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Alchemy, Paracelsianism, and Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale (Palgrave Studies in Literature, Science and Medicine)
by Martina ZamparoThis book explores the role of alchemy, Paracelsianism, and Hermetic philosophy in one of Shakespeare’s last plays, The Winter’s Tale. A perusal of the vast literary and iconographic repertory of Renaissance alchemy reveals that this late play is imbued with several topoi, myths, and emblematic symbols coming from coeval alchemical, Paracelsian, and Hermetic sources. It also discusses the alchemical significance of water and time in the play’s circular and regenerative pattern and the healing role of women. All the major symbols of alchemy are present in Shakespeare’s play: the intertwined serpents of the caduceus, the chemical wedding, the filius philosophorum, and the so-called rex chymicus. This book also provides an in-depth survey of late Renaissance alchemy, Paracelsian medicine, and Hermetic culture in the Elizabethan and Jacobean ages. Importantly, it contends that The Winter’s Tale, in symbolically retracing the healing pattern of the rota alchemica and in emphasising the Hermetic principles of unity and concord, glorifies King James’s conciliatory attitude.
Julius Caesar: New Critical Essays (Shakespeare Criticism #Vol. 29)
by Horst ZanderThis book explores traditional approaches to the play, which includes an examination of the play in light of current history, in the context of Renaissance England, and in relation to Shakespeare's other Roman plays as well as structural examination of plot, language, character, and source material. Julius Caesar: Critical Essays also examines the current debates concerning the play in Marxist, psychoanalytic, deconstructive, queer, and gender contexts.
Playing Doctor
by Billy Van ZandtFarce / 5m, 3f / Int. Rob Brewster's parents are very, very proud of their son the doctor. What they don't know is that Rob has used all the money they gave him for medical school to live on as he as has pursued his fledgling writing career. Inevitably, Rob's day of reckoning comes when his parents arrive for a visit. Quickly, he enlists the help of his secretary to be his nurse and his roommate Jimmy to round up his actor friends to pretend to be patients. Complications ensue when Jimmy decides he is such a good actor that he can impersonate all the patients, with the help of a trunk of costumes and bad dialects! The authors have written some zany farces but this one may just be their zaniest. It is great fun to perform, and great fun to see. "Wonderful... wacky comedy... will undoubtedly become standard dinner theatre fare across the country... contains more wit than is usual in sex farce." - Asbury Park Press
The Property Known As Garland
by Billy Van ZandtComedy / 1m, 1f / Interior / Her talent is legendary. Her wit, sublime. Her true story more electrifying than you'd ever imagine. She is Judy Garland. Adrienne Barbeau starred in this fictional backstage account of Judy's final concert appearance. With her wicked wit, Judy dishes the dirt on her co-stars, ex-husbands, Mr. Mayer, and more- taking us down the rocky yellow brick road of her incredible life. An amazing tour-de-force.
Silent Laughter
by Billy Van ZandtComedy \ 8m, 2f \ Various sets with projections \ New York audiences went wild for this gag-filled water sloshing, bed crashing, pie throwing craziness. Performed in black and white with title cards projected over the actors' heads, and a live theatre organ accompanying every doubletake, this comic tour de force stars a dashing hero who overcomes jail, poverty, World War I and a dastardly villain, Lionel Drippinwithit, to win the girl of his dreams. She is the heiress to the Thickwad Screw Factory, a firm that has been "Screwing the American Public since 1861." The biggest pie fight the theatre world has ever seen caps the silent action. More than a tribute to the slapstick antics of Chaplin, Keaton and Arbuckle - this is a reverential recreation of a bygone era. \ "Hilarious! . . . Surprises abound in the inspired physical comedy." - Village Voice
Night At The Nutcracker,A
by Billy Van Zandt Ed Alton Jane MilmoreMusical farce / 7m, 5f (2 dancers) / Unit set / Reminiscent of the screwball farces during the golden age of cinema, this romping musical teams Felix T. Filibuster, the greatest detective in the world, up with Pinchie the silent butler, and his Italian friend and coworker, Pepponi. The trio, along with a classic comedic cast, try to prove that Clyde Ratchette is trying to swindle the wealthy Mrs. Stuffington, who has just invested a bundle in the production of The Nutcracker Suite. The mishaps, jokes, musical numbers and mayhem lead to a farcical climax that incorporates elements of The Nutcracker Suite into its craziness. A guaranteed crowd pleaser.
Bathroom Humor: A Bathroom Farce
by Billy Van Zandt Jane MilmoreVan Zandt and Milmore have done it again! This hilarious new farce from the authors of Love, Sex and the I.R.S. have certainly come up with a novel setting: the play takes place in the bathroom in a home during a party, a handy place for gossip and hanky panky, where we learn of the wild and crazy things going on at the party. The authors have ingeniously contrived this play so that we feel that, if we had gone to this party we, too, might have spent most of our time hiding out in the bathroom! Definitely recommended for dinner theatre, community theatre, and summer stock audiences. “Zany! Action-packed fun! Funny as all get-out!”" - Asbury Park Press "A romp worthy of a night out!” - The Post and Courier “Slick, sophisticated, and thoroughly funny! Throws jokes at the audience one after another in wild, outrageous, zany action-packed fun!” - West Liberty News, Wheeling, West Virginia Bathroom Humor opened at the Mill Dam Dinner-Theater, Tinton Falls, New Jersey, on June 20, 1986. It was produced by Kathy Reed and directed by Billy Van Zandt. 5m / 3f
Confessions Of A Dirty Blonde
by Billy Van Zandt Jane MilmoreComedy / 6m, 2f, plus 1 lion / Interior / Get the boxer shorts, wigs and size ten pumps! The masters of modern farce are back with an outrageously zany comedy. The year is 1962. Living legend Lillian Lamour, a Mae West like sex siren, comes out of seclusion for a one night tribute at Carnegie Hall. While recreating her famous 1933 Time Magazine cover, a lion bites her world famous derriere exposing, among other things, that she is a he. Now Hollywood's best kept secret will be revealed unless Lillian's press agent can put a lid on things. Neither the gangster crooner ex boyfriend nor Lillian's wallflower daughter is aware of the truth, but the hotel doctor knows and can't convince anyone else. This screwball comedy in the tradition of the Marx Brothers is a scream.
Infidelities
by Billy Van Zandt Jane MilmoreComedy / 5m, 4f / Unit Set / "Everything we do in life is based on getting laid!" That's the opening line and the undoing of the lead character in this hilarious romantic comedy by the authors of Drop Dead and Love, Sex and the I.R.S. Harold Stang, a playwright obsessed with sex, Charlie Chaplin and pastrami sandwiches meets Kelly Carroll, an aspiring actress obsessed with him. Their love story is told via flashbacks, fantasy scenes and monologues in which five actors play 36 roles. The work is a wonderful showcase for the actor who stars as Harold, whose life is one long bedroom farce.
The Senator Wore Pantyhose
by Billy Van Zandt Jane MilmoreComedy / 7m, 3f / Interior / Seething with political and religious scandals, this comedy revolves around the failing presidential campaign of "Honest" Gabby Sandalson, a regular guy whose integrity has all but crippled his bid for the White House. His sleazy campaign manager trumps up an implausible sex scandal to garner votes, a scheme that gloriously backfires.
Suitehearts
by Billy Van Zandt Jane MilmoreComedy / 3m, 2f / Interior / A young couple from Pennsylvania checks into a posh New York hotel to fill their weekend with bliss, only to have it filled with strangers. Timothy and his wife have inadvertently booked the same honeymoon suite as Frankie and Wanda, an older couple from New Jersey. After they scuffle over the accommodations, no one is where or with whom they should be. Filled with sight gags and one liners, this play broke the house records at New Jersey's Dam Site Dinner Theater. During the course of the evening, Timothy grows into a man, Elizabeth learns about trust, Frankie learns to respect women and Wanda learns to respect herself.
You've Got Hate Mail
by Billy Van Zandt Jane MilmoreComedy / Characters: 2m, 3f / Unit Set "LOL! An audience is guaranteed to do just that" at this hilarious broadband comedy of errors. You've Got Hate Mail is Billy Van Zandt and Jane Milmore's comic answer to A.R. Gurney's Love Letters. In You've Got Hate Mail, love "bytes" all when an extra-marital affair goes horribly wrong, thanks to a juicy e-mail left sitting on a desktop. The story is told entirely in e-mails from laptop computers, although the play still manages to have an unforgettable chase scene - thanks to Blackberries and iPhones. The heartiest laugh-for-laugh show of all the Van Zandt-Milmore comedies. "Outright guffaws greeted this 75-minute, intermissionless free-for-all!" -Peter Filichia, Newark Star Ledger "A funny play where the verbals zingers fly fast and furious!" -Tom Chesek, Asbury Park Press
Hellenic Common: Greek Drama and Cultural Cosmopolitanism in the Neoliberal Era (Routledge Advances in Theatre & Performance Studies)
by Philip ZapkinHellenic Common argues that theatrical adaptations of Greek tragedy exemplify the functioning of a cosmopolitan cultural commonwealth. Analyzing plays by Femi Osofisan, Moira Buffini, Marina Carr, Colin Teevan, and Yael Farber, this book shows how contemporary adapters draw tragic and mythic material from a cultural common and remake those stories for modern audiences. Phillip Zapkin theorizes a political economy of adaptation, combining both a formal reading of adaptation as an aesthetic practice and a political reading of adaptation as a form of resistance. Drawing an ethical centre from Kwame Anthony Appiah’s work on cosmopolitanism and Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri’s theory of the common, Hellenic Common argues that Attic tragedy forms a cultural commonwealth from which dramatists the world over can rework, reimagine, and restage materials to envision aspirational new worlds through the arts. This study will be of great interest to students and scholars of drama, adaptation studies, literature, and neoliberalism.
Performances of Capitalism, Crises and Resistance
by Marilena Zaroulia Philip HagerThis engaging study examines the issue of crisis in European performance since the collapse of global financial markets in 2008. The book's chapters examine diverse performances of crisis primarily in three cities with a loaded past and present for Europe, as idea and geopolitical reality: London, Athens and Berlin. Presenting a range of work – from the National Theatre's repertoire to alternative forms of theatre-making in 'other' spaces; from the Occupy LSX to cultural performance and 'invisible', quotidian performances – Performances of Capitalism, Crises and Resistance presents new approaches to performance as a form 'in crisis' and as reflecting the in-crisis permutation of the 'inside/outside' dichotomy, fundamental in the conception of Europe and the EU. In doing so, this book makes an argument for performance within and against neoliberal promises; as a monolithic factor implicated in the machinery of capitalism or multiple, emergent bodies of resistance.
Kathakali Dance-Drama: Where Gods and Demons Come to Play
by Phillip ZarrilliKathakali Dance-Drama provides a comprehensive introduction to the distinctive and colourful dance-drama of Kerala in South-West India for the first time. This landmark volume: * explores Kathakali's reception as it reaches new audiences both in India and the west * includes two cases of controversial of Kathakali experiments * explores the implications for Kathakali of Keralan politics During these performances heroes, heroines, gods and demons tell their stories of traditional Indian epics. The four Kathakali plays included in this anthology, translated from actual performances into English are: * The Flower of Good Fortune * The Killing of Kirmmira * The Progeny of Krishna * King Rugmamgada's Law Each play has an introduction and detailed commentary and is illustrated by stunning photographs taken during performances. An introduction to Kathakali stage conventions, make-up, music, acting, and training is also provided, making this an ideal volume for both the specialist and non-specialist reader.
(toward) a phenomenology of acting
by Phillip ZarrilliIn (toward) a phenomenology of acting, Phillip Zarrilli considers acting as a ‘question’ to be explored in the studio and then reflected upon. This book is a vital response to Jerzy Grotowski’s essential question: "How does the actor ‘touch that which is untouchable?’" Phenomenology invites us to listen to "the things themselves", to be attentive to how we sensorially, kinesthetically, and affectively engage with acting as a phenomenon and process. Using detailed first-person accounts of acting across a variety of dramaturgies and performances from Beckett to newly co-created performances to realism, it provides an account of how we ‘do’ or practice phenomenology when training, performing, directing, or teaching. Zarrilli brings a wealth of international and intercultural experience as a director, performer, and teacher to this major new contribution both to the practices of acting and to how we can reflect in depth on those practices. An advanced study for actors, directors, and teachers of acting that is ideal for both the training/rehearsal studio and research, (toward) a phenomenology of acting is an exciting move forward in the philosophical understanding of acting as an embodied practice.
Acting (Re)Considered (Re)Considered: A Theoretical and Practical Guide
by Phillip B. ZarrilliActing (Re)Considered is an exceptionally wide-ranging collection of theories on acting, ideas about body and training, and statements about the actor in performance. This second edition includes five new essays and has been fully revised and updated, with discussions by or about major figures who have shaped theories and practices of acting and performance from the late nineteenth century to the present.The essays - by directors, historians, actor trainers and actors - bridge the gap between theories and practices of acting, and between East and West. No other book provides such a wealth of primary and secondary sources, bibliographic material, and diversity of approaches. It includes discussions of such key topics as:* how we think and talk about acting* acting and emotion* the actor's psychophysical process* the body and training* the actor in performance* non-Western and cross-cultural paradigms of the body, training and acting.Acting (Re)Considered is vital reading for all those interested in performance.
Psychophysical Acting: An Intercultural Approach after Stanislavski
by Phillip B. ZarrilliPsychophysical Acting is a direct and vital address to the demands of contemporary theatre on today’s actor. Drawing on over thirty years of intercultural experience, Phillip Zarrilli aims to equip actors with practical and conceptual tools with which to approach their work. Areas of focus include:an historical overview of a psychophysical approach to acting from Stanislavski to the presentacting as an ‘energetics’ of performance, applied to a wide range of playwrights: Samuel Beckett, Martin Crimp, Sarah Kane, Kaite O’Reilly and Ota Shogoa system of training though yoga and Asian martial arts that heightens sensory awareness, dynamic energy, and in which body and mind become onepractical application of training principles to improvisation exercises.Psychophysical Acting is accompanied by Peter Hulton’s downloadable resources featuring exercises, production documentation, interviews, and reflection.
Theatre Histories: An Introduction (2nd edition)
by Phillip B. Zarrilli Bruce A. Mcconachie Carol Fisher Sorgenfrei Gary Jay WilliamsThis new edition of the innovative and widely acclaimed Theatre Histories: An Introduction offers overviews of theatre and drama in many world cultures and periods together with case studies demonstrating the methods and interpretive approaches used by today's theatre historians. Completely revised and renewed in color, enhancements and new material include: A full-color text design with added timelines to each opening section A wealth of new color illustrations to help convey the vitality of performances described New case studies on African, Asian, and Western subjects A new chapter on modernism, and updated and expanded chapters and part introductions Fuller definitions of terms and concepts throughout in a new glossary A re-designed support website offering links to new audio-visual resources, expanded bibliographies, approaches to teaching theatre and performance history, discussion questions relating to case studies and an online glossary.
Wrong Impressions [Book I]
by Paulin Zavala Alejandra Mendoza ZacaríasHow much can it affect to want to meet someone? Idealization to a person is powerful and unpredictable. Will he be able to fulfill the expectations, which for years has been created on the girl? Allan Estrada is a man who had just lost his parents, he thought he would never be able to trust anyone, he had been in charge of a millionaire company and he had no idea how to handle it. His luck changed when he met Antonio, who supported him and helped him out of the shadows, and when he began to tell him about his youngest daughter, he was interested in meeting the girl. Only she did not make it easy.
Acting in the Academy: The History of Professional Actor Training in US Higher Education
by Peter ZazzaliThere are over 150 BFA and MFA acting programs in the US today, nearly all of which claim to prepare students for theatre careers. Peter Zazzali contends that the curricula of these courses represent an ethos that is as outdated as it is limited, given today’s shrinking job market for stage actors. Acting in the Academy traces the history of actor training in universities to make the case for a move beyond standard courses in voice and speech, movement, or performance, to develop an entrepreneurial model that motivates and encourages students to create their own employment opportunities. This book answers questions such as: How has the League of Professional Theatre Training Programs shaped actor training in the US? How have training programmes and the acting profession developed in relation to one another? What impact have these developments had on American acting as an art form? Acting in the Academy calls for a reconceptualization of actor training the US, and looks to newly empower students of performance with a fresh, original perspective on their professional development.
Zeami: Performance Notes (Translations from the Asian Classics)
by Motoyiko ZeamiZeami (1363-1443), Japan's most celebrated actor and playwright, composed more than thirty of the finest plays of no drama. He also wrote a variety of texts on theater and performance that have, until now, been only partially available in English. Zeami: Performance Notes presents the full range of Zeami's critical thought on this subject, which focused on the aesthetic values of no and its antecedents, the techniques of playwriting, the place of allusion, the training of actors, the importance of patronage, and the relationship between performance and broader intellectual and critical concerns. Spanning over four decades, the texts reflect the essence of Zeami's instruction under his famous father, the actor Kannami, and the value of his long and challenging career in medieval Japanese theater. Tom Hare, who has conducted extensive studies of no academically and on stage, begins with a comprehensive introduction that discusses Zeami's critical importance in Japanese culture. He then incorporates essays on the performance of no in medieval Japan and the remarkable story of the transmission and reproduction of Zeami's manuscripts over the past six centuries. His eloquent translation is fully annotated and includes Zeami's diverse and exquisite anthology of dramatic songs, Five Sorts of Singing, presented both in English and in the original Japanese.
David Hare: A Casebook (Casebooks on Modern Dramatists #Vol. 18)
by Hersh ZeifmanLearning that David Hare has written sixteen stage plays, eight collaborations, and eleven screenplays for film and television, one might be surprised by the fact that this leading English artist is not yet fifty years old. He was only twenty-two when his first play was performed by the Portable Theatre, and he was a major voice on the British stage before he was thirty. The present volume is the first major collection of essays devoted to Hare, and its editor, Hersh Zeifman, who is a professor at York University, Toronto, is well-qualified to assemble and supervise such a significant undertaking. As co-editor of the prestigious journal, Modern Drama, he has been exposed to all the major authors and topics of modem theatre and is ideally positioned to discern Hare's pivotal role on the contemporary stage.
Building the Wall: The Play and Commentary (Oberon Modern Plays Ser.)
by Julian E. Zelizer Douglas S. Massey Robert Schenkkan Timothy Patrick McCarthyIn the tradition of Hamilton and Angels in America, a powerful, politically charged, dystopian drama that couldn’t be more timely. Written in a “white-hot fury” on the eve of the 2016 election, the stunning new play by Pulitzer Prize– and Tony Award–winning dramatist Robert Schenkkan is creating a nationwide sensation. Bypassing the usual development path for plays, it has been signed up to open in five theaters across America in a National New Play Network Rolling World Premiere, starting in Los Angeles (March) and Denver (April) and continuing in the Washington, DC, area, Tucson, and Miami, with more productions to follow, including in Santa Fe and New York City. Building the Wall lays out in a harrowing drama the consequences of Donald Trump’s anti-immigration campaign rhetoric turned into federal policy. Two years from now, that policy has resulted in the mass round-up of millions of illegal aliens, with their incarceration overflowing into private prisons and camps reminiscent of another century. The former warden for one facility is awaiting sentencing for what happened under his watch. In a riveting interview with a historian who has come seeking the truth, he gradually reveals how the unthinkable became the inevitable, and the faceless illegals under his charge became the face of tragedy. The play is accompanied by commentary from three prominent scholars: on the real purpose of the border wall, our dark nativist history of restricting immigration, and the tradition of political protest in art.
Shakespeare and Faulkner: Selves and Others
by Karl F. ZenderShakespeare and Faulkner explores the moral and ethical dilemmas that characters face inside themselves and in their interactions with others in the works of these two famed authors. Karl F. Zender’s characterological study offers insightful, critically rigorous, and at times quite personal analyses of the complicated figures who inhabit several major Shakespeare plays and Faulkner novels. The two parts of this book—the first of which focuses on the English playwright, the second on the Mississippi novelist—share a common methodology in that they originate in Zender’s history as a teacher of and writer on the two authors, who until now he generally approached separately. He emphasizes the evolving insights gleaned from reading these authors over several decades, situating their texts in relation to shifting trends in criticism and highlighting the contemporary relevance of their works. The final chapter, an extended discussion of Faulkner’s Intruder in the Dust, attempts something unusual in Zender’s critical practice: It relies less on the close textual analysis that characterizes his previous work and instead explores the intersections between events depicted in the novel and his own life, both as a child and as an adult. Shakespeare and Faulkner speaks to the power of literature as a form of pleasure and of solace. With this work of engaged and thoughtful scholarly criticism, Zender reveals the centrality of storytelling to human beings’ efforts to make sense both of their journey through life and of the circumstances in which they live.