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Thieving Three-Fingered Jack: Transatlantic Tales of a Jamaican Outlaw, 1780-2015
by Frances R. BotkinThe fugitive slave known as “Three-Fingered Jack” terrorized colonial Jamaica from 1780 until vanquished by Maroons, self-emancipated Afro-Jamaicans bound by treaty to police the island for runaways and rebels. A thief and a killer, Jack was also a freedom fighter who sabotaged the colonial machine until his grisly death at its behest. Narratives about his exploits shed light on the problems of black rebellion and solutions administered by the colonial state, creating an occasion to consider counter-narratives about its methods of divide and conquer. For more than two centuries, writers, performers, and storytellers in England, Jamaica, and the United States have “thieved" Three Fingered Jack's riveting tale, defining black agency through and against representations of his resistance.Frances R. Botkin offers a literary and cultural history that explores the persistence of stories about this black rebel, his contributions to constructions of black masculinity in the Atlantic world, and his legacies in Jamaican and United States popular culture.
Things We Said Today: Short Plays and Monologues
by Neil LabuteNeil LaBute is one of America's most provocative and lauded playwrights, and his darkly exhilarating talent is on glorious view in this new collection. Things We Said Today features the scripts for Neil LaBute's groundbreaking Directv project 10x10--a series of short films written and directed by LaBute based on ten compelling original monologues, five each for men and women. Also included are five short plays displaying the power and scope of Neil LaBute's creative vision. In Pick One, three white guys come up with a way to solve America's problems; in The Possible one young woman seduces another's boyfriend for an unexpected reason. Call Back features an actress and actor who spar about a past encounter that she, unnervingly, remembers much better than he does. Good Luck (In Farsi), "a pleasingly astringent study in competitiveness and vanity" (The New York Times) has two actresses pulling out all the stops in a preaudition psych out; and in Squeeze Play a father and his son's baseball coach strike a mutually beneficial deal. Rounding out the collection are two monologues commissioned as part of Centerstage's "My America" project.
Think, Pig!: Beckett at the Limit of the Human
by Jean-Michel RabatéThis book examines Samuel Beckett’s unique lesson in courage in the wake of humanism’s postwar crisis—the courage to go on living even after experiencing life as a series of catastrophes.Rabaté, a former president of the Samuel Beckett Society and a leading scholar of modernism, explores the whole range of Beckett’s plays, novels, and essays. He places Beckett in a vital philosophical conversation that runs from Bataille to Adorno, from Kant and Sade to Badiou. At the same time, he stresses Beckett’s inimitable sense of metaphysical comedy.Foregrounding Beckett’s decision to write in French, Rabaté inscribes him in a continental context marked by a “writing degree zero” while showing the prescience and ethical import of Beckett’s tendency to subvert the “human” through the theme of the animal. Beckett’s “declaration of inhuman rights,” he argues, offers the funniest mode of expression available to us today.
Thinking About Shakespeare
by StockholderExplores the challenges of maintaining bonds, living up to ideals, and fulfilling desire in Shakespeare’s plays In Thinking About Shakespeare, Kay Stockholder reveals the rich inner lives of some of Shakespeare’s most enigmatic characters and the ways in which their emotions and actions shape and are shaped by the social and political world around them. In addressing all genres in the Shakespeare canon, the authors explore the possibility of people being constant to each other in many different kinds of relationships: those of lovers, kings and subjects, friends, and business partners. While some bonds are irrevocably broken, many are reaffirmed. In all cases, the authors offer insight into what drives Shakespeare’s characters to do what they do, what draws them together or pulls them apart, and the extent to which bonds can ever be eternal. Ultimately, the most durable bond may be between the playwright and the audience, whereby the playwright pleases and the audience approves. The book takes an in-depth look at a dozen of The Bard’s best-loved works, including: A Midsummer Night’s Dream; Romeo and Juliet; The Merchant of Venice; Richard II; Henry IV, Part I; Hamlet; Troilus and Cressida; Othello; Macbeth; King Lear; Antony and Cleopatra; and The Tempest. It also provides an epilogue titled: Prospero and Shakespeare. Written in a style accessible for all levels Discusses 12 plays, making it a comprehensive study of Shakespeare’s work Covers every genre of The Bard’s work, giving readers a full sense of Shakespeare’s art/thought over the course of his oeuvre Provides a solid overall sense of each play and the major characters/plot lines in them Providing new and sometimes unconventional and provocative ways to think about characters that have had a long critical heritage, Thinking About Shakespeare is an enlightening read that is perfect for scholars, and ideal for any level of student studying one of history’s greatest storytellers.
Thinking About the Longstanding Problems of Virtue and Happiness
by Tony KushnerThe first collection of writings from the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Angels in America. Includes Slavs!
Thinking in Jazz: The Infinite Art of Improvisation (Chicago Studies In Ethnomusicology Ser.)
by Paul F. BerlinerA landmark in jazz studies, Thinking in Jazz reveals as never before how musicians, both individually and collectively, learn to improvise. Chronicling leading musicians from their first encounters with jazz to the development of a unique improvisatory voice, Paul Berliner documents the lifetime of preparation that lies behind the skilled improviser's every idea. The product of more than fifteen years of immersion in the jazz world, Thinking in Jazz combines participant observation with detailed musicological analysis, the author's experience as a jazz trumpeter, interpretations of published material by scholars and performers, and, above all, original data from interviews with more than fifty professional musicians: bassists George Duvivier and Rufus Reid; drummers Max Roach, Ronald Shannon Jackson, and Akira Tana; guitarist Emily Remler; pianists Tommy Flanagan and Barry Harris; saxophonists Lou Donaldson, Lee Konitz, and James Moody; trombonist Curtis Fuller; trumpeters Doc Cheatham, Art Farmer, Wynton Marsalis, and Red Rodney; vocalists Carmen Lundy and Vea Williams; and others. Together, the interviews provide insight into the production of jazz by great artists like Betty Carter, Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Coleman Hawkins, and Charlie Parker.Thinking in Jazz overflows with musical examples from the 1920s to the present, including original transcriptions (keyed to commercial recordings) of collective improvisations by Miles Davis's and John Coltrane's groups. These transcriptions provide additional insight into the structure and creativity of jazz improvisation and represent a remarkable resource for jazz musicians as well as students and educators. Berliner explores the alternative ways—aural, visual, kinetic, verbal, emotional, theoretical, associative—in which these performers conceptualize their music and describes the delicate interplay of soloist and ensemble in collective improvisation. Berliner's skillful integration of data concerning musical development, the rigorous practice and thought artists devote to jazz outside of performance, and the complexities of composing in the moment leads to a new understanding of jazz improvisation as a language, an aesthetic, and a tradition. This unprecedented journey to the heart of the jazz tradition will fascinate and enlighten musicians, musicologists, and jazz fans alike.
Thinking Through Script Analysis
by Suzanne Burgoyne Patricia DowneyBurgoyne and Downey's text in Script Analysis covers all aspects of the traditional course, but in a framework that extends the subject beyond the needs of this course. <P><P>While instructing students in the process of turning a written text into a performance, it uses the broad tool of critical thinking to provide students with tools that they will then be able to use in theater as well as in their studies in other courses -- as well as in their lives. <P><P>Bringing the higher level thinking skills to script analysis enlivens the course while broadening its appeal to students who may well come from outside the theater major. <P><P> The tools brought to bear throughout the book include challenging misconceptions, structuring the thought process, drawing from everyday life examples, carefully building skills one upon another as the student masters them, encouraging students in group work, and providing direction in managing the student's thought and creative processes. <P><P>The book thus uses the scope of script analysis to improve skills in close reading, critical thinking, effective writing, productive group work, and "mental management."
Thinking Through the Arts
by Wendy SchillerThinking Through the Arts draws together a number of different approaches to teaching young children that combine the experience of thinking with the act of expression through art. Developed as an inclusive, broad-ranging and user-friendly text, Thinking Through the Arts presents the unique insight of teachers as researchers, and counters the view that art is emotionally-based and therefore irrelevant to thinking and learning. The areas covered include drama, dance, music, arts environments, technologies, museums and galleries, literacy, cognition, international influences, curriculum development, research and practice. Early childhood and primary teachers and students alike will find this book is an invaluable source of new insights for their own teaching.
Thinking Together: An E-Mail Exchange and All That Jazz
by Howard S. Becker Robert R. Faulkner Arlene Luck Larry Gross Franck Leibovici Dianne HagamanFaulkner and Becker, sociologists and experienced musicians, wrote a book about their musical experiences--Do You Know? The Jazz Repertoire in Action--describing how musicians who didn't know each other could perform competently and interestingly without rehearsing, or playing from written music. When they wrote it, they lived at opposite ends of the country: Faulkner in Massachusetts, Becker in San Francisco. Instead of sitting around talking about their ideas, they wrote e-mails. So every step of their thinking, false steps as well as ideas that worked, existed in written form.When conceptual artist and poet Franck Leibovici asked them to contribute something that showed the "form of life" that supported their work, they collaborated with Dianne Hagaman to put the correspondence in order, which Liebovici exhibited and now appears as an e-book (which allows linking to available performances of the tunes they discussed).It's one of the most revealing records of a scientific collaboration ever made public, and an intimate picture of the creative process.Collective creativity--making sparks of originality produce something more than a glint in someone's eye--intrigues sociologists, people who study communication and theorists of business organization. The collective part of that process, turning an idea into a finished product, is even more complicated, and Thinking Together readers can watch the authors go through all the complications of working together to make the final result happen.Becker played piano in Chicago and Kansas City and taught sociology at Northwestern University. Among his books are Art Worlds and Writing for Social Scientists.Faulkner played trumpet in Los Angeles, got a PhD in sociology from UCLA, then taught at the University of Rochester and the University of Massachusetts (playing professionally in those places too). He is author of two books about the movie business, Hollywood Studio Musicians and Music on Demand: Composers and Careers in the Hollywood Film Industry.
Thinking with Shakespeare: Essays on Politics and Life
by Julia Reinhard LuptonWhat is a person? What company do people keep with animals, plants, and things? Such questions—bearing fundamentally on the shared meaning of politics and life—animate Shakespearean drama, yet their urgency has often been obscured. Julia Reinhard Lupton gently dislodges Shakespeare’s plays from their historical confines to pursue their universal implications. From Petruchio’s animals and Kate’s laundry to Hamlet’s friends and Caliban’s childhood, Lupton restages thinking in Shakespeare as an embodied act of consent, cure, and care. Thinking with Shakespeare encourages readers to ponder matters of shared concern with the playwright by their side. Taking her cue from Hannah Arendt, Lupton reads Shakespeare for fresh insights into everything from housekeeping and animal husbandry to biopower and political theology.
The Third Citizen: Shakespeare's Theater and the Early Modern House of Commons (Parallax: Re-visions of Culture and Society)
by Oliver ArnoldThe new practices and theories of parliamentary representation that emerged during Elizabeth's and James' reigns shattered the unity of human agency, redefined the nature of power, transformed the image of the body politic, and unsettled constructs and concepts as fundamental as the relation between presence and absence. In The Third Citizen, Oliver Arnold argues that recovering the formation of political representation as an effective ideology should radically change our understanding of early modern political culture, Shakespeare's political art, and the way Anglo-American critics, for whom representative democracy is second nature, construe both. In magisterial readings of Titus Andronicus, Julius Caesar, Coriolanus, and the First Tetralogy, Arnold discovers a new Shakespeare who was neither a conservative apologist for monarchy nor a prescient, liberal champion of the House of Commons but instead a radical thinker and artist who demystified the ideology of political representation in the moment of its first flowering. Shakespeare believed that political representation produced (and required for its reproduction) a new kind of subject and a new kind of subjectivity, and he fashioned a new kind of tragedy to represent the loss of power, the fall from dignity, the false consciousness, and the grief peculiar to the experiences of representing and of being represented. Representationalism and its subject mark the beginning of political modernity; Shakespeare’s tragedies greet political representationalism with skepticism, bleakness, and despair.
Third Girl from the Left
by Christine Barker&“A beautifully written memoir of life on the Broadway stage at the onset of the 1980s AIDS epidemic . . . Compelling, and remarkably hopeful.&” —Mara Liasson, National Political Correspondent, NPR A moving, real-life account of making it as a dancer in New York City, embracing the changing faces of love and family, and being at ground-zero for one of the most fatal epidemics of modern times . . . Wanting to be a dancer while growing up in a large military family made Christine Barker somewhat of a black sheep, but she followed her dreams to New York City, where—in a moment of almost unbelievable good fortune—she was chosen for the London cast of A Chorus Line. London, and then New York, in the seventies and eighties opened up Christine&’s world. The creativity, culture, and nightlife were intoxicating, enough so to compel her older brother Laughlin to join her. Once there, the divorced father, veteran, and corporate lawyer met rising fashion star Perry Ellis. Romance and success soon followed—as well as rumors of a devastating new disease . . . Broadway&’s theater community is ravaged by loss as the AIDS epidemic takes hold, and Christine is shocked by the toll it&’s taken on her inner circle. Holding on tight to friends and loved ones left behind, the crisis becomes a crucible moment for her family and for all of society. And Christine is once again forced to go her own way to make sense of the tragedy.
Third Grade Wedding Bells?
by Colleen O'Shaughnessy MckennaThird grade is a big disappointment for Gordie who dreads having to kiss Lucy in the class play and despairs that his favorite teacher, Ms. Tingle, may be getting married.
The Third Part of King Henry the Sixth
by William ShakespeareThe play begins with a confrontation between Richard, Duke of York (the future King Richard III), the reigning King Henry VI and their respective supporters. Threatened with physical violence by the Earl of Warwick (Richard Neville), the king brokers a deal to make York his heir. Disgusted at his cowardice, his supporters abandon him. The Queen, Margaret of Anjou, makes it clear that she will not agree to this, and declares war on the Yorkists, with the assistance of the young Lord Clifford and other supporters, including her son, Edward, Prince of Wales.
The Third Space: Body, Voice, and Imagination
by Robert LewisThe Third Space serves a crucial need for contemporary performers by providing an interdisciplinary and physiovocal approach to training. It is a new take on body and voice integration designed to develop the holistic performer. It takes performers through a series of step-by-step practical physiovocal exercises that connects the actor’s centre to the outside world, which increases awareness of self and space. It also develops a deeper connection between spaces within the body and the environment by connecting sound, imagination, and movement.Robert Lewis’s approach is a way of working that unlocks the imagination as well as connecting performers to self, space, and imagination, through voice and body. It conditions, controls, and engages performers by integrating various voice and movement practices.The theories and practice are balanced throughout by: introducing the practical works theoretical underpinnings through research, related work, and case studies of performances; demonstrating a full program of exercises that helps performers get in touch with their centre, their space, and shape both within and outside the body; and exploring the performers physiovocal instrument and its connection with imagination, energies, and dynamics. This book is the result of nearly 20 years of research and practice working with voice and movement practitioners across the globe to develop training that produces performers that are physiovocally ready to work in theatre, screen, and emergent technologies.
The Thiri Rama: Finding Ramayana in Myanmar
by Dawn RooneyThe Thiri Rama – or the Great Rama – was written for court performance and is the only known illustrated version of the Ramayana story in Myanmar. Based on palm-leaf manuscripts and scenes carved on over 300 sandstone plaques at a mid-nineteenth-century Buddhist pagoda west of Mandalay in Myanmar, this book presents an original translation of the Thiri Rama rendered in prose. The volume also includes essays on the history and tradition of the Ramayana in Myanmar as well as the cultural context in which the play was performed. It contains many helpful resources, incorporating a glossary and a list of characters and their corresponding personae in Valmiki’s Ramayana. With over 250 fascinating visuals and core text contributions by distinguished Burmese scholars, U Thaw Kaung, Tin Maung Kyi, and U Aung Thwin, this book will greatly interest scholars and researchers of South and Southeast Asian culture, literary forms, epics, art and art history, theatre and performance studies, religion, especially those concerned with Hinduism, as well as folklorists.
Thirteen Hands And Other Plays
by Carol ShieldsWith a Foreword by the Author"Before becoming a playwright I was a novelist, and one who was often impatient with the requisite description of weather or scenery or even with the business of moving people from room to room. I was more interested in the sound of people talking to each other, reacting to each other, or leaving silences for others to fall into." -- Carol ShieldsFrom one of Canada's most beloved authors comes a collection of four works written for the stage, including her most popular and highly acclaimed play Thirteen Hands. The theatrical form allows Carol Shields' strength as a master of dialogue to shine at its brightest, as she returns to themes she explores in her prose: love, family, friendship, and the hidden meanings and larger truths found beneath the surface of the minutiae of daily life. Thirteen Hands and Other Plays is an exhilarating introduction to Shields' considerable achievements as a playwright.Departures and Arrivals (1990) dramatizes how lives are heightened and enlarged when taken within the frame of public spaces -- airports, train stations, public streets -- so that we all become, in a sense, actors. Thirteen Hands (1993), a musical, valorizes a consistently overlooked group in our society, "the blue-rinse set" -- also known as "the white glove brigade" or "the bridge club biddies" -- and has had the strongest professional run of all Shields' plays. Fashion, Power, Guilt and the Charity of Families (1995), written with her daughter, Catherine Shields, interrogates the ambivalence felt towards families, the drive we all share to find or create some kind of family, and the equally strong desire to escape the family's fury. Anniversary (1998), written with Dave Williamson, is a domestic drama of discontented, middle class suburbanites. One couple in the play are married and pretending to be close to separation. Another couple, who are separated, are pretending to be married. The additional irony is that the separated couple are still emotionally together, while the married couple have already emotionally separated.From the Trade Paperback edition.
Thirty Pieces of Silver: A Play in Three Acts
by Howard FastA couple in Washington, DC, is torn apart when a friend is accused of treasonJane and David Graham live upper-middle-class lives in mid-century Washington, DC. Jane minds the home with the help of a fulltime maid, and David works at the Treasury Department. But when the FBI visits their house one evening to ask questions about a friend&’s political beliefs, the answers the two give separately cause them both to wonder whether they truly know each other. Soon nothing is certain as the ideological fears plaguing the nation threaten to destroy Jane and David&’s family. Howard Fast&’s first play, Thirty Pieces of Silver was performed in several countries, from Australia to Europe, and offers an insightful look at the destructive power of reactionary politics in America. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Howard Fast including rare photos from the author&’s estate.
This and Other Plays
by Melissa James Gibson"Beautifully conceived, confidently executed . . . not just her finest to date, but also the best new play to open Off Broadway this fall."-The New York TimesA witty, melancholy comedy about a group of friends pushing against middle age, This is a major new work for Melissa James Gibson, best known for her boundary-challenging, linguistically delectable pieces. This volume also includes downtown cult favorites [sic] and Suitcase, and Brooklyn Bridge, a play for young audiences.Melissa James Gibson's plays include [sic] (winner of the OBIE Award for playwriting and the Kesselring Prize), Suitcase: or those that resemble flies from a distance, Brooklyn Bridge, Given Fish, and Current Nobody.
This Distracted Globe: Attending to Distraction in Shakespeare's Theatre (Elements in Shakespeare Performance)
by Jennifer J. EdwardsThis Element attends to attention drawn away. That the Globe is a 'distracted' space is a sentiment common to both Hamlet's original audience and attendees at the reconstructed theatre on London's Bankside. But what role does distraction play in this modern performance space? What do attitudes to 'distraction' reveal about how this theatre space asks and invites us to pay attention? Drawing on scholarly research, artist experience, and audience behaviour, This Distracted Globe considers the disruptive, affective, phenomenological, and generative potential of distraction in contemporary performance at the Globe.
This Is How It Goes: A Play
by Neil LaButeBelinda and Cody Phipps appear a typical Midwestern couple: teenage sweethearts, children, luxurious home. Typical except that Cody is black--"rich, black, and different," in the words of Belinda, who finds herself attracted to a former (white) classmate. As the battle for her affections is waged, Belinda and Cody frankly doubt the foundation of their initial attraction, opening the door wide to a swath of bigotry and betrayal. Staged on continually shifting moral ground that challenges our received notions about gender, ethnicity, and even love itself, This Is How It Goes unblinkingly explores the myriad ways in which the wild card of race is played by both black and white in America.
This Is How We Got Here
by Keith BarkerIt’s been a year since Paul and Lucille’s son Craig committed suicide, and their once-solid family bonds are starting to break down. While the now-separated couple tries to honour their son, Lucille’s sister Liset and her husband Jim refuse to discuss their nephew. The ties that keep the four together as sisters, best friends, and spouses are strained by grief and guilt… until a visit from a fox changes everything.
This Is Modern Art: A Play
by Idris Goodwin Kevin CovalGraffiti crews are willing to risk anything for their art. Called vandals, criminals, even creative terrorists, graffiti artists set out to make their voices heard and alter the way people view the world. But when one crew finishes the biggest graffiti bomb of their careers, the consequences get serious and spark a public debate asking, "Where does art belong?"Kevin Coval is the author of Schtick, L-vis Lives, the American Library Association "Book of the Year" Finalist Slingshots: A Hip-Hop Poetica, and an editor of The BreakBeat Poets.Idris Goodwin is a playwright, spoken-word performer, and essayist recognized across mediums by the National Endowment for the Arts, the Ford Foundation, and the Mellon Foundation.
This Is Not My Memoir
by André Gregory Todd LondonThe autobiography-of-sorts of André Gregory, an iconic figure in American theater and the star of My Dinner with AndréThis is Not My Memoir tells the life story of André Gregory, iconic theatre director, writer, and actor. For the first time, Gregory shares memories from a life lived for art, including stories from the making of My Dinner with André. Taking on the dizzying, wondrous nature of a fever dream, This is Not My Memoir includes fantastic and fantastical stories that take the reader from wartime Paris to golden-age Hollywood, from avant-garde theaters to monasteries in India. Along the way we meet Jerzy Grotowski, Helene Weigel, Gregory Peck, Gurumayi Chidvilasananda, Wallace Shawn, and many other larger-than-life personalities.This is Not My Memoir is a collaboration between Gregory and Todd London who create a portrait of an artist confronting his later years. Here, too, are the reflections of a man who only recently learned how to love. What does it mean to create art in a world that often places little value on the process of creating it? And what does it mean to confront the process of aging when your greatest work of art may well be your own life?
This Is Not My World: Art and Public Space in Socialist Zagreb
by Adair RounthwaiteA close-up history of the Yugoslav artists who broke down the boundaries between public and private In the decades leading up to the dissolution of socialist Yugoslavia, a collective of young artists based in Zagreb took to using the city&’s public spaces as a platform for radical individual expression. This Is Not My World presents a detailed account of the Group of Six Authors and their circle in the prolific and experimental period from 1975 to 1985, highlighting the friction between public and private that underlied their innovative practices. Looking to circumvent the rigid bureaucracy of official art institutions, this freewheeling group of conceptual artists and their peers brought artistic activities directly to an unwitting public by staging provocative performances, exhibiting artworks, and interacting with passersby on the streets. Exploring artworks such as Vlasta Delimar&’s act of tying herself to a tree in a busy pedestrian area, Željko Jerman&’s production of a giant banner declaring &“Intimate Inscription&” in the city&’s central square, and Vlado Martek&’s creation of an artwork on a seaside beach using women&’s underwear, Adair Rounthwaite examines the work of these artists as a site of tension between the intimacy of artistic expression and the political structure of the public sphere under state socialism. Whereas many histories of modern and contemporary art in formerly socialist countries tend to be dominated by discussions of ideology and resistance, This Is Not My World focuses its attention on the affective aspects of the group&’s activities, using artist interviews and extensive documentation to bring the reader closer to the felt experience of their public interventions. Situating the group&’s work within the context of broader developments in conceptualism and theories of the avant-garde, Rounthwaite provides a fresh consideration and newly detailed account of this marginalized episode in global art history.