic relationship of Greek dramas to their original setting. ... Read more

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Over a 25 year span, director Nikos Psacharopoulos and a continuing company of actors at the Williamstown Theatre Festival committed themselves to staging Chekhov's plays again and again, in the process forging a phenomenon: an American technique for approaching and realizing the work of one of the worl's greatest playwrights. the Actor's Chekhov reveals how this came to be. At the heart of The Actor's Chekhov are Nikos' teaching tapes and notes on specific plays and scenes by Chekhov, as well as 18 substantial interviews with past and present members of the company.

Includes interviews with: Austin Pendleton, Blythe Danner, Tom Brennan, Olympia Dukakis, Louis Zorich, Lee Grant, Kate Burton, Roberta Maxwell, Christopher Walken, Laila Robins, Joyce Ebert, John Glover, Stephan Collins, Carrie Nye, Peter Hunt, Laurie Kennedy, Maria Tucci, and Frank Langella. ... Read more

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A Must-Read for Chekhov Fans and Actors
This is one of the best books I've ever read.As an amateur actor, filmmaker, and huge fan of Chekhov's short stories, I was blown away.This book is hip, and a real page-turner.I was excited and inspired by it.This is the real deal, it's what creative stuff is all about. ... Read more

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A complete introduction to young people's theatre that provides the basic fundamentals and principles governing theatrical procedures. Written from the unifying perspective of the director, it covers all aspects of the theatre - the creative processes, production phases, management, marketing, sponsorship, and education - in a step-by-step format. Includes many examples by such playwrights as Sir James M. Barrie, Arthur Fauquez, Aurand Harris, Jonathan Levy and Susan Zeder. Interviews with professionals at the end of each chapter (except the first) offer contrasting points of view and advice. ... Read more

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Musicals are undoubtedly one of the most popular forms of entertainment in the theatre today.They are also one of the most complex, since they often rely for their effect upon a combination of music, drama, dance, and spectacle.This book is an easy-to-read, step-by-step guide to the whole process of putting on a musical, placing a firm emphasis on good organization and careful planning.In Staging a Musical, Matthew White describes all the elements involved in putting on a musical production, including: how to choose the right show, budgets and schedules, auditions, rehearsals, and performances.There are also sections on set design, costumes, sound, lighting, and publicity. ... Read more

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Fantastic help in preparing our group for the big night.
I picked up a copy of this book whilst in London, on the recommendation of a friend.I had mentioned that I was involved in the staging of "The Boyfriend", and was a first time musical organiser. Matthew and Stella hit all the key points, and give a heads up for sticky issues.I recommendit highly to all those keen producers out there. ... Read more

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The Director’s Craft is a unique and completely indispensable step-by-step guide to directing for the stage.

Written by one of the most adventurous and respected directors working today, this book will be an essential item in every student and practitioner’s kitbag. It provides detailed assistance with each aspect of the varied challenges facing all theatre directors, and does so with startling clarity. It will inspire everyone, from the beginner just starting out to the experienced practitioner looking to reinvigorate their practice.

Katie Mitchell shares and explains the key practical tools she uses to approach her work with both actors, production teams, and the text itself. She addresses topics such as:

• the ideas that underpin a play’s text
• preparing improvizations
• Twelve Golden Rules for working with actors
• managing the transition from rehearsal room to theatre
• analyzing your work after a run has ended.

Each chapter concludes with a summary of its critical points, making this an ideal reference work for both directors and actors at any stage of their development.

Customer Reviews (2)

Great perspective of teaching directing
This is probably one of the few books that actually breaks down the roles and responsibility of the directing profession. There are some segments I do not agree with, but like many readings, we have to take our own perspective. If you are looking to become a serious director or need to find a structure to teach directing, this book is a good start.

Excellent practical advice for directors
The best thing about this book is that it doesn't look like a text book. Even so, it contains a wealth of practical advice and food-for-thought for students and developing directors, from an experienced and innovative theatre director. ... Read more

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An immensely valuable resource book for drama leaders, House of Games is a how-to book for building up drama troupes and keeping them creative. Whether in a school, college, youth organization, hospital, prison or community theater, Chris Johnston's drama games and exercises are sure to energize the community drama setting. Focusing on participation, group cohesiveness and giving voices to members of the community that are often otherwise silenced, this book is an essential tool for the drama facilitator. Drawing on the work of Clive Barker and Keith Johnstone, House of Games is sure to take its place alongside the most established drama method texts. ... Read more