Reference

Covering the full scope of Western drama, from the ancient Greeks to the 20th century, these two volumes of Classical Monologues for Women contain 136 monologues from sources other than Shakespeare's plays. With the publication of the women's volumes, the series now presents the monologues chronologically rather than dividing them up into younger and older roles. When the men's volumes are reprinted, they will be revised in a similar way. Volume 3 covers the Ancient Greeks (starting in 68 B.C.) through the 1670s. Monologues from the full scope of Western drama are included: Greek, Roman, Italian Renaissance, Elizabethan, Jacobean, Restoration, Spanish, French, German, and 18th- and 19th- century English. Playwrights featured include Sophocles, Christopher Marlowe, Corneille, the Marquis de Sade, Oscar Wilde, Cervantes and Molire. Each monologue features a detailed introduction from editor Leon Katz, providing an informative and critical context for theatre professionals and general readers alike. The excerpts are also fully footnoted for unfamiliar references. Volume Four contains all pertinent bibliographical information for the sources from which the monologues have been drawn. Simply put, these volumes - and their companion volumes, containing monologues for men - are a must for actors, directors, teachers and students of classical theatre. Also available: Classical Monologues: Vol. 1 - Younger Men (00314548) Classical Monologues: Vol. 2 - Older Men (00314549)

Covering the full scope of Western drama, from the ancient Greeks to the 20th century, these two volumes of Classical Monologues for Women together contain 136 monologues from sources other than Shakespeare's plays. The series now presents the monologues chronologically rather than dividing them up into younger and older roles, with this volume covering the period from the 1680s to the 1940s. The men's volumes will be revised in a similar way. Monologues from the full scope of Western drama are included: Greek, Roman, Italian Renaissance, Elizabethan, Jacobean, Restoration, Spanish, French, German, and 18th- and 19th- century English. Playwrights featured include Sophocles, Christopher Marlowe, Corneille, the Marquis de Sade, Oscar Wilde, Cervantes and Molire. Each monologue features a detailed introduction from editor Leon Katz, providing an informative and critical context for theatre professionals and general readers alike. The excerpts are also fully footnoted for unfamiliar references. Volume Four contains all pertinent bibliographical information for the sources from which the monologues have been drawn. Simply put, these volumes - and their companion volumes, containing monologues for men - are a must for actors, directors, teachers and students of classical theatre. Also available: Classical Monologues: Vol. 1 - Younger Men (1557835756) Classical Monologues: Vol. 2 - Older Men (1557835764)

Defying Gravity takes readers into the creative world of Broadway and film composer Stephen Schwartz, from writing Godspell's score at age 23 through the making of the megahit Wicked. For this first authorized biography, de Giere draws from 80 hours of interviews with Schwartz and over 100 interviews with his colleagues, friends, and family. Her sympathetic yet frank narrative reveals never-before-told stories and explores both Schwartz's phenomenal hits and expensive flops. The book also includes a series of Creativity Notes with insights about artistic life, and more than 200 photographs and illustrations. In Defying Gravity, Carol de Giere pulls back the curtain and gives us a fascinating glimpse into the creative process of one of the musical theater's greatest wizards. - Stephen Flaherty, Tony-Award winning composer of Ragtime, Seussical, and Once On This Island This is a fantastic book, scrapbook, story and photo collection. - Broadwayworld.com Defying Gravity, which takes its name from the Act 1 closer in Wicked, is not just a he-did-this-then-he-did-this biography: de Giere reconstructs the collaborative process that brought Schwartz's works to the Great White Way. - The Journal News A wonderful read. And the Wicked section provides a comprehensive account of a thoroughly recondite and even mysterious event: the gestation and birth of a phenomenon. - Gregory Maguire, author of Wicked (the novel), Son of a Witch, and A Lion Among Men Trying to reconstruct the writing process of a musical is nearly impossible. Carol de Giere has captured it. - Winnie Holzman, book writer for Wicked (the musical) This is a loving, in-depth look at the career and process of one of our most important musical theater writers. I am happy to have it on my shelf. - Lynn Ahrens, Tony Award-winning lyricist of Ragtime A must-have for any of the composer's many fans. - Theatermania.com

Ever After is more than a detailed show-by-show history of the last quarter century in American musical theater. It explains how the storied Broadway tradition in many cases went so very wrong. Singer takes the reader behind the scenes for an unparalleled look at A Chorus Line's final bow, the creation of Rent, the real people behind Disney's uber-musicals, and even an afternoon with Andrew Lloyd Webber. Ever After also celebrates the promise of the next generation of young musical theater artists, especially Adam Guettel, Michael John LaChiusa, Ricky Ian Gordon and Jason Robert Brown, addressing not only their work to date, but their future projects. There is no other book currently available that covers this period and subject. Through his work for The New York Times, Singer has interviewed virtually everyone of significance. They are all here, very much speaking for themselves. Ever After is both anecdotal and analytical, featuring personality profiles of important creative figures, from Jule Styne to Stephen Sondheim to Jonathan Larson, while critically evaluating all of the many musicals produced during the past 25 years. Sure to generate debate, this is a book written not only for the musical theater aficionado, but for anyone who has seen a Broadway musical or has just enjoyed the movie version of Chicago and is curious to know more.

In 1971, college student Ted Chapin found himself front row center as a production assistant at the creation of one of the greatest Broadway musicals, Follies. Needing college credit to graduate on time, he kept a journal of everything he saw and heard and thus was able to document in unprecedented detail how a musical is actually created. Now, more than thirty years later, he has fashioned an extraordinary chronicle. Follies was created by Stephen Sondheim, Hal Prince, Michael Bennett, and James Goldman - giants in the evolution of the Broadway musical and geniuses at the top of their game. Everything Was Possible takes the reader on a roller-coaster ride, from the uncertainties of casting to drama-filled rehearsals, from the care and feeding of one-time movie and television stars to the pressures of a Boston tryout to the exhilaration of opening night on Broadway. Foreword by long-time NY critic Frank Rich.

He's famous for being named People magazine's Sexiest Man Alive, his penchant for practical jokes, and his vow never to remarry, as well as his Oscar-winning and Emmy-nominated acting career. But George Clooney's reputation as the mayor of every movie set he's on belies his essential seriousness, as a businessman and in his ascendancy to the Hollywood A-list. In George Clooney: The Last Great Movie Star, Kimberly Potts traces the star's life from the small-town boy to big-screen star. After spending a decade languishing in failed TV series, he slowly and deliberately built a rsum that took him from TV stardom on ER to a winning film career as a serious actor, writer, producer and director. Along the way are his early attempts to break out into film (including his Batman movie flop),his many well-publicized romances, his political and humanitarian efforts, and his shrewdly developed formula for choosing smart blockbuster movie projects that he uses to finance his more personal passion projects, such as Syriana and good night, and good luck., finding success with both.

The Great American Playwrights on the Screen is a complete, up-to-date record of movie and television productions of classic and contemporary works of the great playwrights. Rich in historical value and detail, this reference book not only tracks Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize winners, but also unearths unheralded treasures and forgotten performances by great actors and the great directors they served. To show the ongoing influences and legacies of the great plays, Roberts compares and contrasts the adapted versions, and includes colorful reviews by prominent critics of tv and film (beginning with those of the silent era). The profound expansion of television into American homes in the 1950s brought a flood of adapted plays to the small screen, and resulted in the rebirth of the careers of many significant playwrights. The Great American Playwrights on the Screen provides fans with a video and DVD guide to the adapted works of the playwrights, and shows which versions are available for home viewing and in which media (VHS, Beta, Laser, DVD, Letterbox). Simultaneously, this book is a unique, one-stop source for academics, students of the theatre arts, actors, directors and producers. Organized in an easy-to-use A-Z format, the book features over 200 playwrights including Arthur Miller, Marsha Norman, Eugene O'Neill, Aaron Sorkin, Neil Simon, Wendy Wasserstein, and Tennessee Williams. In addition, The Great American Playwrights on the Screen resurrects the memories of television productions of plays at a critical time, when many of them - including Emmy Award winners and nominees - are deteriorating in vaults.

Here is a complete look at the outstanding career of Harold Prince, the most honored and influential producer/director in the history of postwar American musical theatre. Prince was a producer of The Pajama Game, Damn Yankees, Fiddler on the Roof and West Side Story; producer and director of Cabaret; and was involved in a series of landmark collaborations with composer/lyricist Stephen Sondheim, including Company, Follies, A Little Night Music and Sweeney Todd. He directed Andrew Lloyd Webber's Evita and The Phantom of the Opera. His work has helped significantly to alter the musical, with convention-challenging subject matter, music, staging and design. It's no wonder he's won more Tony Awards than anyone else: 20 and counting. Foster Hirsch has updated the 1989 edition of this book to include Prince's more recent work on Kiss of the Spider Woman, Parade and the award-winning revival of Show Boat. He most notably gives an account of the creation and fortunes of Bounce, the 2003 musical that reunited Prince and Sondheim for the first time in 20 years. Prince gave Hirsch privileged, behind-the-scenes info during Bounce's pre-production process that makes for riveting reading. Prince's career is followed through both the victories and the disappointments. The book is illustrated with numerous rare photos of Prince's work, making it a must for any theatre fan! Hirsch's book is marvelous, containing some of the best analysis of major musicals I've ever come across. - Ken Mandelbaum, Theater Week

The complete story of the actor's career, including his secret gay life. Raymond Burr (1917-1993) was an enigma. A film noir star regularly known for his villainous roles in movies like Rear Window, he delighted millions of viewers each week with the top-rated shows Perry Mason and Ironside, which ran virtually uninterrupted for 20 years. But Burr was leading a secret gay life at a time in Hollywood when such a lifestyle was akin to career suicide. He invented a tragic biography for himself in which he was mythologized as a heartbroken husband and father. There was even an invented affair with a teenage Natalie Wood, 21 years his junior. He fought for truth as Perry Mason and Robert T. Ironside, yet he couldn't admit his own deception. Burr met his partner, struggling actor Robert Benevides, on the set of Perry Mason, and they remained together for over 35 years until Burr's death. Together, they built a business empire, traveled the world, and shared their passion for orchids and fine wine - keeping the true nature of their relationship a secret from all but their closest friends - a secret revealed here for the first time in depth.

The first time in paperback, this book is a personal biography of the beloved star of Casablanca. Ingrid Bergman (1915-1982) was perhaps best known for her roles in Casablanca and Notorious, but she won three Oscars for Gaslight, Anastasia, and Murder on the Orient Express, and was a seven-time nominee. She also won two Emmy Awards and a Tony. In 1949, though married and a mother, she fell in love with director Roberto Rossellini and conceived a child with him. Her fans were shocked and she was denounced on the floor of the U.S. Senate. Chandler interviewed Bergman, Roberto Rossellini, Alfred Hitchcock, Martin Scorsese, Cary Grant, Michelangelo Antonioni, Federico Fellini, and Gregory Peck for the book, which contains synopses of all her films, including the Swedish ones.