Plays

35 scenes from Shakespeare are presented in newly-edited texts, with notes which clarify meanings, topical references, puns, ambiguities, etc. A brief description of characters and situation prefaces each scene, and is followed by a commentary which discusses its major acting challenges and opportunities. Each scene has been chosen for its independent life requiring only the simplest of stage properties and the barest of spaces.

Garry O'Connor's biography creates a vivd impression of Shakespeare's family life, his marriage and sexuality, the intimate details of his background, and his relationships with the theatre, his audiences and the towering political figures of his time such as Queen Elizabeth and the Earl of Essex. It captures the darkness and confusion of his religious feelings, and his painful search for identity as well as his continuous commitments to change and development. O'Connor imaginatively and persuasively reconstructs the playwright's life and career.

John Russell Brown demonstrates just how much is in Shakespeare's texts; how the language is awakened, colored, emphasized, sensualized and extended in performance. Shakespeare's intended readers were his collaborators, not his commentators. Brown invites all Shakespeare lovers to seek their insights in Shakespeare's natural habitat: the stage.

This volume contains the best of Shaw's musical writing, including sections on Glck, Handel, Mozart, Beethoven, Rossini, Verdi, Berlioz, pieces on opera, musical analysis, oratorios, Gilbert and Sullivan, plus a long autobiographical preface, one of Shaw's most self-revealing works. The result is a book of unparalleled brilliance and grace by a writer who, according to W.H. Auden, was probably the greatest music critic who ever lived. For all music collections. - Library Journal

With the single exception of Homer, there is no eminent writer, not even Sir Walter Scott, whom I can despise so entirely as I despise Shakespeare when I measure my mind against his. - From SHAW ON SHAKESPEARE Celebrated playwright, critic and essayist George Bernard Shaw was more like the Elizabethan master that he would ever admit. Both men were intristic dramatists who shared a rich and abiding respect for the stage. Shakespeare was the produce of a tempestuous and enlightening era under the reign of his patron, Queen Elizabeth I; while G.B.S. reflected the racy and risque spirt of the late 19th century as the champion of modern drama by playwrights like Ibsen, and, later, himself. Culled from Shaw's reviews, prefaces, letters to actors and critics, and other writings, SHAW ON SHAKESPEARE offers a fascinating and unforgettable portrait of the 16th century playwright by his most outspoken critic. This is a witty and provocative classic that combines Shaw's prodigious critical acumen with a superlative prose style second to none (except, perhaps, Shakespeare!).

He's a marvelous storyteller: gossipy, candid without being cruel, and very funny. This vivid, entertaining book is also one of the most penetrating works to be written about the theater. - Publishers Weekly

Small Change, shot in the French Provinces, is a story about children. Truffaut has captured the essence of each age group - the verbally precocious three-year-old who pushes the family cat out the window only to follow it nine stories to the ground, the teenage boy yet to experience his first kiss, but hopelessly infatuated with his best friend's mother, the uncooperative eight-year-old daughter of the local policeman who, when left alone as punishment, uses her father's bullhorn to complain to the neighbors she is starving, the brothers who, having insufficient pocket money to buy a stolen compass, cut a younger classmate's hair and borrow his barber money. Small Change contains precise and moving descriptions of the various stages of a secure childhood, of the fun and freedom one experiences as a child, but throughout the film, Truffaut makes a stunning comparison with another child who lives in the same town, who attends the same school. He compares the life of Julian, who is hated and abused by his mother, whose mere existence is despised because he is a child. In Small Change, Truffaut makes an eloquent and traumatic appeal for the rights of children.

Thomas Quinn Curtiss has reunited George Jean Nathan with his cohort, H.L. Mencken together with the rest of their set: Theodore Dreiser, Sherwood Anderson, Edmund Wilson, Sean O'Casey, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Alfred Knopf, Jack London and Somerset Maugham. The magnificent abandon of their enterprise and the hard drinking Bohemian wisdom of their writing propelled them and fueled generations of readers with their wit and philosophy. This is a biography of an era of men whose stories could only be written by an eyewitness.

Out of print virtually since its completion in 1914, Emma Goldman's pioneer work Social Significance in Modern Drama bridges modern drama and political philosophy, pointing out the road that remains to be travelled toward a theatre of social empowerment. Activist, feminist, philosopher and anarchist, Emma Goldman was a passionate thinker about all things modern when the 20th century was still raw and new. The emergence of her treatise on the theatre after years of obscurity is certain to arouse a new generation of artists and scholars with its timely and provocative vision.

Your one-stop classical workshop! At last, over 175 of Shakespeare's finest and most performable monologues taken from all thirty-seven plays are here in two easy-to-use volumes (Men and Women). Selections travel the entire spectrum of the great dramatist's vision, from comedies, wit and romances, to tragedies, pathos and histories. Soliloquy! is an excellent and comprehensive collection of Shakespeare's speeches. Not only are the monologues wide-ranging and varied, but they are superbly annotated. Each volume is prefaced by an informative and reassuring introduction, which explains the signals and signposts by which Shakespeare helps the actor on his journey through the text. It includes a very good explanation of blank verse, with excellent examples of irregularities which are specifically related to character and acting intentions. These two books are a must for any actor in search of a 'classical' audition piece.'- Elizabeth Smith, Voice Director, Juilliard