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American Soldier
by Matt MorilloDrama / Characters: 3m, 2f / In American Soldiers, the patriarch of a politically prominent Long Island family fights to hold the family together when his eldest daughter, an Army veteran, returns from the Middle East for an uneasy homecoming. The girl, emotionally scarred from her military service, is struggling to take her ex-boyfriend and sister away with her to start a new life in Colorado. Her aim is to liberate them of the hometown influences of society, religion and class that led her to enlist. The play reveals the urge of children to break away, the power of family destiny and the emotional ties that bind. What is it about Nassau and Suffolk counties that makes them a breeding ground for "good little American soldiers," as Angela Coletti, the returning veteran, says? Her late mother had been a local Assemblywoman and her brother, Carlo Jr., is now running for a congressional seat. They are liberal politicians and "modern" Catholics, chastened by the wars of our time, who would seem to hold the old beliefs at arms' length. But to Angela, they are no more than cogs in a machine of conformity whose morals make no sense and who perpetuate dangerous myths. The force of her rebellion is set against the determination of her father, a Vietnam Veteran who is equally committed to holding the family together. His methods range from the good old fatherly temper tantrum to the kind of heart-to-heart with his soldier-daughter that only veterans can have. Through their tug of war, we witness the real forces that keep many of our young people fighting what Angela calls, "the same fight, generation after generation." It's the power of family and the hold of religion.
Angry Young Women in Low-Rise Jeans with High-Class Issues
by Matt MorilloComedy /6m, 7f (flexible casting if actors play multiple roles) / Simple Sets This outrageous new comedy is told in five outrageously funny parts and it's all about young women and the various issues they confront today. It's part sit-com, part stand-up comedy and part sketch-comedy. This collection of vignettes parades a series of foxy, witty and anxious women who bear the expectations of the world like an itchy muffler. These girls are coffee-driven, sensitive, wired, misunderstood and fuming with awkward issues. They are frustrated with the way of the world, the perceptions men have of them and their own reactions to it. How, for example, do you resolve contradictions like dressing as a hooker and still being a feminist? So they go head to head with such issues as Electra complexes, bikini waxes, low rider jeans, their oversexed mothers, thongs, brazen teenagers, men's sexual fantasies, side effects of birth control drugs, mean teenagers on the subway, sympathy sex and the artistic integrity of penises and vaginas in independent films. This play has great material for scene and monologue work as well as for performance.
Pipeline
by Dominique Morisseau"Pipeline confirms Dominique Morisseau's reputation as a playwright of piercing eloquence." --Ben Brantley, New York Times With profound compassion and lyricism, Morisseau brings us a powerful play that delves into the urgent issue of the "school-to-prison" pipeline that ensnares people of color. Issues of class, race, parenting, and education in America are brought to the frontlines, as we are left to question the systematic structures that ultimately trap underserved communities.
Africa on the Contemporary London Stage
by Tiziana MorosettiThis collection of essays investigates the way Africa has been portrayed on the London stage from the 1950s to the present. It focuses on whether — and, if so, to what extent — the Africa that emerges from the London scene is subject to stereotype, and/or in which ways the reception of audiences and critics have contributed to an understanding of the continent and its arts. The collection, divided into two parts, brings together well-established academics and emerging scholars, as well as playwrights, directors and performers currently active in London. With a focus on Wole Soyinka, Athol Fugard, Bola Agbaje, Biyi Bandele, and Dipo Agboluaje, amongst others, the volume examines the work of key companies such as Tiata Fahodzi and Talawa, as well as newer companies Two Gents, Iroko Theatre and Spora Stories. Interviews with Rotimi Babatunde, Ade Solanke and Dipo Agboluaje on the contemporary London scene are also included.
The Palgrave Handbook of Theatre and Race
by Tiziana Morosetti Osita OkagbueThe first comprehensive publication on the subject, this book investigates interactions between racial thinking and the stage in the modern and contemporary world, with 25 essays on case studies that will shed light on areas previously neglected by criticism while providing fresh perspectives on already-investigated contexts. Examining performances from Europe, the Americas, the Middle East, Africa, China, Australia, New Zealand, and the South Pacifi c islands, this collection ultimately frames the history of racial narratives on stage in a global context, resetting understandings of race in public discourse.
Antonin Artaud (Routledge Performance Practitioners)
by Blake MorrisRoutledge Performance Practitioners is a series of introductory guides to the key theatre-makers of the last century. Each volume explains the background to and the work of one of the major influences on twentieth- and twenty-first-century performance. Antonin Artaud was an active theatre-maker and theorist whose ideas reshaped contemporary approaches to performance. This is the first book to combine an overview of Artaud’s life with a focus on his work as an actor and director; an analysis of his key theories, including the Theatre of Cruelty and the double; a consideration of his work as a director at the Théâtre Alfred Jarry and his production of Strindberg’s A Dream Play; and a series of practical exercises to develop an approach to theatre based on Artaud’s key ideas. As a first step towards critical understanding and as an initial exploration before going on to further, primary research, Routledge Performance Practitioners are unbeatable value for today’s student.
Moving Words: Re-Writing Dance
by Gay MorrisMoving Words provides a direct line into the most pressing issues in contemporary dance scholarship, as well as insights into ways in which dance contributes to and creates culture. Instead of representing a single viewpoint, the essays in this volume reflect a range of perspectives and represent the debates swirling within dance. The contributors confront basic questions of definition and interpretation within dance studies, while at the same time examining broader issues, such as the body, gender, class, race, nationalism and cross-cultural exchange. Specific essays address such topics as the black male body in dance, gender and subversions in the dances of Mark Morris, race and nationalism in Martha Graham's 'American Document', and the history of oriental dance.
Shakespeare's God: The Role of Religion in the Tragedies
by Ivor MorrisFirst published in 1972. Shakespeare's God investigates whether a religious interpretation of Shakespeare's tragedies is possible. The study places Christianity's commentary on the human condition side by side with what tragedy reveals about it. This pattern is identified using the writings of Christian thinkers from Augustine to the present day. The pattern in the chief phenomena of literary tragedy is also traced
Quotable Shakespeare (Quotable Ser.)
by Max MorrisThis entertaining collection gathers together William Shakespeare's wisest and wittiest quotations. Quotable Shakespeare proves that brevity is the soul of wit and is sure to delight all lovers of the Bard's uniquely perceptive and influential works.
Quotable Shakespeare (Quotable Ser.)
by Max MorrisThis entertaining collection gathers together William Shakespeare's wisest and wittiest quotations. Quotable Shakespeare proves that brevity is the soul of wit and is sure to delight all lovers of the Bard's uniquely perceptive and influential works.
The Smart Words and Wicked Wit of William Shakespeare
by Max Morris“Better a witty fool, than a foolish wit,” said the world’s greatest and most preeminent English writer of all time, William Shakespeare.Have you ever wanted to quote the most quoted writer in the English language? Deliver the most inventive and debasing Shakespearean insult (“Would thou wert clean enough to spit upon!”)? Recite titillating love poetry like a modern-day Romeo to his (or her) Juliet? Or commit a learned wisdom about life’s woes to memory? The Smart Words and Wicked Wit of William Shakespeare is the perfect pocket book to carry around in your arsenal. Laugh, cry, rage, and muse along with beloved (or not so beloved) Shakespeare characters like Hamlet, Lady Macbeth, King Lear, and Cleopatra on the topics of love, art, beauty—as well as life’s most irreverently relevant insights. Full of savvy wisdoms from works such as Twelfth Night, Othello, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, As You Like It, and many others, this inspiring collection compiles the wisest and wittiest Shakespearean quotations that speak of the writer’s enduring legacy—even in contemporary pop culture.
The Wit and Wisdom of Jane Austen
by Max Morris'Wisdom is better than wit, and in the long run will certainly have the laugh on her side.' Letter to Fanny KnightThis entertaining collection gathers together Jane Austen’s wisest and wittiest quotations. The Wit and Wisdom of Jane Austen is a book full of sense and sensibility that’s sure to delight all lovers of this great British writer’s uniquely humorous and perceptive style.
The Wit and Wisdom of William Shakespeare
by Max Morris'There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.' HamletThis entertaining collection gathers together William Shakespeare’s wisest and wittiest quotations. The Wit and Wisdom of William Shakespeare proves that brevity is the soul of wit and is sure to delight all lovers of the Bard’s uniquely perceptive and influential works.
The Negroes Are Congregating
by Natasha Adiyana MorrisFirst produced by PIECE OF MINE Arts for Black Theatre Network, Memphis, in July 2018.
Pop Star
by Peter MorrisOne Act Musical / 5m, 16f / Interior / Westfield High School is the next stop for Pop Star, a nationally televised talent search that will make some lucky high school student the next American Idol. When the show's sleazy host and his put-upon assistant roll in with the cameras, the strain of competition pits friend against friend. Who will be chosen: Densie, the spoiled rich girl? Jessica, the Jewish rapper who is ashamed of her heritage? Chanel, an African-American whose white boyfriend is afraid to let people know they are in love? Before petty jealousies and racial tensions tear the school apart, the students realize that sticking together is more important than winning. Fast-paced and fun. Pop Star is propelled by an infectious pop rock score that includes 11 original songs.
A History of the Theatre Costume Business: Creators of Character
by Triffin I. Morris Gregory DL MorrisA History of the Theatre Costume Business is the first-ever comprehensive book on the subject, as related by award-winning actors and designers, and first hand by the drapers, tailors, and craftspeople who make the clothes that dazzle on stage. Readers will learn why stage clothes are made today, by whom, and how. They will also learn how today’s shops and ateliers arose from the shops and makers who founded the business. This never-before-told story shows that there is as much drama behind the scenes as there is in the performance: famous actors relate their intimate experiences in the fitting room, the glories of gorgeous costumes, and the mortification when things go wrong, while the costume makers explain how famous shows were created with toil, tears, and sweat, and sometimes even a little blood. This is history told by the people who were present at the creation – some of whom are no longer around to tell their own story. Based on original research and first-hand reporting, A History of the Theatre Costume Business is written for theatre professionals: actors, directors, producers, costume makers, and designers. It is also an excellent resource for all theatregoers who have marveled at the gorgeous dresses and fanciful costumes that create the magic on stage, as well as for the next generation of drapers and designers.
A History of the Theatre Costume Business: Creators of Character
by Triffin I. Morris Gregory DL Morris Rachel E. PollockA History of the Theatre Costume Business is the first-ever comprehensive book on the subject, as related by award-winning actors and designers, and first hand by the drapers, tailors, and craftspeople who make the clothes that dazzle on stage.Readers will learn why stage clothes are made today, by whom, and how. They will also learn how today’s shops and ateliers arose from the shops and makers who founded the business. This never-before-told story shows that there is as much drama behind the scenes as there is in the performance: famous actors relate their intimate experiences in the fitting room, the glories of gorgeous costumes, and the mortification when things go wrong, while the costume makers explain how famous shows were created with toil, tears, and sweat, and sometimes even a little blood. This is history told by the people who were present at the creation – some of whom are no longer around to tell their own story. Based on original research and first-hand reporting, A History of the Theatre Costume Business is written for theatre professionals: actors, directors, producers, costume makers, and designers. It is also an excellent resource for all theatregoers who have marveled at the gorgeous dresses and fanciful costumes that create the magic on stage, as well as for the next generation of drapers and designers.
Discipline and Desire: Surveillance Technologies in Performance
by Elise MorrisonDiscipline and Desire examines how surveillance technologies, when placed within the frames of theater and performance, can be used to critique and reimagine the politics of surveillance in everyday life. The book explores how rapidly proliferating surveillance technologies, including drones, CCTV cameras, GPS tracking systems, medical surveillance equipment, and facial recognition software, can be repurposed through performance to become technologies of ethical witnessing, critique, and action. While the subject of surveillance continues to provoke fascination and debate in mainstream media and academia, opportunities to critically reflect upon and, more importantly, to imagine alternative, creative responses to living in a rapidly expanding surveillance society have been harder to find. Author Elise Morrison argues that such opportunities are being created through the growing genre of "surveillance art and performance," defined as works that centrally employ technologies and techniques of surveillance to create theater, installation, and performance art. Introducing readers to a broad range of surveillance art works, including the work of artists and activists such as Surveillance Camera Players, Jill Magid, Steve Mann, Hasan Elahi, Wafaa Bilal, Blast Theory, Electronic Disturbance Theater, George Brant, Janet Cardiff, Mona Hatoum, and Zach Blas, Discipline and Desire provides a practical and analytical framework that can aid the diverse pursuits of new media-arts practitioners, performance scholars, activists, and hobbyists interested in critical and creative uses of surveillance technologies.
Voice and Speech in the Theatre (Stage And Costume Ser.)
by Malcolm Morrison J. Clifford TurnerThis is a classic book on voice and speech, designed for actors at all levels. One of the great voice teachers of his day, J. Clifford Turner here uses simple and direct language to impart the necessary technical 'basics' of speech and voice.
Staging the Blazon in Early Modern English Theater (Studies In Performance And Early Modern Drama)
by Sara Morrison Deborah UmanOffering the first sustained and comprehensive scholarly consideration of the dramatic potential of the blazon, this volume complicates what has become a standard reading of the Petrarchan convention of dismembering the beloved through poetic description. At the same time, it contributes to a growing understanding of the relationship between the material conditions of theater and interpretations of plays by Shakespeare and his contemporaries. The chapters in this collection are organized into five thematic parts emphasizing the conventions of theater that compel us to consider bodies as both literally present and figuratively represented through languge. The first part addresses the dramatic blazon as used within the conventions of courtly love. Examining the classical roots of the Petrarchan blazon, the next part explores the violent eroticism of a poetic technique rooted in Ovidian notions of metamorphosis. With similar attention paid to brutality, the third part analyzes the representation of blazonic dismemberment on stage and screen. Figurative battles become real in the fourth part, which addresses the frequent blazons surfacing in historical and political plays. The final part moves to the role of audience, analyzing the role of the observer in containing the identity of the blazoned woman as well as her attempts to resist becoming an objectified spectacle.
Plato's Cretan City: A Historical Interpretation of the Laws
by Glenn R. MorrowPlato's Cretan City is a thorough investigation into the roots of Plato's Laws and a compelling explication of his ideas on legislation and social institutions. A dialogue among three travelers, the Laws proposes a detailed plan for administering a new colony on the island of Crete. In examining this dialogue, Glenn Morrow describes the contemporary Greek institutions in Athens, Crete, and Sparta on which Plato based his model city, and explores the philosopher's proposed regulations concerning property, the family, government, and the administration of justice, education, and religion. He approaches the Laws as both a living document of reform and a philosophical inquiry into humankind's highest earthly duty.
Irish Theatre in Transition
by Donald E. MorseThe Irish Theatre in Transition explores the ever-changing Irish Theatre from its inception to its vibrant modern-day reality. This book shows some of the myriad forms of transition and how Irish theatre reflects the changing conditions of a changing society and nation.
Wolfbound (The Sherwood Wolves #1)
by Jody Morse Jayme MorseMy life isn’t supposed to be this complicated. At least that’s what I thought… until I met Jax. I was in for the most boring three months of my life. With my best friend and sister gone for the majority of summer, I was stuck by myself in Cedar Falls, our small town in Indiana. But then he showed up on my front doorstep – my mysterious, insanely attractive new neighbor. I was instantly drawn to him. It was like there was a magnetic force between us, unlike anything I’d ever felt before. When a series of strange events happen, it seems like there’s only one thing that links them all together: Jax and his family arriving in town. Little did I know, I wasn’t only imagining it. Jax has a secret, one that affects both of us. He’s a werewolf. I’ve fallen completely head over heels for a werewolf, which is just as dangerous as it is stupid. But I don’t care. I’m willing to do whatever it takes to be with him, even if it means putting my own life on the line. But wait. My life was already on the line, even before they came to town.
Harold Pinter's Shakespeare: Shakespeare's Influence on the Work of Harold Pinter (Routledge Advances in Theatre & Performance Studies)
by Charles MortonThis book charts the impact of Shakespeare’s works on Harold Pinter’s career as a playwright. This exploration traces Shakespeare’s influence through Pinter’s pre-theatre writings (1950-1956), to his collaboration with Sir Peter Hall (starting properly at the RSC in 1962 and continuing until 1983), and a late, unpublished screenplay for an adaptation of The Tragedy of King Lear (2000). Adding to studies of playwrights such as Samuel Beckett and James Joyce as significant influences on Harold Pinter’s work, this study aims to highlight the significant and lasting impact that Shakespeare had both formatively and performatively on the playwright’s career. Through exploring this influence, Morton gains not only a greater understanding of the shaping of Pinter’s artistic outlook and how this affected his writing, but it also sheds light on the various forms of Shakespeare’s continued influence on new writing, and what can be gained from this. This study will be of great interest to students and scholars in theatre and performance studies.
A Nervous Splendor: Vienna 1888-1889
by Frederic MortonFrederic Morton, author of the bestselling Rothschilds, deftly tells the haunting story of the Prince and his city, where, in the span of only ten months, "the Western dream started to go wrong." In Rudolf's Vienna moved other young men with striking intellectual and artistic talents—and all as frustrated as the Prince. Among them were: young Sigmund Freud, Gustav Mahler, Theodor Herzl, Gustav Klimt, and the playwright Arthur Schnitzler, whose La Ronde was the great erotic drama of the fin de siecle. Morton studies these and other gifted young men, interweaving their fates with that of the doomed Prince and the entire city through to the eve of Easter, just after Rudolf's body is lowered into its permanent sarcophagus and a son named Adolf Hitler is born to Frau Klara Hitler.