How Plays Work

Author : David Edgar
Publisher : Nick Hern Books
ISBN 13 : 9781854593719
Total Pages : 220 pages
Book Rating : 4.14/5 ( download)

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Download or read book How Plays Work written by David Edgar and published by Nick Hern Books. This book was released on 2009 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Distinguished playwright David Edgar examines the mechanisms and techniques which dramatists throughout the ages have employed to structure their plays and to express their meaning. Written for playwrights and playgoers alike, Edgar’s analysis starts with the building blocks of whole plays – plot, character creation, genre and structure – and moves on to scenes and devices. He shows how plays share a common architecture without which the uniqueness of their authors’ vision would be invisible. What does King Lear have in common with Cinderella? What does Jaws owe to Ibsen? From Aeschylus to Alan Ayckbourn, from Chekhov to Caryl Churchill, are there common principles by which all plays work? How Plays Work is a masterclass for playwrights and playmakers and a fascinating guide to the anatomy of drama. 'lucid, deeply intelligent... combines theoretical acumen with the assured know-how of a working dramatist' Terry Eagleton, TLS 'Fascinating... Read it. You will learn a lot' The Stage

Author : Martin Meisel
Publisher : Oxford University Press on Demand
ISBN 13 : 0199215499
Total Pages : 291 pages
Book Rating : 4.92/5 ( download)

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Download or read book How Plays Work written by Martin Meisel and published by Oxford University Press on Demand. This book was released on 2007-06-28 with total page 291 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Meisel begins with a look at matters often taken for granted in coding and convention, and then - under 'Beginnings' - at what is entailed in establishing and entering the invented world of the play. Each succeeding chapter is a gesture at enlarging the scope. The final chapters explore ways in which both the drive for significant understanding and the appetite for wonder can and do find satisfaction and delight." "Cultivated in tone and jargon-free, How Plays Work is illuminated by dozens of judiciously chosen examples from western drama - from classical Greek dramatists to contemporary playwrights, both canonical and relatively obscure. It will appeal as much to the serious student of the theatre as to the playgoer who likes to read a play before seeing it performed."--BOOK JACKET.

Author : Steve Waters
Publisher : Nick Hern Books
ISBN 13 : 9781848420007
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.05/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Secret Life of Plays written by Steve Waters and published by Nick Hern Books. This book was released on 2010 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A guide to the hidden workings of plays and the trade secrets that govern their writing - by the acclaimed playwright Steve Waters. Drawing on a wide range of drama, both historical and modern, Waters takes the reader through the key elements of dramatic writing - scenes, acts, space, time, characters, language and images - to show how a play is more than the sum of its parts, with as much inner vitality as a living organism. Almost uniquely amongst accounts of playwriting, Waters' book looks at the ways in which good plays move their audiences, generating powerful emotional responses that often defy conventional analysis. The Secret Life of Plays is for playwrights at any stage of their career, and will inspire and inform drama students as well as working actors and directors. Most of all it is for anyone who has ever laughed or cried in the theatre - and wants to know why. 'Theatre is a live medium, about bodies, sweat and feeling, even if it is informed by ideas and reason. How a thing composed of words manages to carry within it the currents of energy that generate that impression of life is what I want to explore...' Steve Waters 'Steve Waters' book is like his plays: clear, elegant and stimulating throughout' David Edgar

Author : John Fiske
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1317498550
Total Pages : 378 pages
Book Rating : 4.51/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Power Plays Power Works written by John Fiske and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-02-05 with total page 378 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Now, more than 20 years since its initial release, John Fiske’s classic text Power Plays Power Works remains both timely and insightful as a theoretically driven examination of the terrain where the politics of culture and the culture of politics collide. Drawing on a diverse set of cultural sites - from alternative talk radio forums, museums, celebrity fandom, to social problems such as homelessness - Fiske traverses the topography of the American cultural landscape to highlight the ways that ordinary people creatively construct their social identities and relationships through the use of the resources available to them, while constrained by social conditions not of their own choosing. This important analysis provides a set of critical methodological and analytical tools to grapple with the complexities and struggles of contemporary social life. A new introductory essay by former Fiske student Black Hawk Hancock entitled ‘Learning How to Fiske: Theorizing Power, Knowledge, and Bodies in the 21st Century’ elucidates Fiske’s methods for today’s students, providing them with the ultimate guide to thinking and analyzing like John Fiske; the art of ‘Learning How to Fiske’.

Author : Lauren Gunderson
Publisher : Dramatists Play Service, Inc.
ISBN 13 : 0822237725
Total Pages : 95 pages
Book Rating : 4.23/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Book of Will written by Lauren Gunderson and published by Dramatists Play Service, Inc.. This book was released on 2018-06-18 with total page 95 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Without William Shakespeare, we wouldn’t have literary masterpieces like Romeo and Juliet. But without Henry Condell and John Heminges, we would have lost half of Shakespeare’s plays forever! After the death of their friend and mentor, the two actors are determined to compile the First Folio and preserve the words that shaped their lives. They’ll just have to borrow, beg, and band together to get it done. Amidst the noise and color of Elizabethan London, THE BOOK OF WILL finds an unforgettable true story of love, loss, and laughter, and sheds new light on a man you may think you know.

Author : Stephen Unwin
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN 13 : 140815031X
Total Pages : 328 pages
Book Rating : 4.13/5 ( download)

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Download or read book A Guide To The Plays Of Bertolt Brecht written by Stephen Unwin and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2015-01-30 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Stephen Unwin's A Guide to the Plays of Bertolt Brecht is an indispensable, comprehensive and highly readable companion to the dramatic work of this challenging and rewarding writer. Besides providing detailed accounts of nineteen key plays, it explores their context and Brecht's dramatic theory to equip readers with a rich understanding of how Brecht's work was shaped by his times and by his evolving thinking about the function of theatre. Bertolt Brecht's work as a director, his critical and theoretical writing, and above all the remarkable plays that emerged from one of the most turbulent periods in history have had a profound and lasting influence on theatre. Central to theatre studies courses and whose plays are frequently revived on stage, Brecht is nevertheless perceived as a difficult writer. This companion is divided into two sections: the first seven chapters outline the tumultuous historical, cultural and theatrical context of Brecht's work. They explore his theatrical theory and provide an account of his approach to staging his plays which informs an understanding of how they work in practice. The second section provides an analysis of nineteen plays in six chronological groupings, each prefaced by a brief sketch of Brecht's life and theatrical development in that period. For each play, Stephen Unwin offers a synopsis, a critical commentary and an account of the work in performance. The book concludes with an examination of Brecht's legacy and a chronicle of his life and times. Written by experienced theatre director Stephen Unwin, this is the perfect companion to Brecht's plays and life for student and theatre practitioner alike.

Author : Judith E. Barlow
Publisher : Hal Leonard Corporation
ISBN 13 : 9781557830081
Total Pages : 308 pages
Book Rating : 4.88/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Plays by American Women, 1900-1930 written by Judith E. Barlow and published by Hal Leonard Corporation. This book was released on 2001 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Traces the contributions of women to the American theater and offers the texts of five plays that deal with a sick child, a murdered husband, and family life

Author :
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9780030644290
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.91/5 ( download)

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Download or read book A Book of Plays written by and published by . This book was released on 2000 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Presents a student guide to ten plays including "The Happy Journey to Trenton and Camden", "Our Town," "Here We Are", "The Bear", "Sorry, Wrong Number", "Trifles", "Riders to the Sea", "Thunder on Sycamore Street", "Twelve Angry Men," and "The Glass Menagerie" and includes worksheets covering topics of plot structure, theme, setting, and conflict, as well as journals and discussion logs.

Author : A.L. Sadler
Publisher : Tuttle Classics
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 324 pages
Book Rating : 4.64/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Japanese Plays written by A.L. Sadler and published by Tuttle Classics. This book was released on 2010-03-10 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Classic Noh, Kyogen and Kabuki Works Nothing reflects the beauty of life as much as Japanese theater. It is here that reality is held suspended and emptiness can fill the mind with words, music, dance, and mysticism. A.L. Sadler translates the mysteries of Noh, Kyogen, and Kabuki in his groundbreaking book, Japanese Plays. A seminal classic in its time, it provides a cross-section of Japanese theater that gives the reader a sampler of its beauty and power. The power of Noh is in its ability to create an iconic world that represents the attributes that the Japanese hold in highest esteem: family, patriotism, and honor. Kyogen plays provide comic relief often times performed between the serious and stoic Noh plays. Similarly, Sadler's translated Kyogen pieces are layered between the Noh and the Kabuki plays. The Kabuki plays were the theater of the common people of Japan. The course of time has given them the patina of folk art making them precious cultural relics of Japan. Sadler selected these pieces for translation because of their lighter subject matter and relatively upbeat endings—ideal for a western readership. More linear in their telling and pedestrian in the lessons learned these plays show the difficulties of being in love when a society is bent on conformity and paternal rule. The end result found in Japanese Plays is a wonderful selection of classic Japanese dramatic literature sure to enlighten and delight.

Author : David Edgar
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 220 pages
Book Rating : 4.82/5 ( download)

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Download or read book How Plays Work written by David Edgar and published by . This book was released on 1998 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: