The Science Fiction Film in Contemporary Hollywood
The Science Fiction Film in Contemporary Hollywoodfocuses on the American science fiction (SF) film during the period 2001-2020, in order to provide a theoretical mapping of the genre in the context of Conglomerate Hollywood. Using a social semiotics approach in a systematic corpus of films, the book argues that the SF film can be delineated by two semiotic squares -the first one centering on the genre's more-than-human ontologies (SF bodies), and the second one focusing on its imaginative worlds (SF worlds). Based on this theoretical framework, the book examines the genre in six cycles, which are placed in their historical context, and are analyzed in relation to cultural discourses, such as technological embodiment, race, animal-human relations, environmentalism, global capitalism, and the techno-scientific Empire. By considering these cycles -which include superhero films, creature films, space operas, among others-as expressions of the genre's basic oppositions, the book facilitates the comparison and juxtaposition of films that have rarely been discussed in tandem, offering a new perspective on the multiple articulations of the SF film in the new millennium.
Noh
This volume provides the reader with a comprehensive overview of the rich traditions of noh, classical Japanese dance-drama. Drawing from specialized scholarship in English and in Japanese, it takes an accessible approach useful for a range of readers, including students and researchers of Japanese culture and performing arts, as well as theatre practitioners. The introduction provides an overview, describing noh from the point of view of both the audience and the practitioner. Chapter One traces the history of noh from its origins through stages of development and formalization to the present day. Chapter Two explores the different plays in the repertoire, discussing their structures, themes, and sources. Chapter Three delves into the staging conventions of noh, introducing aspects of movement, music, and chant, as well as costumes, masks, and stage properties. To conclude, this book raises questions about the current situation of noh and explores its potential future. Since its emergence in the 14th century, noh has been appreciated by audiences ranging from the intellectual elites to the warrior class, from the Buddhist clergy to commoners. Throughout its history, noh has influenced other traditional performing arts and, since the early 20th century, it has also been a source of inspiration for theatre practitioners outside of Japan.
Disney the Art of Zootopia 2
This stunning volume of the Disney Art of series is an exclusive look behind the scenes of Walt Disney Animation Studios' original feature film, Zootopia 2. Welcome back to the world of Zootopia in this installment of the beloved Art of Disney series that tells the story behind the art and making of Zootopia 2. Here is a gorgeous art book that highlights the beautiful development art and paintings from the film's creation--including character designs, storyboards, colorscripts, and much more--and features exclusive interviews from the creative team along with behind-the-scenes details. Copyright (c) 2025 Disney Enterprises, Inc. All rights reserved. EXCLUSIVE LOOK AT ANIMATION FILMMAKING: Fans will want to delve into and explore this Walt Disney Animation Studios film through production art, stories, and making-of details exclusive to this book. ENDLESSLY GIFTABLE: The next in the fan-favorite, collectible series of Art of titles, this Disney art book is the perfect gift for Disney fans, animation students, film buffs, and more. PART OF THE FAN-FAVORITE SERIES: The collectible Art of series is perfect for animation enthusiasts, filmmakers, students, and fans of Walt Disney Animation Studios and Pixar Animation Studios. Add The Art of Zootopia 2 to the shelf with other bestselling books like The Art of Moana 2, The Art of Wish, and The Art of Encanto. Perfect for: Animators and animation students Disney fans of all ages Cinephiles and movie buffs Pop culture enthusiasts and historians Families that love watching Walt Disney Animation Studios and Pixar Animation Studios films together
Diversifying the Space of Podcasting
As the podcast studies field continues to gain momentum both within academia and in practice, scholars have been mapping and exploring the podcasting landscape from a variety of perspectives. This edited volume highlights the diverse spaces that podcasts embody and create, amplifying the unique and understudied perspectives and voices of podcasting. Through a multitude of interdisciplinary approaches, contributors explore the various cultural, racial, and identity-based markers undergirding the richness of the platform and argue that by understanding diverse content and content creators, we enrich the field of podcast studies as a whole. Scholars of media, communication, cultural, podcast, and critical race studies - among others - will find this book to be particularly useful.
From Metaphor to Direct Speech
New Drama--a collection of actors, directors, and playwrights in Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus--is one of the most active and vibrant artistic movements in the Russophone world today yet remains understudied in the West. E. Susanna Weygandt demonstrates that the major innovation of New Drama is a sonic turn, an aesthetic development that moves away from traditional, Stanislavskian embodied performance to something almost purely aural. New Drama, which began in the tumult following the collapse of the Soviet Union and continues even in an increasingly censorious Russia today, emphasizes contemporary social issues and privileges disadvantaged voices, using documentary modes to literally bring the voices of the dispossessed to the ears of the audience members. As a result, the Russophone New Dramatists speak dissent and dramatize resistance. Ultimately, they shift theatrical productions from something constrained and limited, in both place and time, to an ephemeral but unbounded gateway for social activism. The sonic stage thus effectively functions as a social forum, transposing action from the actors to the audience. From Metaphor to Direct Speech therefore contributes to cultural as well as performance studies, offering a compelling look not just at developments in theatrical modes but also at dissent and cultural aesthetics in Russia today.
Understanding Lynn Nottage
The first comprehensive study of the two-time Pulitzer-winning playwright Lynn Nottage is one of the leading innovators in American theater today. In settings ranging from seventeenth-century France (Las Meninas) to twenty-first century conflicts in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (Ruined) and at a Pennsylvania factory (Sweat), she creatively foregrounds explorations of race, gender, and class. In Understanding Lynn Nottage, Jennifer L. Hayes presents an accessible overview of Nottage's body of work to date, connecting her to other Black female playwrights and situating her in the African American literary tradition. In this character-driven study, Hayes examines how the playwright's dynamic narratives bring together diverse perspectives to address historical and contemporary issues. Hayes argues that Nottage privileges Black women's voices within vital discourse about topics such as migration, domestic terrorism, and historical erasure. This book lays essential groundwork for future study of Nottage, who will continue to be a central dramatic voice for years to come, examining social problems through complex portraits of communities struggling to balance their values with shifting societal norms.
Performative Opacity in the Work of Isabelle Huppert
Performative Opacity in the Work of Isabelle Huppert argues that the career of this singular French actor--constituting a corpus of well over a hundred films--offers a unique testing ground for current approaches in film studies and affect studies. Attention to Huppert's performances can reframe recent discussions on the social and cultural dimensions of emotion and normativity through a compelling paradox: her roles tend to express grandiose and overwhelming conditions central to debates in the humanities--negativity, dispossession, trauma--but through elusive and at times resistant or diminutive forms of expression: what J. Hoberman once called her "genius to distinguish 47 varieties of blankness." Including diverse contributions from an international line-up of established scholars, this volume examines Huppert's flat affect and other registers with an eye to their significance for cinema and media studies, queer and gender studies, star studies and world cinema.
Performative Arts and Social Transformation
What future challenges are we facing already today, what room for action needs to be secured and which impulses result from this for professional future action? Against the backdrop of social transformation processes that pose these questions, the contributors to this volume highlight current developments in the field of performing arts, asking for scientific references to the mode of crisis. Their international framing places different academic positions in an overarching discourse by bringing knowledge from different theatre traditions and cultural contexts into a dialogue.
Digital Media, Projection Design, and Technology for Theatre
Digital Media, Projection Design, & Technology for Theatre, Second Edition comprehensively details the integration of digital media and projections in theatre and live performance, providing foundational skills, best practices, and real-world applications and considerations.The book provides readers with an overview of the professional field, including current industry standards and workflows for digital media/projection design, its related aesthetics, techniques, and technologies. A practical taxonomy of digital media and how we create meaning through its use on the theatrical stage along with the essential tools and techniques for creating and executing digital content are covered. Readers are introduced to the fundamentals of creating and executing digital content, including photography and still images, generative AI, video, animation, real-time effects, generative art, data, and interactive digital media. The book also details the types and use of industry-standard equipment, including media servers, projectors, projection surfaces, emissive displays, cameras, sensors, and more. It guides readers through technical tasks, such as programming media servers; converging and blending projectors; projection mapping; calculating surface brightness/luminance, screen size, and throw distance; and more, making this a complete guide to digital media and projection design today. The second edition is updated with new content throughout and two new chapters addressing the latest technologies and trends in virtual performance, motion capture, generative AI, and VR/AR. Ten new case studies from diverse practitioners have been added, and the book is restructured with shorter chapters for easier navigation and reference.This book serves well as a main or supplemental textbook for courses in projection design, theatre, and digital media design. It is also useful for emerging practitioners.Sample assets and interviews with leading projection designers are available for download at www.routledge.com/9781032302157.
Ballplayers on Stage
Since before the turn of the twentieth century, baseball greats have captivated audiences both on the diamond and the stage. Gracing the world of melodrama with their theatrical presence during the offseason, their forays into professional theater opened a portal between two distinct worlds of performance and entertainment that would shape the future of both. In Ballplayers on Stage, Travis Stern explores the relationship between professional baseball and professional theater in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In particular, he argues that examining theater from this era helps us better understand baseball's development and its transformation from a strictly working-class attraction to an entertainment that attracted interest from America's emerging middle class. Baseball players' theatrical productions drew audiences from the baseball world, and in turn their performances on the diamond began to attract middle-class crowds. But how did the on-field persona of those players as heroes or villains contribute to their image in the theater, and vice versa? To explore these questions, Stern examines case studies of five representative players from baseball's pre-Babe Ruth "deadball" era: Cap Anson, Mike "King" Kelly, Christy Mathewson, Ty Cobb, and Rube Waddell, with a concluding study of Babe Ruth himself. While one draw of theatrical performance was the additional profit it promised the players during the off-season, the stage also offered these men an opportunity to take a more active role in shaping their public image. Thus, Ballplayers on Stage not only offers a historical study of baseball, theater, and the relationship between the two; it also shares insight into the creation of celebrity in early twentieth-century America. This unique book will interest American history scholars, baseball fans, and theater enthusiasts alike.
Chinese Animation
Chinese Animation: Multiplicities in Motion is the first edited volume that explores the multiple histories, geographies, industries, technologies, media, and transmedialities of Chinese animation, from early animated special effects to socialist classics, from computer-generated-imagery (CGI) blockbusters to edgy independent films, and from stop-motion to virtual reality. Its fifteen chapters, grouped under the five themes of junctures, gender, identities, digitality, and practices, span a century of animation since the 1920s across mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, and the diasporic world. Derived from the 2021 Inaugural Conference of the Association for Chinese Animation Studies (ACAS), this volume as a whole defines Chinese animation studies as a new field of research emerging from the peripheries of modern Chinese literature and film studies on the one hand, and from the margins of Western and Japanese animation studies on the other. Incorporating diverse academic approaches and perspectives, this groundbreaking book is an indispensable guide for a rapidly growing community of scholars, students, animators, fans, and general readers interested in Chinese and world animation.
Music in Orbit
Years before the advent of music streaming, Sirius and XM established satellite radio services that attracted paying subscribers through their ever-expanding lineup of niche music channels and exclusive celebrity-hosted programming. Music in Orbit is the first book to explore how satellite radio bridges legacy broadcast music radio and streaming platforms, serving as both precursor and integral player in today's streaming media environment. Arguing for the ongoing significance of radio in the digital age and the pernicious effects of monopoly power on the vibrancy of contemporary music industries, Music in Orbit offers essential context for the serious problems now facing working musicians, music consumers, and music communities.
Yollop
Yollop by George Barr McCutcheon is a satirical comedy that offers a sharp critique of American politics and social issues. Set in the early 20th century, the novel revolves around a fictional presidential campaign, providing a humorous and insightful commentary on political intrigue and corruption. Through its clever plot and memorable characters, Yollop explores the absurdities and ethical dilemmas of the political process. McCutcheon uses humor to illuminate the complexities and often questionable practices within American politics, showcasing the impact of electoral dynamics on both individuals and society. The book is a character-driven narrative that blends satire with social commentary, reflecting on the broader implications of political ambition and manipulation. Yollop stands out for its witty examination of election politics and its engaging portrayal of the eccentricities that shape political life, making it a notable work in the genre of political satire.
The Wheels of Chance A Bicycling Idyll
The Wheels of Chance: A Bicycling Idyll by H. G. Wells is a charming comedic adventure set in the English countryside. The novel follows the journey of an ordinary man who sets out on a bicycling tour, seeking freedom and escape from his routine life. As he pedals through idyllic landscapes, his journey becomes a delightful exploration of the social satire and humor inherent in his encounters. Along the way, he experiences both comedic and romantic adventures, highlighting the whimsical aspects of cycling and travel. Wells's portrayal of the 19th-century English countryside is both vivid and picturesque, emphasizing the leisure and personal growth found in the simple pleasure of bicycling. Through its engaging narrative and humorous observations, the book offers a lighthearted yet insightful look at the contrasts between societal expectations and individual desires, all set against the backdrop of a charming cycling adventure.
Pet Sematary
Most scholarship on Mary Lambert's Pet Sematary (1989) overarchingly focuses on the Stephen King novel (1983), and tends strongly towards housing the story within the Gothic literary tradition. The film itself is often absent from considerations of North American horror cinema of the 1980s, and from wider horror scholarship in general. This Devil's Advocate stands as a corrective, and provides a holistic analysis - textual, contextual, and industrial - of the film, in order to properly situate it as an important entry into the history of horror cinema.This book joins a growing body of works - both journalistic and academic - that aim to revisit older films in order to call attention to and/or redress the gendered imbalance in our written horror histories. McMurdo charges Pet Sematary with several contributions to the horror genre: as an important entry within the tradition of "grief horror"; as a horror film that both adheres to and defies the generic conventions of its historical context, one both engaged with and respondent to its time of creation; as a film that changed the fortunes of the cinematic Stephen King "brand" on the cusp of a new decade. Pet Sematary is the highest grossing horror film directed by a woman in cinematic history, and it stands as a story that we keep returning to - as seen by the 1992 sequel, the 2019 remake, and a forthcoming prequel. Pet Sematary's modern relevance and importance to genre history then, is manifold, and this book argues it is past time for its reconsideration as a classic of horror cinema.
A Perfect Fool A Novel
A Perfect Fool: A Novel by Florence Warden is a gripping mystery that blends crime fiction with psychological drama. Set in early 20th-century England, the novel explores themes of intrigue and suspense, offering readers a compelling whodunit filled with plot twists and hidden motives. Warden's storytelling skillfully incorporates detective elements and character study, creating a rich narrative that delves into the complexities of social dynamics and human behavior. The novel's suspenseful atmosphere keeps readers on edge, as the characters navigate a web of deceit and crime. With its intricate plot and engaging suspense, A Perfect Fool exemplifies Warden's talent for crafting thrilling tales that captivate and challenge the reader. The book's exploration of psychological depth and crime elements, coupled with its early 20th-century setting, makes it a standout example of classic mystery fiction.
The Performance Studies Reader
Now in its fourth edition, The Performance Studies Reader continues to offer an unparalleled selection of work by the foremost scholars in this continually evolving field, offering a stimulating introduction to the crucial debates of performance studies.
Shipping Out
Shipping Out: Race, Performance, and Labor at Sea provides a rare perspective on performance by staff above and below deck on Caribbean cruise ships, as viewed through the lenses of race, class, and gender. Drawing on her experiences as a destination lecturer on Caribbean cruise lines for twenty years, Anita Gonzalez offers a unique viewpoint as she examines contemporary Caribbean cruise culture as an ethnographically complex site where North American and European travelers are exposed to other cultures through the orchestrated experiences on ship, and via excursions to ports. Gonzales argues that the cruise ship experience is deliberately crafted to deliver the best immersive performance by its workers. However, the workers never leave the theater, they merely move below deck--and like ships' stewards and cooks from previous centuries, they work within an imaginary where Global Majority people are envisioned as servants. By utilizing ethnography and archival materials to illustrate ship workers' experiences on contemporary cruise ships, and then contrasting those circumstances with the personal accounts of workers on historical merchant ships, Shipping Out illuminates how workers' presence on ships complicates notions of freedom and enslavement, home and journey, place and space.
Capitalism Hates You
What contemporary horror films teach us about the cruelties of capitalist societyCapitalism Hates You uses the horror film genre as a tool to diagnose and expose the hostile conditions of life under capitalism. Through incisive critical analyses of popular films such as Get Out, Drag Me to Hell, Hereditary, The Babadook, and many others, Joshua Gooch draws connections between Marxist theory and contemporary narratives of psychological unease. Gooch highlights the work of women, trans, and nonwhite filmmakers to show how the remarkable diversity of twenty-first-century horror cinema can provide an expansive catalog of capitalism's varying forms of oppression. Studying films that interrogate such urgent topics as gentrification, climate change, and reproductive labor, he demonstrates how contemporary horror films give affective shape to the negative undercurrents of our present socioeconomic system. Capitalism Hates You argues that these films and their material conditions can deepen our understanding of essential concepts in contemporary Marxism, from the theory of value and changing forms of commodification to the labor of social reproduction, the abolition of the family, and the necessity of ecosocialism. Synthesizing various strands of Marxist thought, Gooch sheds light on the growing field of socially conscious horror films, examining how they pinpoint and exaggerate latent feelings of dread and discomfort to reflect the ills of society. Retail e-book files for this title are screen-reader friendly with images accompanied by short alt text and/or extended descriptions.
Capitalism Hates You
What contemporary horror films teach us about the cruelties of capitalist societyCapitalism Hates You uses the horror film genre as a tool to diagnose and expose the hostile conditions of life under capitalism. Through incisive critical analyses of popular films such as Get Out, Drag Me to Hell, Hereditary, The Babadook, and many others, Joshua Gooch draws connections between Marxist theory and contemporary narratives of psychological unease. Gooch highlights the work of women, trans, and nonwhite filmmakers to show how the remarkable diversity of twenty-first-century horror cinema can provide an expansive catalog of capitalism's varying forms of oppression. Studying films that interrogate such urgent topics as gentrification, climate change, and reproductive labor, he demonstrates how contemporary horror films give affective shape to the negative undercurrents of our present socioeconomic system. Capitalism Hates You argues that these films and their material conditions can deepen our understanding of essential concepts in contemporary Marxism, from the theory of value and changing forms of commodification to the labor of social reproduction, the abolition of the family, and the necessity of ecosocialism. Synthesizing various strands of Marxist thought, Gooch sheds light on the growing field of socially conscious horror films, examining how they pinpoint and exaggerate latent feelings of dread and discomfort to reflect the ills of society. Retail e-book files for this title are screen-reader friendly with images accompanied by short alt text and/or extended descriptions.
Transnational Horror
Adopting a multi-method critical approach to the global revival of folklore-themed horror media, Transnational Horror contests Anglophone film scholarship's widespread adherence to its own film-historical canons. Navigating alternative meanings of 'folk horror' and locating these meanings within a transnational framework, the volume proposes a curatorial paradigm of critical transnationalism in the study of global film cultures and genre formations. The book proposes an alternative genealogy of horror media: a genealogy that decolonises, in provincialising, the dominant film-historical canons associated with the horror genre, and contributes to the formation of a transnational field of horror criticism that troubles the normative geopolitics of canonisation in film and genre studies. Through diverse accounts of scale and regionality as categorical markers of screen media, the contributors to the volume develop critical tools to address the mobility of 'folk horror' as mode and as genre, which operates within and beyond the normative registers of national belonging.
Designing with Light
Now in its eighth edition, Designing with Light introduces readers to the art, craft, and technology of stage lighting to help them create designs that shape the audience's emotional reaction to--and understanding of--a stage production.This new edition is fully updated to include current information on the technology and equipment of stage lighting: lighting fixtures, lamps, cabling, dimmers, control boards, and LED tape, as well as electrical theory. Readers will learn how designed light is used to enhance the audience's understanding and enjoyment of a production. The book includes specific information on drafting the light plot, explores the challenges of designing for different stage configurations, and provides examples of lighting designs for dramas, musicals, and dance. It also features comments and thoughts from active designers from both mainstream theatrical productions and related industries, and has a new emphasis on diversity and inclusion-related practices and language.Written for students of lighting design and technology as well as professional technicians and designers, Designing with Light offers a comprehensive survey of the practical and aesthetic aspects of stage lighting design.
Applied Theatre
Applied Theatre: Voice is a unique exploration of the conceptual and practical understandings of voice in relation to applied theatre. Voice is fundamental to much practice that takes place in applied and community performance and is regularly the go-to word to articulate community involvement and engagement, be that in terms of creativity, or social, cultural and political activity. Yet often in these references, the preciseness of what we mean by voice is lost. Is voice in applied theatre simply another word for representation, as in 'finding' or 'giving' voice? Or is voice also referring to the material, sonic and embodied phenomenon of human communication, when we consider the relationship between voice, performance and social justice? In this book, voice in applied theatre is critically examined in a range of practical case studies, discussing both its symbolic and material function, demonstrating the necessity of considering both when working in applied and community spaces. In Part One, voice as a concept is introduced, discussing recent theorizations of voice and why they are significant to applied theatre. Part Two introduces the case studies, exploring divergent understandings of why the voice matters in community practice.
Acting in Aotearoa
This comprehensive text traces a cultural history of acting practice in Aotearoa/New Zealand, whose Indigenous Māori practitioners have made a significant impact on acting processes, principles and values in this postcolonial nation.Each chapter outlines not only historical aspects of acting in Aotearoa but also the way in which the phenomenon of acting has been modified by contingent local conditions. Interwoven into each chapter is a consideration of cultural, political and historical forces that have influenced the art form of acting in Aotearoa. Chapters include vivid personal accounts from the contributors, all of whom are also professional artists as well as scholarly experts in their fields. Interweaving the chapters are interviews with key practitioners and actors, which provide eloquent, first-hand accounts of current innovative actor training practice.Representing a wide range of approaches to acting and actor training for stage and screen, this book will be of use to scholars, students and theatre practitioners alike.
Live Performance and Video Games
Narrative strategies, immersion, interaction, participation, identification, multimodality, characters and the connection between physical and fictional or virtual worlds: the fields of inquiry into the complex relationship between live performance and video games are numerous and diverse. For the first time, this collection brings together international researchers and artists to explore this relationship in a variety of essays. The contributors to this volume focus on reciprocal inspirations, appropriations and transfers applied by theatre artists, game designers and researchers. They analyze several artistic forms such as VR performance, immersive theatre, speedrunning or game theatre.
Time Lords and Star Cops
British science fiction television of the 1970s and 1980s is full of Machiavellian protagonists and fatalistic endings. It presents a complex world of moral and ethical dilemmas, appropriate to the emerging political landscape of Thatcherite Britain. This book analyses the science fiction series of the period - including Blake's 7, Doctor Who and Sapphire & Steel - alongside Britain's transition from social-democracy to neoliberal economics and the premiership of Margaret Thatcher. It examines the abrupt shifts in themes and tone that these series often exhibit compared to their predecessors, highlighting comparisons to the similarly abrupt change in Britain's political landscape.
Antifascism and the Avant-Garde
Leftist filmmakers of the 1960s revolutionized the art of documentary. Often inspired by the radical art of the Soviet 1920s, filmmakers in countries like France and Japan dared to make film form a powerful weapon in the fight against fascism, weaving fiction into nonfiction and surrealism with neorealism to rupture everyday ways of being, seeing, and thinking. Through careful readings of Matsumoto Toshio, Jean-Luc Godard, Chris Marker, Agn癡s Varda, Hani Susumu, and others, Julia Alekseyeva shows that avant-garde documentary films of the 1960s did not strive to inoculate the viewer with the ideology of Truth but instead aimed to unveil and estrange, so that viewers might approach capitalist, imperialist, and fascist media with critical awareness. Antifascism and the Avant-Garde thus provides a transnational ecology of antifascist art that resonates profoundly with our current age.
The Merchant of Venice
This early work of Shakespeare is considered to be the finest and most thought-provoking of all comedies of his time. Being so, it carries the universal theme of good triumphing over evil, as it depicts the interplay of vengeance and shrewdness. Antonio, the merchant of Venice borrows money from the money-obsessed loan shark Shylock to help his friend Bassanio marry Portia, his lady love. He in fact offers himself as collateral for the loan, agreeing to Shylock's terms-to cut a pound of flesh from his body- on failure to repay the loan, and now Shylock demands his flesh. Portia comes to Antonio's rescue. How she outwits Shylock forms the rest of the story. The play can be well studied as a commentary on the racial and religious interactions of the English society of the 16th century. In terms of themes, the play reiterates along its course, the divine qualities of mercy and compassion that lie beneath the flesh.
The Paris Manuscript
In the early 1930s, during his first years of exile and 20 years before the publication of his seminal work To the Actor, Michael Chekhov made his first incursion into the challenging task of writing about an actor's experience and his vision of the craft. This important, though largely forgotten, work (the so-called 'Paris Manuscript') was handwritten in German and in it we find Chekhov laying the groundwork for the canon of exercises and practices that, nearly a century later, has widely become known as the Michael Chekhov Technique. Although never completed, the manuscript affords a privileged fly-on-the-wall glimpse of the dawning of an artistic genius's creative vision. This manuscript was the result of Chekhov's rich collaboration with Swiss theatre director, painter and illustrator Georgette Boner, and the text itself is supplemented with facsimile scans of manuscript pages, photographs, correspondence and other material from Boner's personal archive. As the popularity of the Michael Chekhov Technique continues to spread globally, the 'Paris Manuscript' offers a timely invitation for actors to take a step back and (re)discover for themselves the structural foundations of Michael Chekhov's vision. Chekhov's text has been translated, edited and abridged by Hugo Moss, co-founder and director of Michael Chekhov Brasil, who has written an introduction and a series of short essays, 'Reflections From the Studio', which build on a few key elements emerging from the manuscript and over a decade of exploring Chekhov's artistic legacy in the studio environment and in performance.
Marvel Studios' the Infinity Saga - Guardians of the Galaxy: The Art of the Movie
The official art book for the movie Guardians of the Galaxy, the 9th title reissue of the 22-book Marvel Studios: The Infinity Saga series published as a resized matching set. The 9th of the 22 Marvel Cinematic Universe Infinity Saga film titles being published as a completeset.This fully illustrated tome is a comprehensive behind-the-scenes look at the creative process of the Marvel blockbuster. Follow the film's complete artistic evolution, featuring stunning conceptartwork, behind-the-scenes photographs, production stills, and in-depth interviews with the cast and crew.Here is everything you need to know about the film from its key players, including director James Gunn, co-producer Jonathan Schwartz, executive producer Jeremy Latcham, head of visual development Charlie Wen, along with the talented concept illustrators and storyboard artists whoworked on the set and behind the scenes to create the art of Guardians of the Galaxy.
Kieslowski's Decalogue
Written and produced under martial law in 1980's Communist Poland, Krzysztof Kieślowski's Decalogue presents a collective portrait of a demoralized nation populated by gloomy individualists" who respond to other people with antagonism or indifference. Feeling betrayed by a history of brutal invasions, the series' characters struggle to cast off a legacy of a bitterness that has arisen because their national hopes have been so frequently shattered. Yet the central questions that animate The Decalogue are not political but ethical and ontological: How should one live? And why should one live at all in an atomized civilization? In exploring these questions in relation to the Ten Commandments, the series' unifying principle is, paradoxically, disintegration: Kieślowski's protagonists break the Commandments in a fractured world drained of meaning. Disintegration functions as a multidimensional principle-moral, historical, social, and psychological-informing The Decalogue's conception, organization, and style. In analyzing these features the study draws on a wide range of philosophical, literary and psychoanalytic inter-texts.
Immersive Storytelling and Spectatorship in Theatre, Museums, and Video Games
Immersive Storytelling and Spectatorship in Theatre, Museums, and Video Games is the first volume to explore immersion as it is experienced in all three of these storytelling forms: the theatre, museums and historic sites, and video games.
Adoption Reckonings
This book presents a new theater play, For Three Refrigerators and a Washing Machine, along with a thorough introduction that provides historical context and theoretical framing. The play with the enigmatic title tells the poignant and forgotten stories of international child adoptions from Greece in the 1950s and the 1960s. It offers an in-depth exploration of the first postwar mass international adoption movement, unveiling the emotional and even existential challenges faced by those involved. Based on an authentic playscript, the book creates awareness about what has not been said, should be said, but still cannot be said about the losses involved in the permanent uprooting of children and teenagers. It tackles the primal questions of "Where do I come from?" and "What happened to the child I relinquished for adoption abroad?" And why did nobody foresee that adopted children become adopted adults who ask critical questions about origins, procedures, and aftercare? Thus, the book boldly reflects on the complexities and profound losses associated with displacing children and perpetuating taboos. Also, it reveals multiple connections to similar adoption movements worldwide, which include countries (and histories) of origin such as Ireland, South Korea, Vietnam, and several states in Central and South America. This thought-provoking book poses critical questions about identity and belonging that far exceed the Greek setting and continue to be relevant today.
A start To Blues Harmonica
Inspired By The Blues At A young Age Anthony started Playing The Harmonica At Around The age of 14. Encouraged By This, His Father set out to Buy Him A Sonny Terry & Brownie Mcgee Album for him To Listen To . Wow That was It He was Hooked On the Blues Harp and played his way Into the Blues Scene Him self with A career In Music And Entertainment for well over 20 years .After a few years Of Effort In trying To master The Blues Harp Anthony Decided to write, A how to play Book . Well with 25 YEARS of playing Live all around the world with Bands such as The Seekers, Clannad, and many more . This is his Book and I believe it will Provide you with what you need to know about Beginning Blues Harp . I find There is nothing Better than sitting around with friends who are able to join in on your Music, and the Harp is Fantastic for that . So Jump In and always Remember To Enjoy yourself while Learning .... Good Luck THE BOOKS AUDIO IS FREE AT YOUTUBE A START TO BLUES HARMONICA AUDIO https: //youtu.be/dy3eSzkWiE4?si=46HuMitS9f9a5NLN
Slow Train Coming: Bob Dylan's Girl from the North Country and Broadway's Rebirth
The incredible journey of a musical from potential disaster to success, and the Broadway industry that managed to stay alive during the pandemic shutdown of 2020-22. Despite historic, seemingly insurmountable setbacks of four openings, Bob Dylan and Conor McPherson's musical Girl from the North Country became a critical Broadway hit. Hailed as an experience "as close as mortals come to heaven on earth," by The New York Times, the musical weaves two dozen songs from the legendary catalogue of Bob Dylan into a story of Duluth during the Great Depression, to create a future American classic. Opening on Broadway in the middle of an unprecedented moment, Slow Train Coming is a book about pressing on in the face of extreme adversity. Todd Almond's behind-the-scenes oral history weaves his personal first-hand account of starring in the show with exclusive interviews and reflections from fellow cast members and the creative team. Together they follow the show from its beginnings at New York's Public Theater where it emerged as an underdog-of-a-show, through a fraught jump to Broadway against a backdrop of the emerging Covid-19 pandemic and the longest shutdown in Broadway history, which resulted in the theatre industry's subsequent fight for survival. Told through personal stories, anecdotes from the cast, production shots, behind-the-scenes photos, and insights from the creators, this book is both an inside look at a perilous moment of one of America's proudest institutions, Broadway, and a true story of American grit and determination lived by the company of this quirky musical-that-could.
Foundations of Stage Makeup
Foundations of Stage Makeup, Second Edition is a comprehensive exploration into the creative world of stage makeup.Step-by-step makeup applications paired with textual content create an enriching experience for future performers and makeup artists. Students will learn relevant history, color theory, makeup sanitation processes, and the use of light and shadow to engage in discussions about the aspects of professional makeup. Those foundations are then paired with a semester's worth of descriptive, engaging makeup applications. Old age makeup, blocking out eyebrows, gory burns, and creating fantastical creatures are just a few of the rewarding techniques found in Foundations of Stage Makeup. This new edition features new chapters on basic prosthetic appliction and animal makeup, new information on historical makeup use, updates pertaining to industry-wide standards and practices, new images, and updated supporting material.This is the perfect book to use in Introduction to Stage Makeup courses.Foundations of Stage Makeup is complemented by makeup tutorials, a printable makeup chart, and an instructor's manual with example assignments and tips to teaching each chapter, available at www.routledge.com/9781032664200.
European Drama and Performance Studies 2024-2,23
Contributeurs: Guida Candido Silva, Sabine Chaouche, Jan Clarke, Nathalie Coutelet, Marie Duveau, Theo Gibert, Joao Pedro Gomes, Laurene Hasle, Debra Kelly, Silvia Manciati, Thomas Marti, Erika Natalia Molina-Garcia, Francois Remond, Clara Sadoun-Edouard et Emilia Wilton-Godberfforde.
Livecasting in Twenty-First-Century British Theatre
This significant contribution to the study of the live and recorded broadcasting of stage plays focuses on National Theatre Live a decade after its launch in 2009. Assessing livecasting through the concepts of spectacle, materiality and engagement, it examines the role played by audiences in livecasting. Illustrated by in-depth analyses of recent NT Live shows, including A Midsummer Night's Dream (2019), Antony and Cleopatra (2018) and Small Island (2019), the book is complemented by insights from practitioners involved in the making of the livecasts. Finally, livecasting is contextualized within recently emerged forms of Covidian (virtual) theatre during the pandemic in order to offer some thoughts on the future of the genre of theatrical performance. Combining lively analyses of recent theatre performances with auto-ethnographic accounts, Heidi Lucja Liedke turns to 20th-century thinkers such as Walter Benjamin and Bertolt Brecht in order to understand livecasting's place in a continuum of developments taking place on the borders of media, film and performance for the past 100 years. As well as embedding livecasting in its historical context of 19th-century electrophone technology, Liedke assesses its position in contemporary discourses on the meaning of theatre for spectators in the pre- and post-pandemic moment, and points towards the form's future.
Staging Change
Exploring a wide variety of examples of activist performances, such as David Buckel's self-immolation, and the January 6th capitol insurrection, this book analyses activist performance through the lens of postdramatic theatre theory. Staging Change poses the provocative question: are activists addicted to drama? Scrimer examines the ways in which the performance and reception of protest is informed by the logic of dramatic theatre, and argues that such performative arrangements are so naturalized that they can limit the ability of activists and their audiences to imagine different ways of precipitating change. By combining performance analysis, interviews with artists and activists, and autoethnographic accounts of the author's own experiences as an environmental activist, the book illustrates the limitations and alternatives to dramatic representation in activist performance. The last decade has seen an increase in political demonstrations worldwide, particularly following the excitement and disappointments of the Arab Spring uprisings. We have seen several notable movements such as the Occupy movement, the mobilization of Black Lives Matter, and the #MeToo movement. In response, scholars, artists, and activists from diverse disciplines have produced an exciting array of practical and theoretical approaches for talking about and thinking through activism. Utilizing these interdisciplinary approaches, Scrimer offers us a theoretical inquiry into the possible applications of Hans-Thies Lehmann's postdramatic theatre theory in the context of political activism, and subsequently extends an alternative conceptual model for activist performance beyond the dramatic paradigm.
The Theatre of Paula Vogel
In this volume, Lee Brewer Jones examines Paula Vogel as both a playwright and renowned teacher, analyzing texts and early reviews of Vogel's major plays-including Indecent, Desdemona, How I Learned to Drive, and The Baltimore Waltz-before turning attention to her influence upon other major American playwrights, including Sarah Ruhl, Lynn Nottage, and Quiara Alegr穩a Hudes. Chapters explore Vogel's plays in chronological order, consider her early influences and offer detailed accounts of her work in performance. Enriched by an interview with Lynn Nottage and essays from scholars Ana Fern獺ndez-Caparr籀s and Amy Muse, this is a vibrant exploration of Paula Vogel as a major American playwright. By the time Paula Vogel made her Broadway debut with her 2017 Rebecca Taichman collaboration Indecent, she was already an accomplished playwright, with a Pulitzer Prize for How I Learned to Drive (1998) and two Obie Awards. She had also enjoyed a brilliant career as a professor at Brown and Yale with students such as Sarah Ruhl, a MacArthur "Genius" Grant winner, Pulitzer Prize winners Nilo Cruz, Quiara Alegr穩a Hudes, and the only woman to win two Pulitzers for Drama, Lynn Nottage. Vogel's theatre draws upon Russian Formalist Viktor Shklovsky and uses devices such as "defamiliarization" and "negative empathy" to challenge conventional definitions of protagonists and antagonists.
Actors' and Performers' Yearbook 2025
The 20th anniversary edition of this celebrated performing arts industry yearbook. This well-established and respected directory supports actors in their training and search for work in theatre, film, TV, radio and comedy. It is the only directory to provide detailed information for each listing and specific advice on how to approach companies and individuals, saving hours of further research. From agents and casting directors to producing theatres, showreel companies, photographers and much more, this essential reference book editorially selects only the most relevant and reputable contacts for the industry. Covering training and working in theatre, film, radio, TV and comedy, it contains invaluable resources such as a casting calendar and articles on a range of topics from your social media profile to what drama schools are looking for to financial and tax issues. With the listings updated every year, the Actors' and Performers' Yearbook continues to be the go-to guide for help with auditions, interviews and securing/sustaining work within the industry. Actors' and Performers' Yearbook 2025 is fully updated and includes a new foreword by Artistic Director and Chief Executive of The Big House Theatre Company, Maggie Norris, and four new industry new interviews, giving timely advice in response to today's fast-changing industry landscape.
The Chastitute
'A Chastitute is a person without holy orders who has never lain down with a woman . . . a rustic celibate by force of circumstance peculiar to countrysides where the Catholic tradition of long-life sexual abstemiousness is encouraged and . . . free-range sex is absolutely taboo . . .' John Bosco, who hasn't the 'makings of a dacent sin in him', is a bachelor farmer and all is searching for is a plain decent woman to share his life. He 'nearly got there thousand times but nearly never bulled a cow'. The two things which militated most against his endeavours with the opposite sex were Missionaries and Townies.
Silent Trade
Silent Trade is a highly relevant contemporary play set in Belfast about Precious, a young Nigerian woman, who is trafficked into domestic servitude in a suburban house, before being sexually trafficked to a brothel. Eventually, she escapes to freedom and encounters the justice system. This play was inspired by engagement with organizations who deal with human trafficking, and with members of the Nigerian community who have knowledge and experience of exploitation.
