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Life Is a Dream (Dover Thrift Editions: Plays)
by Pedro Calderón de la BarcaConsidered one of the outstanding Spanish dramas of all time, this 17th-century allegory explores the mysteries of human destiny, the illusory nature of existence, and the struggle between predestination and free will. On the basic plot structure of king's suspicions of his son's role in an impending revolution, the playwright builds a dramatic edifice of theatricality, rich in symbolism and metaphor, expressed in magnificent poetry. This edition presents an excellent new English translation, with an informative introduction and footnotes.
Life Is a Dream
by Gregary Racz Pedro Calderon de la BarcaThe masterwork of Spain's preeminent dramatist--now in a new verse translation Life Is a Dream is a work many hold to be the supreme example of Spanish Golden Age drama. Imbued with highly poetic language and humanist ideals, it is an allegory that considers contending themes of free will and predestination, illusion and reality, played out against the backdrop of court intrigue and the restoration of personal honor. In the mountainous barrens of Poland, the rightful heir to the kingdom has been imprisoned since birth in an attempt by his father to thwart fate. Meanwhile, a noblewoman arrives to seek revenge against the man who deceived and forsook her love for the prospect of becoming king of Poland. Richly symbolic and metaphorical, Life Is a Dream explores the deepest mysteries of human experience.
Life Is a Dream/La Vida es Sueño: A Dual-Language Book (Dover Dual Language Spanish)
by Pedro Calderon de la BarcaThe most famous of all Calderon's varied and romantic dramas, this seventeenth-century masterpiece by the great Spanish playwright explores the conflict between free will and predestination as it focuses on the life of Segismundo, a Polish prince imprisoned at birth by his father, the King. The monarch's heartless action, precipitated by astrologers who predict the boy will one day usurp the throne, paves the way for a series of events that turn the son against the father and lead to rebellion. Years later, following a revolution and the peasants' seizure of power, the grim prophecy uttered at the Prince's birth threatens to become a painful reality. For this edition, Stanley Appelbaum has written an informative introduction and an excellent new literal translation that appears on pages facing the Spanish original. A valuable text for students of Spanish language and literature, this volume will delight any reader interested in classics from Spain's Golden Age of drama.
Life Is Like a Musical: How to Live, Love, and Lead Like a Star
by Tim FederleA Self-Help Guide--with Jazz Hands! Life is Like a Musical features 50 wry, witty tips on getting ahead in life and love--all learned in the showbiz trenches. "Hilarious, wise, and one-of-a-kind. This book is so damn brilliant I'm surprised it didn't already exist." -- Sarah Knight, bestselling author of The Life-Changing Magic of Not Giving a F*ck Before Tim Federle became a bestselling author and a Broadway playwright, he worked as a back-up dancer at the Super Bowl, a polar bear at Radio City, and a card-carrying chorus boy on Broadway. Life is Life a Musical features 50 tips learned backstage, onstage, and in between gigs, with chapters such as "Dance Like Everyone's Watching" and "Save the Drama for the Stage." This charming and clever guide will appeal to all ages and inspire readers to step into the lead role of their own life, even if they're not a recovering theater major.
The Life of Galileo (Methuen Student Editions)
by Bertolt Brecht Hugh Rorrison John Willett Chris Megson Jenny StevensThis Student Edition of Brecht's classic dramatisation of the conflict between free enquiry and official ideology features an extensive introduction and commentary that includes a plot summary, discussion of the context, themes, characters, style and language as well as questions for further study and notes on words and phrases in the text. It is the perfect edition for students of theatre and literature Along with Mother Courage, the character of Galileo is one of Brecht's greatest creations, immensely live, human and complex. Unable to resist his appetite for scientific investigation, Galileo's heretical discoveries about the solar system bring him to the attention of the Inquisition. He is scared into publicly abjuring his theories but, despite his self-contempt, goes on working in private, eventually helping to smuggle his writings out of the country.
Life of Galileo (Penguin Classics)
by Bertolt Brecht John Willett Ralph ManheimGalileo ranks alongside Mother Courage and Mr. Puntila as one of Brecht's most intensely alive, human, and complex characters. In Life of Galileo, the great Renaissance scientist is in a brutal struggle for freedom from authoritarian dogma. Unable to satisfy his appetite for scientific investigation, he comes into conflict with the Inquisition and must publicly renounce his theories, though in private he goes on working on his revolutionary ideas.
The Life of Henry V (Folger Shakespeare Library)
by William Shakespeare Barbara A. Mowat Paul WerstineA modern interpretation of Shakespeare's war play, this includes explanatory notes before each scene designed to help make Shakespeare's language clearer to a modern reader, and notes are placed on the page facing the text that they explain.
The Life of King Henry the Fifth
by William ShakespeareHenry V is a history play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in approximately 1599. It tells the story of King Henry V of England, focusing on events immediately before and after the Battle of Agincourt (1415) during the Hundred Years' War. In the First Quarto text, it was entitled The Cronicle History of Henry the fift, which became The Life of Henry the Fifth in the First Folio text.
The Life of King Henry V (First Avenue Classics ™)
by William ShakespeareIn the wake of his father's death, Prince Henry has ascended to the throne as King Henry V. The rebels have finally been overthrown and the civil war has ended. Henry continues to distance himself from the disreputable friends of his youth in an effort to gain the respect of his subjects. After a dispute with the French over territory, Henry decides to invade France. The English fight their way across the country in a bloody series of conflicts that culminates in the legendary Battle of Agincourt. Will Henry be able to inspire the vastly outnumbered English soldiers on to victory against the French? First published in 1600, this unabridged version of William Shakespeare's history play is the fourth and final in his tetralogy about the rise of the English royal House of Lancaster.
The Life of Monsieur de Molière: A Portrait by Mikhail Bulgakov
by Mirra Ginsburg Mikhail Afanasevich BulgakovThis portrait of Moliere, by Mikhail Bulgakov, goes far beyond mere biography. The Russian master brings a kindred spirit vividly to life in this novelistic story of art and the struggle it demands. Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Life of Monsieur de Moliere is a fascinating portrait of the great French seventeenth-century satirist by one of the great Russian satirists of our own century. For Bulgakov, Moliere was an alter ego whose destiny seemed to parallel his own. As Bulgakov’s translator, Mirra Ginsburg, informs us: "There is much besides their craft that links these two men across the centuries. Both had a sharp satirical eye and an infinite capacity for capturing the absurd and the comic, the mean and the grotesque: both had to live and write under autocracies: both were fearless and uncompromising in speaking of what they saw, evoking storms with each new work: and shared what Bulgakov calls ’the incurable disease of passion for the theater.’ The life of Moliere, born Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, is a story of struggle and dedication, and Bulgakov tells it with warmth and compassion. Indeed, for all Bulgakov’s careful attention to historical detail, his vivid recreation of seventeenth-century France makes The Life of Monsieur de Moliereread more like a novel than a formal biography. Mikhail Bulgakov (1891-1949) is best known in the West for his monumental novel The Master and Margarita. His The Life of Monsieur de Moliere, completed in 1933, was not published until 1962. Mirra Ginsburg’s translation of this neglected masterpiece will find a welcome readership among devotees of the theater and of modern Russian literature.
The Life of the Author: William Shakespeare (The Life of the Author)
by Anna BeerDiscover an invigorating new perspective on the life and work of William Shakespeare The Life of the Author: William Shakespeare delivers a fresh and exciting new take on the life of William Shakespeare, offering readers a biography that brings to the foreground his working life as a poet, playwright, and actor. It also explores the nature of his relationships with his friends, colleagues, and family, and asks important questions about the stories we tell about Shakespeare based on the evidence we actually have about the man himself. The book is written using scholarly citations and references, but with an approachable style suitable for readers with little or no background knowledge of Shakespeare or the era in which he lived. The Life of the Author: William Shakespeare asks provocative questions about the playwright-poet’s preoccupation with gender roles and sexuality, and explores why it is so challenging to ascertain his political and religious allegiances. Conservative or radical? Misogynist or proto-feminist? A lover of men or women or both? Patriot or xenophobe? This introduction to Shakespeare’s life and works offers no simple answers, but recognizes a man intensely responsive to the world around him, a playwright willing and able to collaborate with others and able to collaborate with others, and, of course, his exceptional, perhaps unique, contribution to literature in English. The book covers the entirety of William Shakespeare’s life (1564-1616), taking him from his childhood in Stratford-upon-Avon to his success in the theatre world of London and then back to his home town and comfortable retirement. The Life of the Author: William Shakespeare sets his achievement as a writer within the dangerous, vibrant cultural world that was Elizabethan and Jacobean England, revealing a writer’s life of frequent collaboration, occasional crisis, but always of profound creativity. Perfect for undergraduate students in Literature, Drama, Theatre Studies, History, and Cultural Studies courses, The Life of the Author: William Shakespeare will also earn a place in the libraries of students interested in Gender Studies and Creative Writing.
Life Of the Party
by Marrijane HayesComedy / 7m, 10f / Interior / The Hughes family moves to Butterfield and begins to choose friends. Mr. Hughes is there on business. Mrs. Hughes has social ambitions. Oldest daughter Mildred fancies herself in love with the snooty son of a bank president. Studious daughter Jean flings off her glasses and becomes the life of the party. Dapper Teddy gets into a merry mix up juggling four dates at once. And daughter Amy falls in love for the first time. But the whole family is in for a hard awakening. They all become aware of the serious implications of what had seemed very funny and make wise readjustments to one another and to life.
The Life of Timon of Athens
by William ShakespeareTimon of Athens is a bitterly intriguing study of a fabulously rich man who wastes his wealth on his friends, and, when he is finally impoverished, learns to despise humanity with a hatred that drives him to his grave. The play's plot structure is schematically clear, and the poetry of Timon's rage is arresting in its savage intensity. Yet readers have often detected loose ends, and the tone of writing is uneven.
The Life of William Shakespeare
by Lois PotterThe Life of William Shakespeare is a fascinating and wide-ranging exploration of Shakespeare's life and works focusing on oftern neglected literary and historical contexts: what Shakespeare read, who he worked with as an author and an actor, and how these various collaborations may have affected his writing. Written by an eminent Shakespearean scholar and experienced theatre reviewer Pays particular attention to Shakespeare's theatrical contemporaries and the ways in which they influenced his writing Offers an intriguing account of the life and work of the great poet-dramatist structured around the idea of memory Explores often neglected literary and historical contexts that illuminate Shakespeare's life and works
Life on the Bowery of the Liar's Doom
by Tim KellyComic melodrama / 8m, 10f, optional extras / Simple staging / Based on Robert Neilson Stephens' On the Bowery, this stage success depicts wild and wicked deeds. This version is easy to rehearse and produce, but misses none of the fun and thrills. Mrs. Drayton wishes her daughter Alice to marry villainous Thurlow Bleekman but she loves reporter Jack Hobart. The Drayton mansion is robbed and Bleekman blames Jack, forcing him to prowl the Bowery dressed as a Chinese waiter amid the riff raf who congregate at Brody's. Meanwhile, Bleekman's girlfriend threatens to reveal his true character if he does not marry her. In the play's funniest scene the villain engages burglars to toss the troublesome girl from the Brooklyn Bridge. The villain meets his liar's doom, Jack and Alice marry, and a lost daughter and mother are reunited while the laughter rolls on. Optional olio acts can add to the hilarity. "Entertaining ... theatre rocked with good natured laughter" Hollywood Ledger .
Life on the Victorian Stage: Theatrical Gossip
by Nell DarbyThe expansion of the press in Victorian Britain meant more pages to be filled, and more stories to be found. Life on the Victorian Stage: Theatrical Gossip looks at how the everyday lives of Victorian performers and managers were used for such a purpose, with the British newspapers covering the good, the bad and the ugly side of life on the stage during the nineteenth century. Viewed through the prism of Victorian newspapers, and in particular through their gossip columns, this book looks at the perils facing actors from financial disasters or insecurity to stalking, from libel cases to criminal trials and offers an alternative view of the Victorian theatrical profession.This thoroughly researched and entertaining study looks at how the Victorian press covered the theatrical profession and, in particular, how it covered the misfortunes actors faced. It shows how the development of gossip columns and papers specializing in theater coverage enabled fans to gain an insight into their favorite performers lives that broke down the public-private divide of the stage and helped to create a very modern celebrity culture.The book looks at how technological developments enabled the press to expose the behavior of actors overseas, such as when actor Fred Solomon's' bigamy in America was revealed. It looks at the pressures facing actors, which could lead to suicide, and the impact of the 1857 Matrimonial Causes Act on what the newspapers covered, with theatrical divorce cases coming to form a significant part of their coverage in the latter half of the nineteenth century. Other major events, from theater disasters to the murder of actor William Terriss, are explored within the context of press reportage and its impact. The lives of those in the theatrical profession are put into their wider social context to explore how they lived, and how they were perceived by press and public in Victorian Britain.
A Life Wild and Perilous: Mountain Men and the Paths to the Pacific
by Robert M. UtleyEarly in the nineteenth century, the mountain men emerged as a small but distinctive group whose knowledge and experience of the trans-Mississippi West extended the national consciousness to continental dimensions. Though Lewis and Clark blazed a narrow corridor of geographical reality, the West remained largely terra incognita until trappers and traders--Jim Bridger, Kit Carson, Tom Fitzpatrick, Jedediah Smith--opened paths through the snow-choked mountain wilderness. They opened the way west to Fremont and played a major role in the pivotal years of 1845-1848 when Texas was annexed, the Oregon question was decided, and the Mexican War ended with the Southwest and California in American hands, the Pacific Ocean becoming our western boundary.
LIFE The Wizard of Oz
by The Editors of LIFEThe editors of LIFE Magazine present LIFE The Wizard of Oz.
A Lifetime Burning
by Cusi CramCharacters: 3 female, 1 maleIf you had the power to revise your past, what would you change? Who would you be? Trust fund darling Emma imagines what her life would have been like had she come from a less privileged background. Trouble is, she chronicles her alternate life in a new tell-all "memoir" that was sold for a hefty advance. When Emma is exposed, will her sister, Tess, stand by her? Or will Emma's deceit destroy their already fractured relationship? This dark comedy brings up questions of legacy, loyalty and what it means to belong."The dialogue crackles with snappy sarcasms." -The New York Times "A terrific indictment of the reality-obsessed culture in which we live." - Theatermania.com"Quirky, often funny, and sometimes surprisingly sharp-witted writing." -The Village Voice
The Light in the Piazza
by Craig Lucas Adam Guettel"The Light in the Piazza beautifully captures the eternal allure of Italy. . . . The story wraps itself around your heart."--Chicago Sun-Times"Guettel's music and lyrics take nothing from the razzle-dazzle bargain basement of feeling; they represent, instead, a genuine expense of spirit. . . . The Light in the Piazza doesn't want to make theatre-goers feel good; it wants to make them feel deeply."--The New Yorker"With Adam Guettel's gorgeous melodies, a compelling narrative hook from Craig Lucas, and moving themes about happiness and risk, there's no question that The Light in the Piazza is Broadway worthy."--Daily VarietyComposer Adam Guettel, best known for his Floyd Collins, has teamed with Prelude to a Kiss playwright Craig Lucas to create a passionate and soaring new musical based on Elizabeth Spencer's 1960 novella, which was first published as an entire issue of The New Yorker. It is the story of an American ingénue abroad, whose chance meeting of a charming young Italian in a Florentine piazza sets off a whirlwind romance--with an unsettling revelation. The Light in the Piazza opens on Broadway at the Lincoln Center Theater this spring after major productions already in Seattle and Chicago.Adam Guettel wrote music and lyrics for Floyd Collins, produced across the country and in London. His other works include Love's Fire, a collaboration with John Guare, and Saturn Returns, a concert at The Public Theater/New York Shakespeare Festival that was recorded by Nonesuch Records under the title Myths and Hymns.Craig Lucas won this year's Obie Award for Best American Play for Small Tragedy and the New York Film Critics Award for Best Screenplay for The Secret Lives of Dentists. His other plays include Reckless, Blue Window, Prelude to a Kiss, God's Heart, The Dying Gaul, Missing Persons, Stranger, and Singing Forest.
Light On The Subject: Stage Lighting For Directors And Actors - And The Rest Of Us
by David HaysThe aim of this book is to demystify the technology of stage lighting, and it does so by uniting its text with quotations from literature, thus setting a common ground for the perception and understanding of light, in our daily lives as well as on stage.
Light Sensitive
by Jim GeoghanDramatic Comedy. . Characters: 2 male, 1 female. Interior Set. Thomas Hanratty, lifelong resident of Hell's Kitchen and once the most dangerous white cab driver in New York, was blinded eight years ago in a drunken accident and is fading into a routine of self pity and alcohol. His bartender and only friend, who was partly responsible for the accident, is moving to Vermont with a new lady friend, but he can't abandon Tom. He recruits an unattractive, slightly handicapped volunteer reader from the Lighthouse who battles her way through Tom's shell. By the second act, they are falling in love. His buddy returns with tales of his "Christmas from hell" in Vermont, and doubt arises as to who will hold the number one position in Tom's life. . "Geoghan brings his characters to life and the audience to its feet cheering." -The Los Angeles Times
Lighting Dance: A Study of Technical, Philosophical, and Psychological Shadows
by Flaviana Xavier SampaioLighting Dance pioneers the discussion of the ability of lighting design to foreground shadow in dance performances. Through a series of experiments integrating light, shadow, and improvised dance movement, it highlights and analyses what it advances as an innovative expression of shadow in dance as an alternative to more conventional approaches to lighting design. Different art forms, such as painting, film, and dance pieces from Loie Fuller, the Russell Maliphant Dance Company, Elevenplay, Pilobolus, and the Tao Dance Theater served to inspire and contextualise the study. From lighting to psychology, from reviews to academic books, shadows are examined as a symbolic and manipulative entity. The book also presents the dance solo Sombreiro, which was created to echo the experiments with light, shadow, and movement aligned to an interpretation of cultural shadow (Jung 1954, in Samuels, Shorter, and Plaut 1986; Casement 2006; Ramos 2004; Stein 2004; and others). The historical development of lighting within dance practices is also outlined, providing a valuable resource for lighting designers, dance practitioners, and theatre goers interested in the visuality of dance performances.
The Lighting Supervisor's Toolkit: Collaboration, Interrogation, and Innovation toward Engineering Brilliant Lighting Designs (The Focal Press Toolkit Series)
by Jason E. WeberThe Lighting Supervisor’s Toolkit guides readers through the Lighting Supervisor’s production process with an emphasis on the importance of the collaborative nature of the role. Lifting the veil on a process regularly learned on the job, this book offers a deeper understanding of the role of Lighting Supervisor and how to take lighting designs from dreams to reality. Readers will learn to communicate with designers, analyze drawings, plan installations, document decisions, supervise crews, and innovate out-of-the-box solutions. Providing guidance for technically focused individuals seeking deeper understanding of the profession, The Lighting Supervisor’s Toolkit is ideal for students and professional technicians looking to take on important leadership roles in theatrical and entertainment lighting.