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The Ritual Theatre of Theodoros Terzopoulos
by Freddy DecreusThe Ritual Theatre of Theodoros Terzopoulos outlines the story of the Athenian-based Attis Theatre and the way its founder and director, Theodoros Terzopoulos, introduced bio-energetic presences of the body on the stage, in an attempt to redefine and reappraise what it means today not only to have a body, but to fully be a body. Terzopoulos created a very specific attitude towards life and death, and it is this broad perspective on energy and consciousness that makes his work so appealing both to a general public and to students of arts, theatre and drama. Freddy Decreus’ study charts the career of Greece’s most acclaimed theatre director and provides a spiritual and philosophic answer in times where former Western meta-narratives have failed.
Rival Queens
by Felicity NussbaumIn eighteenth-century England, actresses were frequently dismissed as mere prostitutes trading on their sexual power rather than their talents. Yet they were, Felicity Nussbaum argues, central to the success of a newly commercial theater. Urban, recently moneyed, and thoroughly engaged with their audiences, celebrated actresses were among the first women to achieve social mobility, cultural authority, and financial independence. In fact, Nussbaum contends, the eighteenth century might well be called the "age of the actress" in the British theater, given women's influence on the dramatic repertory and, through it, on the definition of femininity.Treating individual star actresses who helped spark a cult of celebrity--especially Anne Oldfield, Susannah Cibber, Catherine Clive, Margaret Woffington, Frances Abington, and George Anne Bellamy--Rival Queens reveals the way these women animated issues of national identity, property, patronage, and fashion in the context of their dramatic performances. Actresses intentionally heightened their commercial appeal by catapulting the rivalries among themselves to center stage. They also boldly rivaled in importance the actor-managers who have long dominated eighteenth-century theater history and criticism. Felicity Nussbaum combines an emphasis on the celebrated actresses themselves with close analysis of their diverse roles in works by major playwrights, including George Farquhar, Nicholas Rowe, Colley Cibber, Arthur Murphy, David Garrick, Isaac Bickerstaff, and Richard Sheridan. Hers is a comprehensive and original argument about the importance of actresses as the first modern subjects, actively shaping their public identities to make themselves into celebrated properties.
The Rivals: A Comedy (Dover Thrift Editions: Plays)
by Richard Brinsley SheridanImmensely popular comedy of manners featuring such memorable characters as the lovely Lydia Languish, her suitor, Capt. Jack Absolute; and Lydia's aunt -- Mrs. Malaprop, cleverly revolves around false identities, romantic entanglements, and parental disapproval. Brilliant comic masterpiece satirizing the pretentiousness and sentimentality of 18th-century society.
The Road to Mecca
by Athol FugardA South African pastor and a young teacher from Cape Town battle over the fate of an eccentric elderly widow.
The Road To Mendocino
by Marion O. HannaIn THE ROAD TO MENDOCINO, M. B. Wright, a feisty Southern lawyer, agrees to help a colleague whose daughter is missing, last seen with M. B. 's nemesis, the politically powerful Judge Augustine. The search takes her to Washington, D. C. where the sudden appearance of her abusive ex-husband plunges her back into the depths of the life she had worked so hard to escape, making her quest to find Caroline that much more difficult. To deal with her misgivings, she visits Duncan's other ex-wife via the treacherous and beautiful California Highway 1. Meanwhile, Judge Augustine puts pressure on M. B. 's staff to bring her back and face the music he has waiting for her.
Road to Nirvana
by Arthur KopitBlack Comedy / 2m, 2f / 2 Exteriors / Ex movie moguls on the skids reunite to co produce the big one an autobiographical screenplay by the world's hottest female rock star. She will even star as herself if she can find producers willing to meet her extraordinary terms.
The Road to Wicked: The Marketing and Consumption of Oz from L. Frank Baum to Broadway
by Kent Drummond Susan Aronstein Terri L. RittenburgThe Road to Wicked examines the long life of the Oz myth. It is both a study in cultural sustainability— the capacity of artists, narratives, art forms, and genres to remain viable over time—and an examination of the marketing machinery and consumption patterns that make such sustainability possible. Drawing on the fields of macromarketing, consumer behavior, literary and cultural studies, and theories of adaption and remediation, the authors examine key adaptations and extensions of Baum’s 1900 novel. These include the original Oz craze, the MGM film and its television afterlife, Wicked and its extensions, and Oz the Great and Powerful—Disney’s recent (and highly lucrative) venture that builds on the considerable success of Wicked. At the end of the book, the authors offer a foundational framework for a new theory of cultural sustainability and propose a set of explanatory conditions under which any artistic experience might achieve it.
Roadkill Confidential
by Sheila CallaghanThriller/Mystery / 3m, 2f / A possibly rogue g-man stalks a stalled-out artist with a suspicious affinity for accident victims. Traps are set, traps are sprung, and everyone gets caught. Roadkill Confidential tackles, with style, humor and high theatricality, mediated violence and the numbness it produces, and, whether in art or in global politics, the ends can justify the means. / "Roadkill Confidential, a new work by Sheila Callaghan, is intriguing to watch...it's a sick sitcom, it's a thriller, it's a parody, it's a commentary on the art world, it's a -- this one's borrowed from the script's title page - 'noir-ish meditation on brutality.' - The New York Times
The Robbers and Wallenstein
by F. Lamport Friedrich SchillerFriedrich Schiller (1759-1805) was one of the most influential of all playwrights, the author of deeply moving dramas that explored human fears, desires and ideals. Written at the age of twenty-one, The Robbers was his first play. A passionate consideration of liberty, fraternity and deep betrayal, it quickly established his fame throughout Germany and wider Europe. Wallenstein, produced nineteen years later, is regarded as Schiller's masterpiece: a deeply moving exploration of a flawed general's struggle to bring the Thirty Years War to an end against the will of his Emperor. Depicting the deep corruption caused by constant fighting between Protestants and Catholics, it is at once a meditation on the unbounded possible strength of humanity, and a tragic recognition of what can happen when men allow themselves to be weak.
The Robbers and Wallenstein
by Friedrich Schiller F. J. Lamport (Translator IntroductionFriedrich Schiller (1759-1805) was one of the most influential of all playwrights, the author of deeply moving dramas that explored human fears, desires and ideals. Written at the age of twenty-one, The Robbers was his first play. A passionate consideration of liberty, fraternity and deep betrayal, it quickly established his fame throughout Germany and wider Europe. Wallenstein, produced nineteen years later, is regarded as Schiller's masterpiece: a deeply moving exploration of a flawed general's struggle to bring the Thirty Years War to an end against the will of his Emperor. Depicting the deep corruption caused by constant fighting between Protestants and Catholics, it is at once a meditation on the unbounded possible strength of humanity, and a tragic recognition of what can happen when men allow themselves to be weak.
Robert Armin and Shakespeare's Performed Songs
by Catherine A. HenzeAfter Robert Armin joined the Chamberlain's Men, singing in Shakespeare's dramas catapulted from 1.25 songs and 9.95 lines of singing per play to 3.44 songs and 29.75 lines of singing, a virtually unnoticed phenomenon. In addition, many of the songs became seemingly improvisatory—similar to Armin's personal style as an author and solo comedian. In order to study Armin's collaborative impact, this interdisciplinary book investigates the songs that have Renaissance music that could have been heard on Shakespeare's stage. They occur in some of Shakespeare's most famous plays, including Much Ado About Nothing, Twelfth Night, Hamlet, and The Tempest. In fact, Shakespeare's plays, as we have them, are not complete. They are missing the music that could have accompanied the plays’ songs. Significantly, Renaissance vocal music, far beyond just providing entertainment, was believed to alter the bodies and souls of both performers and auditors to agree with its characteristics, directly inciting passions from love to melancholy. By collaborating with early modern music editor and performing artist Lawrence Lipnik, Catherine Henze is able to provide new performance editions of seventeen songs, including spoken interruptions and cuts and rearrangement of the music to accommodate the dramatist's words. Next, Henze analyzes the complete songs, words and music, according to Renaissance literary and music primary sources, and applies the new information to interpretations of characters and scenes, frequently challenging commonly held literary assessments. The book is organized according to Armin's involvement with the plays, before, during, and after the comic actor joined Shakespeare's company. It offers readers the tools to interpret not only these songs, but also vocal music in dramas by other Renaissance playwrights. Moreover, Robert Armin and Shakespeare's Performed Songs, written with non-specialized terminology, provides a gateway to new areas of research and interpretation in an increasingly significant interdisciplinary field for all interested in Shakespeare and early modern drama.
Robert Chafe: Butler's Marsh and Tempting Providence
by Robert ChafeButler's Marsh Thirty years ago Nora's mother disappeared into the small, dense forest of Butler's Marsh. She emerged three days later, covered in blood, badly shaken, and completely silent about what had happened. Having never been offered a suitable explanation, and now finding herself at her own moment of crisis, Nora ventures to Newfoundland for the first time to explore Butler's Marsh for herself. She is accompanied by her partner Tim, who, while less than helpful, is nevertheless adamant that she not be left alone. But as Nora's night in Butler's Marsh unfolds, and Tim's good humour wanes, the primary question of what happened to her mother quickly becomes less troubling than another; with whom exactly is she lost in the woods? Tempting Providence In 1921 Myra Grimsley signed a two-year contract and boarded a steamship from London, England, to St. John's, Newfoundland. Her charge: to serve as the sole health-care provider for three hundred miles of the sparsely settled coast of Newfoundland's Great Northern Peninsula. By the time her contract ran out two years later, Myra was married to local Angus Bennett, and had given birth to their first child, Grace. Based on the true story of Nurse Myra Bennett, Tempting Providence is a play about duty and sadness, love and change. Four strong characters drive this no-frills drama about a young British nurse who only signed on for two years, and the local man for whom she stayed for seventy.
Robert Lepage on the Toronto Stage: Language, Identity, Nation
by Jane KoustasA leader in theatre production for a global community, Robert Lepage - actor, cineaste, and director - revolutionized the Toronto theatre scene from the 1980s onwards by challenging conventional notions of language, identity, and national belonging. Exploring Lepage's twenty-five-year history on the Toronto stage, Jane Koustas analyzes his importance in the Canadian and international theatre scenes. Outlining the reasons behind Lepage's success in Toronto, Koustas skilfully engages with a wide range of journalistic and scholarly texts, moving between French and English critical reception of his work. For Lepage, Toronto offered the best of both worlds: he could remain an ardent Quebecer while being welcomed as a fellow Canadian. Lepage, raised in a bilingual family, brought to his Toronto productions an understanding of English and Canadian culture that resisted presenting French against English and the rest of Canada versus Quebec. Instead, he took Toronto audiences on a global theatre voyage that transformed traditional geopolitical, cultural, and linguistic boundaries and questioned identity. Investigating the relationship between Quebec's master dramaturge and Toronto, a burgeoning cosmopolitan city determined to be a global cultural capital, Robert Lepage on the Toronto Stage analyzes the success of one of the few Québécois artists to have achieved fame in English Canada.
Robert Lepage on the Toronto Stage: Language, Identity, Nation
by Jane KoustasA leader in theatre production for a global community, Robert Lepage - actor, cineaste, and director - revolutionized the Toronto theatre scene from the 1980s onwards by challenging conventional notions of language, identity, and national belonging. Exploring Lepage’s twenty-five-year history on the Toronto stage, Jane Koustas analyzes his importance in the Canadian and international theatre scenes. Outlining the reasons behind Lepage’s success in Toronto, Koustas skilfully engages with a wide range of journalistic and scholarly texts, moving between French and English critical reception of his work. For Lepage, Toronto offered the best of both worlds: he could remain an ardent Quebecer while being welcomed as a fellow Canadian. Lepage, raised in a bilingual family, brought to his Toronto productions an understanding of English and Canadian culture that resisted presenting French against English and the rest of Canada versus Quebec. Instead, he took Toronto audiences on a global theatre voyage that transformed traditional geopolitical, cultural, and linguistic boundaries and questioned identity. Investigating the relationship between Quebec’s master dramaturge and Toronto, a burgeoning cosmopolitan city determined to be a global cultural capital, Robert Lepage on the Toronto Stage analyzes the success of one of the few Québécois artists to have achieved fame in English Canada.
Robert Lepage's Intercultural Encounters (Elements in Shakespeare Performance)
by Christie CarsonThis study returns to the origins of Robert Lepage's directorial work and his first cross-cultural interaction with a Shakespearean text to provide some background for his later work. This early work is situated within the political and social context of Quebec and Canada in the 1980s. Constitutional wrangling and government policies of bilingualism, biculturalism and multiculturalism all had a profound impact on this director, helping to forge his priorities and working methods. In 2018 two of Lepage's productions were cancelled due to concerns about cultural appropriation. Lepage responded by stating his view that the artist is as above the concerns of political correctness. While this approach was deemed acceptable in the 1980s, this study looks at the dangers posed by approaching cross-cultural creation from this standpoint in the 21st century.
Robert Lepage’s Scenographic Dramaturgy: The Aesthetic Signature at Work (Adaptation in Theatre and Performance)
by Melissa PollThis book theorizes auteur Robert Lepage’s scenography-based approach to adapting canonical texts. Lepage’s technique is defined here as ‘scenographic dramaturgy’, a process and product that de-privileges dramatic text and relies instead on evocative, visual performance and intercultural collaboration to re-envision extant plays and operas. Following a detailed analysis of Lepage’s adaptive process and its place in the continuum of scenic writing and auteur theatre, this book features four case studies charting the role of Lepage’s scenographic dramaturgy in re-‘writing’ extant texts, including Shakespeare’s Tempest on Huron-Wendat territory, Stravinsky’s Nightingale in a twenty-seven ton pool, and Wagner’s Ring cycle via the infamous, sixteen-million-dollar Metropolitan Opera production. The final case study offers the first interrogation of Lepage’s twenty-first century ‘auto-adaptations’ of his own seminal texts, The Dragons’ Trilogy and Needles & Opium. Though aimed at academic readers, this book will also appeal to practitioners given its focus on performance-making, adaptation and intercultural collaboration.
Robert Wilson (Routledge Performance Practitioners)
by Maria ShevtsovaRobert Wilson is an American–European director who is also a performer, installation artist, writer, designer of light and much more besides – a crossover polymath who dissolves both generic and geographical boundaries and is a precursor of globalisation in the arts. This second edition of Robert Wilson combines: an analysis of his main productions, situated in their American and European socio-cultural and political contexts a focused, detailed study of Wilson’s pathbreaking Einstein on the Beach a study of Pushkin's Fairy Tales as the foremost example of his folk-rock music theatre in the twenty-first century an exploration of his ‘visual book’, workshop and rehearsal methods, and collaborative procedures a study of his aesthetic principles and the elements of composition that distinguish his directorial approach a series of practical exercises for students and practitioners highlighting Wilson’s technique. As a first step towards critical understanding, and as an initial exploration before going on to further, primary research, Routledge Performance Practitioners offer unbeatable value for today’s student.
Roberto Bolaño's Fiction
by Chris AndrewsSince the publication of The Savage Detectives in 2007, the work of Roberto Bolaño (1953--2003) has achieved an acclaim rarely enjoyed in contemporary fiction. Chris Andrews, a leading translator of Bolaño's work into English, explores the singular achievements of the author's oeuvre, engaging with its distinct style and key thematic concerns, incorporating his novels and stories into the larger history of Latin American and global literary fiction.Andrews provides new readings and interpretations of Bolaño's novels, including 2666, The Savage Detectives, and By Night in Chile while at the same time examining the ideas and narrative strategies that unify his work. He begins with a consideration of the reception of Bolaño's fiction in English translation, examining the reasons behind its popularity. Subsequent chapters explore aspects of Bolaño's fictional universe and the political, ethical, and aesthetic values that shape it. Bolaño emerges as the inventor of a prodigiously effective "fiction-making system," a subtle handler of suspense, a chronicler of aimlessness, a celebrator of courage, an anatomist of evil, and a proponent of youthful openness. Written in a clear and engaging style, Roberto's Bolano's Fiction offers an invaluable understanding of one of the most important authors of the last thirty years.
Robin Hood
by Don NigroComedy Characters: 14 male, 8 female (more if desired.) . Unit set.. In a land where the rich get richer and the poor are starving, Prince John wants to cut down Sherwood Forest to put up an arms manufactory, a slaughterhouse and a tennis court for the well to do. This bawdy epic unites elements of wild farce and ancient mythologies with an environmentalist assault on the arrogance of wealth and power in the face of poverty and hunger using feeble and insane jesters, a demonic snake oil salesman, a corrupt and lascivious court, a singer of eerie ballads, a gluttonous lusty friar and a world of other grotesque characters out of a Brueghel painting. Maid Marian loses her clothes and her illusions among the poor and Robin tries to avoid murder and elude the Dark Monk of the Wood who is Death and perhaps something more.
The Rock: A Pageant Play
by T. S. EliotThe Nobel Prize–winning author created the words for this unique play about religion in the twentieth century.The choruses in this pageant play represent a new verse experiment on Mr. Eliot’s part; and taken together make a sequence of verses about twice the length of “The Waste Land.”Mr. Eliot has written the words; the scenario and design of the play were provided by a collaborator, and the purpose was to provide a pageant of the Church of England for presentation on a particular occasion. The action turns upon the efforts and difficulties of a group of London masons in building a church. Incidentally, a number of historical scenes, illustrative of church-building, are introduced. The play, enthusiastically greeted, was first presented in England, at Sadler’s Wells; the production included much pageantry, mimetic action, and ballet, with music by Dr. Martin Shaw.Immediately after the production of this play in England, Francis Birrell wrote in The New Statesman: “The magnificent verse, the crashing Hebraic choruses which Mr. Eliot has written had best be studied in the book. The Rock is certainly one of the most interesting artistic experiments to be given in recent times.” The Times Literary Supplement also spoke with high praise: “The choruses exceed in length any of his previous poetry; and on the stage they prove the most vital part of the performance. They combine the sweep of psalmody with the exact employment of colloquial words. They are lightly written, as though whispered to the paper, yet are forcible to enunciate . . . . There is exhibited here a command of novel and musical dramatic speech which, considered alone, is an exceptional achievement.”
Rock and Pop Venues
by Niels Werner Adelman-LarsenPopular music plays a substantial role in most people's life. The demand and financial revenue of Rock and Pop concerts is large and still increasing with the decreased revenue on recorded music. Based on the first ever scientific investigations on recommendable acoustics for amplified music conducted by the author, this book sets forward precise guidelines for acoustical engineers to optimize the acoustics in existing or future halls for amplified music. Gives precise guidelines on how to design the acoustics in venues that present amplified music Debates essential construction details, including placement of sound system and use of possible building materials, in the architectural design of new venues or the renovation of old ones Portrays 75 well-known European Rock & Pop venues, their architecture and acoustic properties. 20 venues were rated for their acoustics by music professionals leading to an easy-to-use assessment methodology "Acoustics are important within pop and rock venues to ensure a great experience for audiences and performers. This book fills an important gap of knowledge on the acoustics of venues. It will be of value to sound engineers as well as building owners and operators and building design professionals". Rob Harris, Arup Acoustics "With this book, many future amplified music concerts will sound better, for the joy of audiences and musicians alike. This enormous work demonstrates a rare degree of passion and insight, from the hand of the key researcher in the field". Dr. Per V. Brüel
Rock on Film: The Movies That Rocked the Big Screen (Turner Classic Movies)
by Fred GoodmanFor rock music and film buffs alike, this is the ultimate guide exploring the electrifying, entertaining, and often daring marriage of rock & roll and cinema.When the use of Bill Haley&’s &“Rock Around the Clock&” turned 1955&’s Blackboard Jungle into a teen sensation and a box-office smash, it proved the opening shot in a cinematic and cultural revolution. Starting with Elvis Presley and the teensploitation films of the &’50s and &’60s, in Rock on Film award-winning author and former Rolling Stone editor Fred Goodman takes readers on a wide-ranging journey through film and pop history. Along the way, he measures the transformative impact of the mid-&’60s landmarks A Hard Day&’s Night and Dont Look Back and how they seeded an almost unbelievably broad genre of films made by increasingly ambitious musicians and filmmakers across the past seven decades.From the carefree to the complex, the mindless to the mind-bending, rock films have staked out their own turf by simultaneously celebrating innocence and challenging artistic and social conventions. With an insightful round-up of fifty must-see rock films spanning crowd-pleasers, art-house favorites, underground gems, and undisputed classics, Rock on Film surveys the nearly seventy-year canon of a genre like no other.A series of original interviews with Cameron Crowe, Jim Jarmusch, Penelope Spheeris, Taylor Hackford, and John Waters illuminates how rock has influenced the work of some of the most divergent and thoughtful directors in movie history. Illustrated throughout by more than 150 full-color and black-and-white images, Rock on Film brings the history of music in the movies to vivid life.
Rocket City, Alabam'
by Mark SaltzmanPlay with Music / Characters: 6m, 3f, with doubling Rocket City, Alabam', a play with songs, captures a lost, true-life episode in the history of the American South, presenting a hushed-up story, colorful Southern characters, and several famous songs of the region- blues, spirituals and gospel. At the dawn of the Cold War, the early 1950's, a young, brash, Army major, Hamilton Pike, brings famed German rocket scientist and former Hitler employee Wernher Von Braun to Huntsville, Alabama, a cotton town selected to become America's "Rocket City." But Huntsville has a Jewish community over a century old. Sparks fly and tempers explode when Amy Lubin, the Jewish fiancee of local war hero Jed Kessler learns of Von Braun's Nazi past. Rocket City, Alabam' presents the moral dilemmas of idealism vs. practicality, of revenge vs. forgiveness with sensitivity and humor, as well as with some classic songs, including Down By the Riverside, Alabama Bound, This Little Light of Mine and many more. Rocket City, Alabam' was developed at Alabama Shakespeare Festival in its Southern Writers Project. "Through Rocket City we are provoked into assessing our own beliefs and any ambiguities in our moral principles-the play also confronts its audiences with challenges to issues of race relations, gender politics, religious tolerance, military authority and the divide between North and South that remain with us today."- Michael P. Howley, Montgomery Advertiser
Rockin on the Milky Way
by Jean Lenox ToddieRockin’ On The Milky Way is a collection of three one-act plays entitled Moon Beams In Mid-Morning, One White Winter Night and I Remember Heaven, Of Course. These plays by internationally known playwright, Jean Lenox Toddie, treat the audience to an evening of comedy and drama that celebrates life, love and the tangled relationships of lovers and families. A rocking chair sits center stage in each play. Ten colorful characters range from a middle-age woman sitting in the Florida Everglades with a shot gun across her lap, to a charming male poet who dines on candied locusts and marinated artichoke hearts, to a lovely young mute singing her own soundless song, to a quirky old lady booted out of heaven for bad behavior.
Rodgers and Hammerstein's The Sound of Music (The Fourth Wall)
by Julian Woolford'Blossom of snow may you bloom and grow, Bloom and grow forever' Often dismissed as kitsch sentimentalism, Rodgers and Hammerstein’s The Sound of Music has proven an enduringly popular and surprisingly influential cultural icon, both within the field of musical theatre and the wider world. The Broadway production won five Tony Awards, the London production became the longest-running West End musical, and the movie version was the highest-grossing film of all time. This book examines how the musical heralded the end of an era on Broadway; its reinvention of history and biography; how the film has influenced future stage productions; the ways in which it put child performers centre stage; and how, nearly 60 years after its stage debut, the musical still has a direct impact on the modern world, from the United States to the Middle East. In this series of short essays, Julian Woolford re-examines the musical from seven different perspectives, revealing the ways in which it continues to impact the 21st century.