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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Criss-Cross
Take a deep dive into the shadows and light of one of the most subversive, corrosively funny, and beloved suspense thriller masterworks as author Stephen Rebello unravels for the very first time the tense and drama-filled story of the making Alfred Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train. As entertaining as it is to watch Strangers on a Train, so too is the previously untold backstory that packs all the suspense, drama, and twists of a thriller. After all, what are the hallmarks of a great Hitchcock movie? A larger-than-life, complex cast of characters, each with something to prove, lose, or hide. Check. Tremendous risk, outsized conflict, and emotion as those men and women confront challenges off the set. Check. Feuds, deceptions, unlikely alliances, and double-crosses. Check. Coming off a 5-year-string of flops, Alfred Hitchcock gambled big on adapting Patricia Highsmith's debut novel, which critics called "preposterous" and "unconvincing," in addition to "unsavory," and "sick" (1950s code words for "gay" and "perverted"). Each step of the production was fraught with battles, but Hitchcock masterfully stayed two steps ahead of his opponents as he fought to bring his vision to life. Strangers on a Train became not only a creative high-water mark and box-office smash for Hitchcock, but also kicked off his unmatched decade of classics including Dial M for Murder, Rear Window, Vertigo, North by Northwest, and Psycho. Richly documented, meticulously researched, and stylishly written, Criss-Cross is more than an authoritative film book. It is a portrait of an especially politically paranoid, misogynistic, and homophobic era in America, a time of dramatic transition in the entertainment industry, and a day of reckoning for Alfred Hitchcock and a few other talents with whom he made a dark, resonant, and prescient work of art.
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.
The Biology of Science Fiction Cinema, 2d ed.
Science fiction cinema has dramatically affected the perception of science by the general population. If science fiction and actual science sometimes seem at odds, they importantly share the elements of curiosity, creativity and imagination--and there are many examples of yesterday's science fiction becoming today's science. This book explores the imaginative elements of biology seen in 20th century science fiction films. Written by a professional scientist and science fiction lover, this second edition includes recent updates of biomedical science and science fiction cinema. It covers different categories of biology, biochemistry (or molecular biology), and medicine, each subcategorized into chapters such as cell biology, hematology, and dermatology. Within each chapter are several film examples explaining the biological sciences principles involved, what is right and what is wrong with the science, and what changes could be made for the science of the film to become a reality.
Monsters and Monstrosity in 21st-Century Film and Television
onsters seem to be here to stay. Though we have left belief in the supernatural and "realness" of monsters in the past, we continue to craft monstrous narratives which delve into the depths of the human subconscious. In certain cases, we love to love the monster. In others, we bond over mutual desire to see it conquered, vanquished. The inherent mutability of the monster provides us with endless opportunities to reimagine, reenvision, and reencounter these creatures. This volume contains discussions and dissections of monsters across multiple media and geographical origins. However, the notable shifts in how we engage monsters and monstrosity feature heavily in this text. Our contributors tackle resurrections of previous series and conversations through films like Jurassic World and Krampus. Others gravitate towards the rebirth of some of the older, tried and true monsters like the vampire and the zombie, including analyses of Pride and Prejudice + Zombies, The Originals, The Vampire Diaries, iZombie, and Teen Wolf--all of which reinterpreted and reinvented these creatures for the modern audience. While the text serves to address these new iterations of the "Classic" monsters in the canon, others take a look at stranger, more fringe monster narratives like Pan's Labyrinth, The Village, or even the very real parasitic monstrosities of Monsters Inside Me. Though many of these chapters will analytically address particular texts, like the long-running series Supernatural, others will take on the metanarrative surrounding trends within monster studies, such as the construction of identity, creation or representation of the soul, or the ongoing questions of authorship and agency within a particular story world. In its entirety, this volume endeavors to examine how 21st-century media presents and contends with the body and mind of the monster. What do they reveal about us culturally, individually, as a community? What can we learn from them?
Brain Acrobatics Level 2
This activity book is designed for children aged 10 and above, with over 300 fun activities and puzzles to keep them engaged. The activities include cancellation, coding, anagrams, unscrambling words, coloring, mazes, word searches, crosswords, cross numbers, logic puzzles, odd-one-out, pattern puzzles, quizzes, and more. These tasks are carefully chosen to help improve skills like attention, concentration, quick thinking, memory, hand-eye coordination, and problem-solving.The book is planned for 31 days, with tasks that get harder as the days go by. The activities on the first day are simple, and they gradually become more challenging, helping children learn and grow step by step. The tasks are made to be easy to follow, fun, and interesting, so kids stay motivated.To make it even more exciting, the book includes fun facts to boost general knowledge. It's a great way for children to have fun while sharpening their minds!
Videotapes from Hell
A jubilant celebration of the greatest VHS cover art in all its gory, glory -- which inspired, scared, and delighted generations of movie-goers.For anyone who frequented a video store in the '80s or '90s, the styles are instantly recognizable: surprisingly beautiful paintings of fanged and winged monsters; ridiculously lurid depictions of young men and women in peril; illustrations so incompetently drawn as to qualify as outsider art; absurdly overstuffed photomontages. The home video revolution was accompanied by an explosion of all kinds of cover art, embodying the anything-goes ethos of an era when obscure, cheaply produced movies--usually with supernatural storylines and bottom-drawer special effects--could be distributed throughout the world and watched from the comfort of one's living room. Videotapes from Hell provides a fascinating illustrated history of VHS cover art in all its glory, from direct-to-video oddities to major studio releases. Drawing on the expansive collection of world-renowned horror expert Stephen Jones, it collects nearly 500 pieces of period artwork, accompanied by detailed captions that give the history of the movie and its release dates in video format. In addition to front-cover images and full-sleeve spreads, it includes examples of promotional posters and freestanding original artwork that was incorporated into box designs.Including a foreword from beloved cult director Joe Dante (Gremlins, The 'Burbs) and commentary from horror luminaries such as Ramsey Campbell, Mick Garris, Stephen King and many more, Videotapes from Hell is a garish and jubilant celebration of a lost genre ripe for rediscovery.
Audience Participation in Theatre
This new textbook edition of Audience Participation in Theatre: Evolutions of the Invitation situates the text in evolving theory, emerging practice, and changing contexts, re-establishing itself as the key reference point in its field. An updated review of the literature and a new chapter develops its original argument with respect to historical change in how audiences and their expectations are constituted, and changes to how participation is invited, mediated and valued.
From Heidegger to Performance
Heidegger and Performance explores convergences, direct or indirect, conscious or unconscious, between Heidegger's work and ideas of performance and performativity. The book's central provocation is to replace the word 'being' with 'performance' and interpret through Heidegger new ways of understanding both terms.
Capital Acts
Capital Acts: Washington DC Performing Arts is an extensive history of the prominent and influential artists and media figures who shaped the DC-MD-VA area's cultural landscape. Richly illustrated with a wealth of insightful interviews, the book unveils remarkable narratives of resilience and innovation from the challenges faced by diverse and often unique artists. Each genre of performing arts is intricately explored. The rhythm of jazz and blues is portrayed by soulful conversations with the artists. The beauty of folk and popular music is celebrated through stories. The vibrant energy of punk and go-go history reflects rebellion and celebration. The essence of many historical performances, theaters, concerts, TV, films, and events that defined eras are articulated throughout the book. Whether you are a performing arts aficionado or history lover, this book offers a captivating 360-degree look at the origins and extraordinary tapestry of talent and creativity that continues to thrive in the Washington, DC area. 54 Chapters with Index.
Marginalized Voices in Nigerian Theatre
This book examines the representation of marginalized communities, particularly women, in J.P. Clark's The Wives' Revolt. It analyzes how the play addresses gender roles, societal expectations, and women's experiences within Nigerian society, questioning the effectiveness of literature in challenging marginalization. Utilizing a qualitative research approach, the study employs textual analysis and feminist literary theory to explore themes of gender inequality and resistance against patriarchal structures. Through characters and their struggles, Clark highlights issues such as limited economic opportunities and personal freedoms for women. This research aims to enhance understanding of marginalized voices in Nigerian literature and demonstrate how playwrights can advocate for social change and empower these communities.
Create First
Are you a musician, artist, or writer feeling like your creative spark is dimming under the weight of responsibility, burnout, or spiritual disconnection? In "Create First," you'll uncover the powerful secrets to reigniting your passion for creativity while maintaining your well-being. Through a blend of deep spiritual insight and practical strategies, this transformative guide takes you on a sacred journey back to your creative roots. Whether you're struggling with overwhelm, perfectionism, or the endless demands of your role, "Create First" shows you how to prioritize your creative energy in a way that sustains both your soul and your craft.
Waarheid
"You speak about facts and truth as though they are the same thing. They are not. Facts are what happened, whereas the truth is what needs to be." Sequel to ST?MOL, WAARHEID picks up where Huckleberry Hax's award-winning movie left off. Last seen falling to her death Waarheid lives on...
The Prince, the Pauper, the Princess and the Peas
The Prince, the Pauper, the Princess and the Peas is a pantomime written for all ages that can be acted by a cast of all ages, size and ability - or no ability at all. It tells the completely made up story of what happened when King Edward the VI of England was sent in search of a wife by his stepmother and the Regent, Dudley, and met his doppelganger, the son of Newcastle's new castle owner - the completely fictitious Emperor BearPig. Although there are scenes where people poke fun at each other in a generally derogatory way, no offensive language, racial or otherwise, is used, and there are no "adult" themes.
Enveloping Worlds
Enveloping Worlds is a collection of essays that analyzes the phenomenon of immersive, participatory performance as it has developed in the US. As this collection demonstrates, immersive performance offers three-dimensional multisensory experiences, inviting audience members to be participants in the unfolding of the story, and challenging pre-existing ideas about the function of performance and entertainment. Enveloping Worlds questions audience agency and choice, the space and boundaries of performance, modes of immersion, empathy and engagement, and ethical considerations through fifteen essays. Case studies in the volume include the Choctaw Cultural Center in Oklahoma and Choctaw sovereignty; a Black artist's autoethnographic performance challenging White audiences' entitlement to full inclusion; Immersive Van Gogh experiences and their scenographers; telephone performance during the COVID-19 lockdowns; Diane Paulus's The Donkey Show; the Battle of Atlanta panorama; an antebellum-themed department store display from the 1920s; escape rooms at Disney Parks; remotely staged plays about aging and dementia; tiki bars; anachronistic costuming at Renaissance Festivals; the technologies that shape the boundaries of immersive worlds; and tabletop role-playing games. Taken together, these essays contribute a rich discussion of immersive performance across radically different contexts, offering analytical models and terminology with which to clarify and advance this emergent discourse.
The Performance Apparatus
The publication of Louis Althusser's 1969 article "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses," made a deep impact on cultural studies and was instrumental in the formation of the apparatus theory in film studies. While contemporaneous with the emergence of performance art, this article and the questions of ideology and apparatus it raises barely registered in the field of performance studies, which was then in its formative phase. Jakovljevic takes this absence of Althusser's apparatus theory from performance studies as an indicator of the ideological position of the field at the moment of its emergence, arguing that, while theories of ideology played no major role in early performance studies, performance art itself offered a number of incisive critiques of ideology. Jakovljevic looks at permutations of the apparatus by investigating the work of theorists such as Louis Althusser, Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze, and Judith Butler, and engagements with the apparatus by a number of artists, such as Amiri Baraka, Philippe Thomas, New York Art & Language, Terry Fox, Every house has a door, Clive Robertson, and Cassils. Jakovljevic suggests that the centrality of behavior in early performance theory is important for the understanding of contemporary society, which is dominated by surveillance capitalism. If ideology is lodged in behaviors, and if surveillance capitalism thrives on the monetization of the behavioral surplus, then performance theory can make significant contributions to our understanding of the moment in which we live and the future we are facing. The Performance Apparatus argues for the importance of continuing attention to the question of ideology in contemporary, neoliberal order.
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.
Radical Sensing and Performer Training
This is a ground-breaking new book that re-considers a range of trajectories of influence across the established canon of twentieth century practices and challenges conventions of performer training historiography.
Art's Visionary Moment
The collection Art's Visionary Moment: Personal Encounters with Works That Last a Lifetime was inspired by T. S. Eliot's observation in his Dante (1929): "The experience of a poem is the experience both of a moment and of a lifetime. ... There is a first, or an early moment which is unique, ... which can never be forgotten, but ... is never repeated integrally; and yet which would become destitute of significance if it did not survive in a larger whole of experience." In this collection, scholars, and artists from a variety of fields speak in personal terms, but with what one has called "intellectual passion," of a work of art (poem, play, novel, film, visual art, among others) that, as Dante suggest, has had an immediate effect on them (the "Visionary Moment" from the title) yet survives "in a larger whole of experience" (that "Last a Lifetime" in the collection's sub-title). Some of the titles of essays already submitted show the range of this inquiry: "Conversations with the Dead"; "Playing Richard III: The Experience of a Moment and a Lifetime"; "Picasso's 'Three Musicians'"; "Poetry Meets Power: Tamburlaine the Great"; "Pleasant Dreaming with 'Thanatopsis'"; "From Madness to Miracle: An Encounter with Shakespeare's Winter's Tale"; "Fight the Power" Spike Lee's Visionary Moment"; and "Plastic Art Moment."
Gloria Swanson
Gloria Swanson is most remembered today for her role as "Norma Desmond" in Billy Wilder's noir sound classic Sunset Boulevard (1950), but Swanson during her heyday was heralded as filmdom's leading fashion queen, as proclaimed by director Cecil B. DeMille in such silent motion pictures as Male and Female (1919), Why Change Your Husband (1921), and The Affairs of Anatol (1922). Throughout that decade and well into the 1930s, Swanson set fashion standards on and off the screen in creations designed by such illustrious couturieres as Mitchell Leisen, Paul Iribe, Norman Norell, Sonia Delaunay, Max Ree, Capt. Edward H. Molyneux, Coco Chanel, Rene Hubert, and later Edith Head. In the 1950s, she designed and managed her own line of ready to wear fashion patterns called Forever Young for women of a discernible age.Gloria Swanson: Hollywood's First Glamour Queen is a photographic tribute to this extraordinary woman. Focusing on sense of style and fashion, the book contains hundreds of personal and professional photographs, many never before published, and running biographical commentary by biographer Stephen Michael Shearer, author of the definitive book of the star, Gloria Swanson: The Ultimate Star (St. Martin's Press-Macmillan).
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.
