Video Games and Comedy
Video Games and Comedy is the first edited volume to explore the intersections between comedy and video games. This pioneering book collects chapters from a diverse group of scholars, covering a wide range of approaches and examining the relationship between video games, humour, and comedy from many different angles. The first section of the book includes chapters that engage with theories of comedy and humour, adapting them to the specifics of the video game medium. The second section explores humour in the contexts, cultures, and communities that give rise to and spring up around video games, focusing on phenomena such as in-jokes, player self-reflexivity, and player/fan creativity. The third section offers case studies of individual games or game series, exploring the use of irony as well as sexual and racial humour in video games.Chapter "Emergence and Ephemerality of Humour During Live Coverage of Large-Scale eSports Events" is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.
The Sentimental in Chinese Cinema
This book explores manifestations and perpetuations of the sentimental in Mainland Chinese cinema from the 1990s to the 2000s. A sentimental Chinese cinema - one that articulates notions of homecoming and belonging - emerged in the 1990s with its distinctive styles. The representations and configurations of this evolving style of Chinese cinematic expression are not only thought provoking in their own right, but also in the way they contrast with past forms of Chinese sentimental cinema and with sentimental aesthetics elsewhere in the world. These new representations have transformed established family centred expressions of the sentimental in Chinese cinema. The new sentimental emphasises togetherness and a yearning for belonging which often appear in the themes of homecoming and home-longing. This also forms a cultural resistance towards the increasingly alienating and isolating forces of globalisation and urbanisation. This book analyses the sociocultural conditions that have allowed for a renewed understanding of the sentimental and the cultural identity markers that are perpetually under contestation.
The Broadway Diaries
Ever wonder about the person who just handed you a Playbill?Of course not.Ushers, ticket takers, those who work the front of the house on Broadway are often the unsung workers of the Great White Way. But in this heartfelt, funny, informative memoir of Broadway's past, readers will get to know what it really takes to raise that curtain.The stories here will answer such burning questions as: What made Kathleen Turner nearly stop the show during a performance of The Graduate?What night was Taboo sold out?What star misspelled an iconic word while on stage at The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee?Are there ghosts on Broadway, and where-and who--do they haunt?What's the oldest still-operating theatre on Broadway, and what was its first show?Name your favorite modern-day Mama Rose? Tyne, Bernadette, Patti?How many theatres has the revival of Chicago played? It's a trick question.Who was your favorite Broadway Hedwig?THE BROADWAY DIARIES is a glimpse at a Broadway rarely seen, the shared experience of a group of people from all walks of life who come to their aisles, ready to seat the patrons, sometimes just for a Wednesday matinee, often working an entire run of the show, or staying on for years. Forget the critics, if you want to know how audiences really feel about a play or musical? Ask the usher.They'll also tell you where the restrooms are.
The Artistic Home
Landmark summary of 13 meetings that brought together more than 120 artistic directors from the nation's leading nonprofit professional theatres.
The Place
A screen adaptation of Algernon Blackwood's classic chiller, The Willows (and, to a lesser extent, The Centaur and The Man Whom the Trees Loved), as well as ten additional stories.ABE: (looks around nervously) Swede...?He looks for SWEDEN again, and again sees only the tops of the bushes, roaring in the wind. A beat later there is another crack! Another splash! ABE whips around. He sees, a few feet out, what at first appears to be a human arm reaching up from a gurgling eddy-deaden spidery fingers groping. He focuses his eyes upon it: the pressure stops cold as we see it is merely a gnarled branch. ABE exhales. Then, as driftwood is proving scarce on the island, he breaks off some willow stems and tries to fish the branch closer. The current dislodges it as he looks on and it floats downstream, bobbing and turning on the waves. ABE watches it go; it looks rather like a hand again; gesturing to him, summoning. A real hand suddenly lands on his shoulder. He spins around. It is SWEDEN; he is shining a Coleman lantern directly into his eyes.SWEDEN: It's gone now. There was a sound. Like....ABE squints in the glare, which obscures SWEDEN'S face.ABE: (breathes hard, listens) It's this awful wind. It roars such that I didn't even hear you approach!SWEDEN hands ABE a flashlight.SWEDEN: Here.ABE: Where were they?SWEDEN: In the stern. Under the ballast.ABE: (exhales) I wish this wind would go down ...SWEDEN doesn't say anything. There's clearly something very wrong.ABE: What?SWEDEN: We're not alone here.ACT 2, SCENE 12 EXT. THE FAR BANK. TWILIGHT.SWEDEN is standing with his back to us, facing the river. ABE approaches-he has taken the long way around the willows. SWEDEN turns slowly; the men look at each other. It is nearly dark.ABE: Sweden ...?SWEDEN steps aside as the camera dollies past him and in on A CORPSE, a real one. It is caught up in the roots of the willows, several feet from the crumbling bank, chest-deep in the water, vertically positioned, bobbing up and down in a violent whirlpool. The corpse is wearing an Army-green or dark blue nylon parka, slick from the river, with a sopping fur-lined hood. The hood droops, obscuring the face from the top of the mouth up, the mouth which is stretched, contorted, whose chin is far too long. The whole body is stiff like a statue, its flesh an ashen gray-blue. Its hands are twisted and groping, like tree branches-willow branches. One is frozen with Rigor Mortis in such a way that it appears to be reaching out, its fingers gnarled, misshapen; they are too-long, really, to seem entirely human. The bony, branch-like index finger seems almost to be pointing, indicting the sky.ABE: My God, Sweden.... (turns to his friend) What happened here?
Anthropocene Theater and the Shakespearean Stage
Anthropocene Theater and the Shakespearean Stage revises the anthropocentric narrative of early globalization from the perspective of the non-human world in order to demonstrate Nature's agency in determining ecological, economic, and colonial outcomes. It welcomes readers to reimagine theater history in broader terms, and to account for more non-human and atmospheric players in the otherwise anthropocentric history of Shakespearean performance. This book analyses plays, horticultural manuals, cosmetic recipes, Puritan polemics, and travel writing in order to demonstrate how the material practices of the stage both catalyze and resist early forms of globalization in an ecological arena. William Steffen addresses the role of an understudied ecological performance history in determining Shakespeare's iconic cultural status, and models how non-human players have undermined Shakespeare's authoritative role in colonial discourse. Finally, this book makes a celebratory argument for the humanities in the age of climate change, and invites interdisciplinary engagement a research community that is compelled to find strategies for cultivating a hopeful tomorrow amidst unprecedented anthropogenic environmental changes.
Sarah Kane’s Theatre of Psychic Life
Sarah Kane was one of the landmark playwrights of 1990s Britain, her influence being felt across UK and European theatre. This is the first book to focus exclusively on Kane's unique approach to mind and mental health. It offers an important re-evaluation of her oeuvre, revealing the relationship between theatre and mind which lies at the heart of her theatrical project. Drawing on performance theory, psychoanalysis and neuroscience, this book argues that Kane's innovations generate a 'dramaturgy of psychic life', which re-shapes the encounter between stage and audience. It uses previously unseen archival material and contemporary productions to uncover the mechanics of this innovative theatre practice. Through a radically open-ended approach to dramaturgy, Kane's works offer urgent insights into mental suffering that take us beyond traditional discourses of empathy and mental health and into a profound rethinking of theatre as a mode of thought. As such, her theatre can help us to understand debates about mental suffering today.
Love It If We Beat Them
What is power without principle?What are principles without power? It's Spring 1996: Kevin Keegan's Newcastle United are riding high in the Premier League and Tony Blair's New Labour are gathering pace. Hope is in the air and victory seems within reach. Len, a long term traditional Labour left activist, has decided to run as a candidate for local Labour MP, but the arrival of Victoria as front runner throws a spanner in the works. With loyalties tested and tensions reaching fever pitch, the winning team will be decided in an explosive head-to-head challenge. Love It If We Beat Them is a new political drama from writer Rob Ward that explores a time of significant change in the identity of North East communities and perfectly captures a moment in recent history that defines who we are today. A knockout play about Labour, love, and the beautiful game. This edition was published to coincide with the world premiere at Newcastle's Live Theatre, in March 2023.
All Play and No Work
Many of the Federal Theatre Project (FTP) plays Paul Gagliardi analyzes in All Play and No Work feature complex portrayals of labor and work relief at a time when access to work was difficult. Gagliardi asks, what does it mean that many plays produced by the FTP celebrated forms of labor like speculation and swindling? All Play and No Work directly contradicts the promoted ideals of work found in American society, culture, and within the broader New Deal itself. Gagliardi shows how comedies of the Great Depression engaged questions of labor, labor history, and labor ethics. He considers the breadth of the FTP's production history, staging plays including Ah, Wilderness!, Help Yourself, and Mississippi Rainbow. Gagliardi examines backstage comedies, middle-class comedies, comedies of chance, and con-artist comedies that employed diverse casts and crew and contained radical economic and labor ideas. He contextualizes these plays within the ideologically complicated New Deal, showing how programs like the Social Security Act straddled progressive ideals and conservative, capitalist norms. Addressing topics including the politicization of theatrical labor and the real dangers of unchecked economic con artists, the comic plays of the FTP reveal acts of political resistance and inequality that reflected the concerns of their audiences.
Estado Vegetal
Interdisciplinary essays on Manuela Infante's award-winning play explore the relationship between critical plant studies and performance art in the Anthropocene Since its first staging in 2016, Estado Vegetal, Manuela Infante's riveting piece of experimental performance art, has expanded philosophical thinking into a fully-fledged artistic inquiry of nonanthropocentric being. Through Infante's polyvocal monologue, acted with impetus by Marcela Salinas, plants are charged with an agency capable of uprooting culturally grounded conceptions of the world in the face of incommensurable trauma and loss. This first book dedicated to Infante's plant-focused performance features eight essays by scholars, poets, and artists whose practices draw from research fields as disparate as new materialism, anthropogenic feminism, queer studies, and speculative realism. Including an interview with Infante, the full playscript, and stills from the performance, Estado Vegetal: Performance and Plant-Thinking reveals the roles that plants in art can play in productively reconfiguring human-nonhuman relations within current anthropogenic perspectives. Infante's performance is a perfect case study and reference point for anyone interested in exploring the complexities of plant-thinking through alternative and experimental avenues. Furthermore, this book is at once a critical plant studies primer and an artistic problematization of the philosophical questions that have been central to the latest multidisciplinary discussions on plant-being. Contributors: Maaike Bleeker, Utrecht U; Lucy Cotter, Portland State U; Prudence Gibson, UNSW Sydney; Michael Marder, U of the Basque Country; Dawn Sanders, U of Gothenburg; Catriona Sandilands, York U; Sibila Sotomayor Van Rysseghem, colectivo LASTESIS; Mandy-Suzanne Wong.
All Play and No Work
Many of the Federal Theatre Project (FTP) plays Paul Gagliardi analyzes in All Play and No Work feature complex portrayals of labor and work relief at a time when access to work was difficult. Gagliardi asks, what does it mean that many plays produced by the FTP celebrated forms of labor like speculation and swindling? All Play and No Work directly contradicts the promoted ideals of work found in American society, culture, and within the broader New Deal itself. Gagliardi shows how comedies of the Great Depression engaged questions of labor, labor history, and labor ethics. He considers the breadth of the FTP's production history, staging plays including Ah, Wilderness!, Help Yourself, and Mississippi Rainbow. Gagliardi examines backstage comedies, middle-class comedies, comedies of chance, and con-artist comedies that employed diverse casts and crew and contained radical economic and labor ideas. He contextualizes these plays within the ideologically complicated New Deal, showing how programs like the Social Security Act straddled progressive ideals and conservative, capitalist norms. Addressing topics including the politicization of theatrical labor and the real dangers of unchecked economic con artists, the comic plays of the FTP reveal acts of political resistance and inequality that reflected the concerns of their audiences.
Salome
Inspired by symbolist poetry and the frequent appearance of Salome in contemporary art and literature, Oscar Wilde wrote SALOME in French during a Paris stay in 1891-92. The play's sexuality and religious needling-not to mention the final scene in which Salome embraces the decapitated head of a saint-drew censors' ire. No public presentation was given in England until 1931.from the Translator's Note
The Unofficial Ghibli Cookbook
Recreate the magic of Studio Ghibli in your own kitchen with these 40 delicious recipes and accompanying full color photos inspired by your favorite films! Dive into the dreamlike worlds of these animated film masterpieces and enjoy the recipes created by Thibaud Villanova, a specialist in the cuisine of the imagination. With adorable illustrations and full color photo spreads, these delightful and simplified dishes are suitable for both beginners and more seasoned chefs. Recipes include: - Satsuki's Bento from My Neighbor Totoro- Calcifer's Breakfast from Howl's Moving Castle- Shio Ramen from Ponyo- O-Baba's Soup from Nausica of the Valley of the Wind- Bathhouse Nikuman from Spirited Away- Kiki's Chocolate Cake from Kiki's Delivery Service With helpful sections like a glossary of culinary terms and different knife varieties and their uses, this enchanting cookbook is practical and accessible, while retaining all the magic and creative whimsy of these animated classics. This is the perfect gift for Studio Ghibli fans ready to immerse in the worlds of their favorite films.
Theatre Across Borders
Is there a fundamental connection between New York's Elevator Repair Service's 9-hour production of The Great Gatsby and a Kathakali performance? How can we come to appreciate the slowness of Kabuki theatre as much as the pace of the Whatsapp theatre of post-Arab Spring Turkey? Can we go beyond our own culture's contemporary definition of a 'good play' and think about the theatre in a deep and pluralistic manner? Drawing on his extensive experience working with theatre artists, students and thinkers across the globe - up to and including an hour-long audience with the Dalai Lama - playwright Abhishek Majumdar considers why we make theatre and how we see it in different parts of the world. His own work has taken him from theatre in Japan to dance companies in the Phillippines, writers in Lebanon and Palestine, theatre groups in Burkina Faso, war-torn areas like Kashmir and North Eastern India, and to China and Tibet, Argentina and Mexico. Via a far-reaching and provocative collection of essays that is informed by this wealth of experience, Majumdar explores: - how different cultures conceive theatre and how the norm of one place is the experiment of another;- the ways in which theatre across the world mirrors its socio political and philosophical climate;- how, for thousands of years, theatre has been a tool to both disrupt and to heal;- and how, even within the many differences, there are universals from which we can all learn and how theatre does cross borders Of interest to theatre makers everywhere - be they writers, actors, directors or designers - this book offers an oversight, as well as interrogation, into the place of theatre in the world today.
Resistance, Dissidence, Revolution
Situated within an emerging academic interest in documentary film in the Middle East and North Africa, this book studies the development of diverse documentary forms in relation to revolutionary and emancipatory movements that took place across the twentieth-century Arab World.
Staging Violence Against Women and Girls
Staging Violence Against Women and Girls brings together three contemporary plays that denounce gendered violence, along with interviews with their creators and the practitioners who have staged them in different national contexts. Little Stitches (London, 2014): consisting of four short pieces by Isley Lynn, Ra繳l Quir籀s Molina, Bahar Brunton and Karis E. Halsall, this play presents Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting (FGM/C) from the points of view of by-standers, anti-FGM/C activists, health professionals, women who perpetuatethe practice and, finally, survivors. 'Kubra' (Sydney, 2016): written by Dacia Maraini, this short play features a young woman who was subjected to FGM/C as a child and now, years later, brings her case to court in a search for justice. A Trial for Rape (Rome, 2018): adapted for theatre by Renato Chiocca from the international award-winning 1979 documentary of the same name, this play reveals how judicial procedures and attitudes toward sexual violence tend to turn rape survivors from accusers into accused. In their interviews, the writers, directors and producers discuss their conception and production of the works collected in Staging Violence Against Women and Girls. The plays and their creators highlight the urgency of raising awareness of these forms of violence and giving voice to survivors.
Eastern Heroes Yuen Biao special collectors Edition
We have done with great success many specials in the past 2 years including "Brett Ratner Rush Hour Special, Jackie Chan Special, Sammo Hung Special, and Angela Mao special, This time we dedicate an issue to one of my favorites "Yuen Biao".Yuen Biao is one that should not be overlooked. Despite his impressive athleticism, comedic timing, and acrobatics, Biao is often overshadowed by his peers, Sammo Hung and Jackie Chan. But it's time to give this Peking Opera School alumnus the recognition he deserves.Join us as we delve into the world of Yuen Biao from his early career as a stuntman and extra to his transition into a full-fledged lead, we'll explore the films that showcase Biao's versatility, athleticism, and comedic timingWith some great Articles includingPaul Bramhills" Yeun Biao - Once upon a time in the '90s A retrospective of his most overlooked decade"The Three Legends of Hong Kong Cinema: Sammo Hung, Jackie Chan, and Yuen BiaoYuen Biao - The Seven Little FortunesYuen Biao: Leading Man of ActionYuen Biao Memorabilia sectionJustyn Hughes reviews Five films from the '90sYeun Biao - Photogalleryplus lots more.
Utpal Dutt's Theatre
This book offers the reader an in-depth understanding of Utpal Dutt's entire career in drama. Covering Dutt's career in proscenium, street theatre and Jatra, it analyzes the interesting exchange of dramatic art with politics in his theatre. Owing to a plethora of unsubstantiated opinions, Dutt is either revered by his followers or dismissed by his opponents, but hardly ever studied with necessary objectivity and intellectual rigour. The book attempts to bust the myth that Dutt was primarily a political propagandist who used theatre only as a means to achieve his political end. The remarkable range of Dutt's subject matter makes him as internationally significant as he is loved by Indian theatre enthusiasts. His work has been discussed on various reputed international platforms. Yet there is a stark lacuna when it comes to intellectual attention devoted to Dutt's theatre. This is the first book which attempts to introduce Dutt's theatre comprehensively to an international readership. The book looks briefly at Dutt's life, the impact of his politics on his theatre, the art of his characterization, his dramaturgy and stage technique, and the legacy of his work in theatre. It also offers the reader with a chronological list of the first performances of his original theatrical works and an exhaustive bibliography, which, it is hoped, shall prove especially useful for researchers. The book is designed for lay theatre enthusiasts as well as advanced students of theatre.
Surfacing and the Silence and the Noise
Two plays by the 2021 Papatango Prize-winning playwright Tom Powell. Surfacing NHS therapist Luc is fine. Honest. She's definitely not overwhelmed by meeting Owen, a new client, definitely not freaked out by what she's started seeing, definitely doesn't think her reality has been punctured and something else is leaking in. Luc goes for a swim and feels a hand dragging her down to the bottom of the lake... When she surfaces, her reality is different. She's haunted by tormented mice, shape-shifting people, and secrets she thought she'd buried. This breathtaking new two-hander creates a contemporary Through The Looking Glass world. It premiered in February 2023. The Silence and the Noise Winner of Best Online Production at the Offies Awards 2024 Ben and Daize are teenagers either side of a county line. Drug runner and daughter of an addict. As the adult world around them becomes deadly dangerous, do these natural enemies have it in them to save each other? The Silence and The Noise won the Papatango Prize, and captures the story of two young people on the edge.
Reality Slows Me Down
REALITY SLOWS ME DOWN offers a wide variety of audition pieces for professional actors, as well as high school and college students and actors performing in community theaters. The contents have a broad range of choices in age, emotional tones, and personality characterizations that will suit any actor's need and inclination. These include attitudes of irony, desperation, bewilderment, suffering, anger, and exhilaration. Further, five dialogues are given for practice with friends and actors to be used for fun and practice. As well, the various speeches may be used as presentation pieces before a studio audience.
Fantastic Monsters of the Films
In this thrill-packed, terrorific 1st issue: The Mad Mummy, Destination MOON, Flash Gordon FIGHTS FOR HIS LIFE, Terrors of the Twilight Zone, Horrible Hollywood Fiends, and much, much more monster madness inside! (Reprint of the classic lost monster mag from the Sixties. Public domain.) Published by Funtime Press.
Memoirs Of An Irish Comedian 'Come 'Ere There's More' The Jimmy Cricket Story
From holiday camp Redcoat to Bluecoat then onto his first big break on television, (after many struggles), going on to headline for four of his own series for Central television in the 1980's with 'Royal Command Performances' and TV Variety shows in between, then his BBC Radio 2 series written by the great scriptwriter Eddie Braben in the 1990's which run for five years called, 'Jimmy's Cricket Team'.As Jimmy says himself in the book, 'I hope it brings back warm memories for older readers', and gives a taste to younger readers of a form of entertainment that seemed to vanish before our very eyes'.
The Perfect Story
"Come for the engrossing content, and stay for the lessons that might just change how you talk, write, and lead." --Adam GrantLearn how to take any story and make it perfect--from storytelling expert Karen Eber, whose popular TED Talk on the subject continues to be a source of inspiration for millions.What makes a story perfect? How do you tell the perfect story for any occasion?We live in a story world. Stories are a memorable and engaging way to differentiate yourself, build connection and trust, create new thinking, bring meaning to data, and even influence decision-making. But how do you turn a good story into a great story that informs, influences, and inspires?In The Perfect Story, Karen Eber--leadership consultant, professional keynote storyteller, and TED speaker--shares the science of storytelling to teach you to: Leverage the Five Factory Settings of the Brain to hack the art of storytellingBuild a toolkit of endless story ideasDefine the audience for your storyApply a memorable story structureEngage senses and emotionsTell stories with dataAvoid common storytelling mistakesUse your body to tell dynamic storiesEnsure your story doesn't manipulateNavigate and embrace the vulnerability of storytellingWithout relying on complicated models or one-size-fits-all prescriptions, this book makes storytelling accessible with practical and impactful steps for anyone to tell the perfect story for any occasion.Through interview vignettes, The Perfect Story also shares approaches from different storytellers, including the Sundance Institute cofounder, an executive producer of The Moth, the former creative director at Pixar, the TED Radio Hour podcast host, and many more.Whether you are leading a team, giving a presentation, hosting a podcast, selling a product or service, interviewing for a job, or giving a toast at a wedding, The Perfect Story will help you take your stories and make them perfect.
Between Laughter and Satire
This book explores closely related aspects of the historical study of humour. It challenges much that has been taken for granted in a field of study for which history has been marginal. It disputes the conventional genealogical view that humour theory dates from antiquity and outlines an alternative conceptual history. It critically examines the nostrum that humour is universal. It then explores the methodological difficulties in treating both verbal and non-verbal humour historically, dealing with contextualisation, intentionality, translation and reception. It explores the variable relationships between satire and definition and concludes with a detailed case study from recent history: the iconic Yes Minister and Yes, Prime Minister television comedies. These are commonly seen as realistic, but better understood as presenting popularised theories for satiric and propagandistic effect. Only in their treatment of language can we assess a putative political realism. The satires are often highly perceptive but largely dependent on misleading and inadequate theories of political discourse.Conal Condren is an Emeritus Scientia Professor at UNSW, a member of two Cambridge Colleges and a fellow both of the Australian Academy of the Humanities and The Social Sciences in Australia. He has published widely and principally in early modern intellectual history. Among his books are The Status and Appraisal of Classic Texts; Argument and Authority in Early Modern England; Political Vocabularies: Word Change and the Nature of Politics.
Kinds of American Film Comedy
This groundbreaking film study begins with a survey of American print humorists from eras leading up to and overlapping the advent of film--including some who worked both on the page and on the screen, like Robert Benchley, Will Rogers, Groucho Marx and W. C. Fields. Six comic film genres are identified as outgrowths of a national tradition of Cracker Barrel philosophers, personality comedy, parody, screwball comedy, romantic comedy and dark comedy. Whether it is Mark Twain or a parody film involving Steve Martin, comedy is most often about blowing "raspberries" at the world, and a reminder you are not alone.
Performance Cultures as Epistemic Cultures, Volume I
This book investigates performances as situated "machineries of knowing" (Karin Knorr Cetina), exploring them as relational processes for, in and with which performers as well as spectators actively (re)generate diverse practices of knowing, knowledges and epistemologies.
Performance Cultures as Epistemic Cultures, Volume II
This volume investigates performance cultures as rich and dynamic environments of knowledge practice through which distinctive epistemologies are continuously (re)generated, cultivated, and celebrated.
Dark Forces at Work
Dark Forces at Work examines the role of race, class, gender, religion, and the economy as they are portrayed in, and help construct, horror narratives across a range of films and eras. These larger social forces not only create the context for our cinematic horrors, but serve as connective tissue between fantasy and lived reality, as well. While several of the essays focus on "name" horror films such as IT, Get Out, Hellraiser, and Don't Breathe, the collection also features essays focused on horror films produced in Asia, Europe, and Latin America, and on American classic thrillers such as Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho. Key social issues addressed include the war on terror, poverty, the housing crisis, and the Time's Up movement. The volume grounds its analysis in the films, rather than theory, in order to explore the ways in which institutions, identities, and ideologies work within the horror genre.
Motivation for Actors
Do you want to build momentum in your acting career? Discover psychology techniques to stop procrastinating and increase your productivity so you can take your acting career to the next level. Being motivated is essential to becoming a successful actor.Actors must often juggle bill-paying jobs and other commitments for years before getting their big break.If you are not highly motivated, you will get lost among the crowd of hopefuls, no matter how talented you are.Motivated actors are a joy to work with and energize everyone around them. They often start their own projects, so they don't just rely on outside work, and they continuously develop their craft, making themselves more employable.If you are wondering how to reach this high level of motivation consistently, psychology can help.Psychologists have uncovered the principles behind human motivation and developed simple yet powerful techniques to increase your productivity.Motivation for Actors distills these psychological insights specifically for actors using clear and jargon-free language. Read this book and discover: How to build momentum and overcome resistanceHow to beat procrastination and get things doneThe mistakes actors make when trying to get motivatedHow to turn boring into funPractical tools you can use straight awayShort enough to read in an afternoon, yet jam-packed with practical advice, Motivation for Actors will help you take control of your acting career and spur you on towards unstoppable momentum.Alexa Ispas holds a PhD in psychology from the University of Edinburgh. The books in her Psychology for Actors Series provide actors with proven psychology techniques to thrive and build a successful career.
Icons & Legends
Everyone has the ability to live a legendary life. But only those bold and brave enough actually do. It is my belief that you should be one of them. In Icons & Legends: Success Strategies of the World's Most Influential Celebrities, you will discover the secrets that iconic celebrities have used to live the life of their dreams. And as importantly, you will learn how to take their secrets and apply them to your life starting right now. If you desire to get to the next-and highest-level of your life, this book is for you.
The Friends Book of Lists
Packed with compelling facts and trivia from all ten seasons, The Friends Book of Lists breaks down the memorable series in a collection of 100+ easy-to-digest lists focusing on themes, characters, and favorite moments in an irresistible package. Each entry in this comprehensive book celebrates another corner of the Friends universe and offers new discoveries and facts concerning cherished characters and themes. From every time Joey says, "How you doin'?" to memorable holiday episodes, each list will delight fans and remind them why Friends is one of the most beloved comedy series of all time. Lists include: Family Trees Chick and Duck Appearances Every Time Ross Says, "We were on a break!" Ugly Naked Guy's Activities Chandler's Top Four Reasons to Get Married Phoebe's Songs Imaginary Things on Joey's Resum矇 Ross's Spray Tan Disaster Janice's Appearances Guest Star Appearances And more! Including full-color photos and visuals throughout, The Friends Book of Lists is an officially licensed must-have collector's item for the ultimate Friends fan.
The Active Actor
"Acting, by simple definition, means to be in the process of doing. It's not uncommon to meet people who say they want to be actors. My question to them is always the same: What are you currently doing to become an actor? "Doing" they say? Yes - If you wanted to be a musician you'd practice every day. If you were an athlete you'd train every day. Acting is no different. We feel lucky when we get a job. The fact is, we're most lucky when we're prepared when an opportunity knocks. Jasmine Embrechts' insightful book is a toolbox of achievable activities for beginner and working actors. A book filled with great reminders for all of us to do!"Matthew Modine, actor and filmmaker"The Active Actor is a refreshing, down-to-earth and practical guide to help you to stay motivated and proactive between acting jobs. It's clearly laid out and full of inspirational and practical exercises to help you nurture your inner artist. Jasmine's in-depth knowledge and experience shines through and her positivity is infectious!"Bea Grist, Mental Health and Wellbeing Manager, SpotlightWhat to do with all the downtime between acting jobs? How do we stay motivated? Actors often feel they can really only be considered actors when they are working on their next part. But there is so much that can be done to stay in the right mindset, and that helps careers move forward. The downward spiral of doubt and erosion of confidence is avoidable if we continue to work on our craft and take steps towards our goals. So often actors lose heart in the period between jobs and as a result sabotage their chances at the next audition. This book focuses on all the tasks that actors can and should be doing to keep active as a performer, when they haven't yet got their next job lined up. An actor's life is all-encompassing: a rich life contributes to an actor's next role. Focus on doing the tasks in this book that will help you stay centred, committed and in the right mindset, as divided into four sections: Business and Skillset tasksCreative tasksIdeas for learningSelf-care optionsThe inner artist must be nurtured and this book points you in the right direction with actionable steps to take in your journey as an actor - including that time when you are looking for your next role.
Under One Tent
The study of Jewish text, over two millennia, has traditionally taken place in the Bet Midrash (the communal study hall), sitting at a table or desk. Studying the Bible has been a project of thinking, talking, contemplative reflection, and debate.There are other ways.Dr. Ora Horn Prouser, Cantor Michael Kasper, and circus artist and choreographer Ayal Prouser have joined to edit this volume which explicates their philosophy and technique as they work with students to study Hebrew Bible through the embodied experience of movement and circus arts. They have invited an international group of distinguished scholars and practitioners to share their own visions and work; each chapter adds information about circus, movement, educational practice, and theory.When seen as a whole, the collection of articles helps to frame the book's central premise: that circus and dance are perfectly matched to help students study and think through their bodies, finding valuable and enlightening textual interpretations.This flows logically as movement has been central to the Jewish experience. Similarly, though less known, circus has a documented, long, and powerful connection to Judaism and the Jewish people.Prouser, Kasper, and Prouser do not attempt to interpret text through art creation. Rather, they use art as a study partner and method, a context within which to do the research that yields new and exciting learning possibilities and readings.
Timelines of Terror
How did Friday the 13th begin as a movie about a grieving mother killing camp counselors and spawn a movie in which a nanobot enhanced, hockey masked man destroys a space station? Similarly, how did A Nightmare on Elm Street evolve from a film by Wes Craven about Freddy Krueger into a film about Wes Craven making a Freddy Krueger movie? Film series are destined to change with time, but horror film series are often unrecognizable after multiple sequels and reboots. This work examines horror films and their sequels to determine the glue that holds individual franchises together, which films matter to a series' continuity, which should be considered as canon, and what goes into the process of continuing--or, in some cases, abandoning--the overarching storyline. Series covered include Friday the 13th, Halloween, Child's Play, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Leprechaun, and Scream.
Parks and Recreation
"Treat yo' self" to this captivating analysis of critically acclaimed, fan-favorite television series Parks and Recreation. An homage to Parks and Recreation (2009-15) and an exploration of how the show evolved as a traditional network sitcom in a post-network era. This deep dive into the series highlights the new norm of digital fandom, where social media has become a means for fans to engage with the series beyond its runtime. While the media landscape evolved, so did American sociopolitical discourse; Holladay examines the series contained entirely within Barack Obama's presidency as it reflects the role of politics in American life on a micro scale. The series follows the career and personal life of Leslie Knope (Amy Poehler), a self-possessed, midlevel bureaucrat whose initial ideology reflects the optimistic tone of politics ushered in with Obama's campaign and early presidency. Throughout its run, Parks and Recreation engaged with political debates simmering in American culture, offering a humorous ripped-from-the-headlines take on issues such as same-sex marriage, distrust of politicians, government shutdowns, and corporate bailouts. Through compelling analysis, Holladay untangles representations of women and BIPOC in the series as they engage with contemporary discourse surrounding media and identity politics.
Short Story Writing
Learn to Write Short Stories That Win Write short stories with confidence after reading How to Write Winning Short Stories, a great guide for anyone seeking writing tips, help with writing fiction (especially short fiction), and insider tips for winning writing contests. This concise and practical guide includes developing a theme and premise, choosing a title, creating characters, crafting realistic dialogue, bringing the setting to life, working with structure, and editing. It also includes submission and marketing advice. The author, who manages an annual short story competition, offers guidance on manuscript formatting, submission options, contest entry, and how to get the attention of a publisher or contest judge.Practical, Useful Guide for Writers at All Levels The book is perfect for anyone who is considering writing a short story. It gives beginning writers a practical playbook for getting started and helps experienced writers build their skills. Easy-to-Follow Advice and Examples Based on the author's experiences running an annual short story contest and working with dozens of writers to help them improve and perfect their stories, combined with extensive research (the bibliography contains 80+ sources), here, in one concise little guide, is the best advice and most successful tips for writing winning short stories. Each chapter concludes with a handy checklist for reviewing what was learned and checking stories for possible areas of improvement.
Wilde Now
WILDE NOWreads Oscar Wilde through our now, through a contemporary sensibility (and approach), in which literature and popular culture interrogate and are interrogated by critical concepts and categories such as performance, celebrity, intermediality, and consumerism. This volume exceeds the shape and meaning of a critical study to turn into a drama of five different acts/moments in Wilde's life and work: his early performances in Dublin, London and Oxford; the 1882 American tour; his successful season of the first half of the 1890s, his prison years and finally his glorious resurrection in contemporary pop culture. Most importantly WILDE NOW approaches these moments through contemporary rewritings and performances of "Oscar Wilde" in the fields of cinema, music and literature by such artists as Al Pacino, Rupert Everett, Stephen Fry, Gyles Brandreth, David Hare, David Bowie, Morrissey, Nick Cave, Neil Tennant, Gavin Friday. These artists - through their awareness of the importance of being/playing Oscar in their specific worlds and cultural contexts - will also show us that Wilde can be conceived as a subversive, critical role one might successfully perform and appropriate, now more than ever.
Staging and Stage D矇cor
'Staging and Stage D矇cor: Perspectives on European Theater 1500-1950' is a compendium of essays by an international array of theater specialists. The Introduction provides an overview of theater d矇cor and architecture from ancient Greece through the Renaissance and beyond, while the articles that follow explore a variety of topics such as the development of lighting techniques in early modern Italy, the staging of convent theater in Portugal, performance spaces at Versailles, the reconstruction of the Globe theater, and Shrovetide plays in Germany. This volume also offers insight into little-studied subjects such as the early productions of Brecht and the spread of Russian theater to Japan. The focus on performance and performance space across centuries and continents makes this a truly unique volume.
Lexx Unauthorized
LEXX Unauthorized - The story of Kai (Michael McManus), an undead assassin, Zev (Eva Habermann), a combination of love slave and cluster lizard, Stanley Tweedle (Brian Downey), a hapless security guard and 790, a robot head (Jeff Hirschfield), careening through space together in the LEXX, a planet destroying biological warship shaped like a dragonfly, stolen from the malevolent Divine Order. This first volume of the four part history of the television series covers the development and conception of the series, and the production of the first season of four movies starring Barry Bostwick, Malcolm McDowell, Tim Curry and Rutger Hauer, taking the hapless crew on a dizzying journey across universes, to dying worlds, confronting past and future, malevolent empires and gigantic monsters. LEXX was one of the strangest and most wildly surreal space operas ever conceived, owing as much to Luis Bunuel and Alejandro Jodorowsky as to to Star Trek and Star Wars. It was unique and unforgettable, mixing black comedy and absurdism with epic drama, and an astonishing visual sense. Backstage, the story of the creation of the series was even more extraordinary, a tale of regional Atlantic film makers, renegade artists, American corporate takeovers, Canadian cultural nationalism, German entrepreneurs and new computer generated imagery technologies intersecting in wildly unpredictable ways, to give birth to the show. The product of years of research and dozens of interviews, this is a 'must buy' for any fan of the show itself or of science fiction movies television generally, and an eye opening insight into film and television production, especially Canadian and international productions.
Billy Boy
Written by acclaimed playwright and fiction writer Rosemary Jenkinson, Billy Boy is a fiery new play about Belfast bonfire builders. Aaron is looking after the biggest and most controversial "boney" in the East side of Belfast and is determined to fight the council's ruling. The problem is, if he gets into any more trouble, he might have to pack his bags.
Action
This work is a straightforward approach to the creative process of actor training. Combining principles of verbal and nonverbal communication with the basic tenets of Stanislavski's approach, it includes a step-by-step guide for reading, analyzing, and preparing a text for performance. The book also provides a template for rehearsing a sonnet, a soliloquy, and scenes from plays of heightened language ranging from Shakespeare, Moliere, and Congreve, to Ibsen, Shaw, and Lynn Nottage. Using improvisation, games and exercises with a series of tools designed to enhance the creative process, the book outlines the specific steps necessary to engage in the basic tenets of acting: overcoming obstacles and playing action-based objectives. Enlarging the field of study to include status, opposition, and releasing, as well as scansion and an emphasis on operative words and images, the actor emerges from this training process prepared to play any text, in any style, under any circumstance, with confidence, ease and a sense of joy.
Trial by Farce
Was there more to comedy than Chaucer, the Second Shepherds' Play, or Shakespeare? Of course! But, for a real taste of medieval and Renaissance humor and in-your-face slapstick, one must cross the Channel to France, where over two hundred extant farces regularly dazzled crowds with blistering satires. Dwarfing all other contemporaneous theatrical repertoires, the boisterous French corpus is populated by lawyers, lawyers everywhere. No surprise there. The lion's share of mostly anonymous farces was written by barristers, law students, and legal apprentices. Famous for skewering unjust judges and irreligious ecclesiastics, they belonged to a 10,000-member legal society known as the Basoche, which flourished between 1450 and 1550. What is more, their dramatic send-ups of real and fictional court cases were still going strong on the eve of Moli癡re, resilient against those who sought to censor and repress them. The suspenseful wait to see justice done has always made for high drama or, in this case, low drama. But, for centuries, the scripts for these outrageous shows were available only in French editions gathered from scattered print and manuscript sources. In Trial by Farce, prize-winning theater historian Jody Enders brings twelve of the funniest legal farces to English-speaking audiences in a refreshingly uncensored but philologically faithful vernacular. Newly conceived as much for scholars as for students and theater practitioners, this repertoire and its familiar stock characters come vividly to life as they struggle to negotiate the limits of power, politics, class, gender, and, above all, justice. Through the distinctive blend of wit, social critique, and breathless boisterousness that is farce, we gain a new understanding of comedy itself as form of political correction. In ways presciently modern and even postmodern, farce paints a different cultural picture of the notoriously authoritarian Middle Ages with its own vision of liberty and justice for all. Theater eternally offers ways for new generations to raise their voices and act.
Art in a Democracy
Collaborative plays with diverse ensembles across the country address pressing issues of our times The plays in Volume 2 come from Roadside's intercultural and issue-specific theater work, including long-term collaborations with the African American Junebug Productions in New Orleans and the Puerto Rican Pregones Theater in the South Bronx, as well as with residents on both sides of the walls of recently-built prisons. Roadside has spent 45 years searching for what art in a democracy might look like. The anthology raises questions such as, What are common principles and common barriers to achieving democracy across disciplines, and how can the disciplines unite in common democratic cause?
Art in a Democracy
Seminal plays and essays reveal the radical origins and approach of Appalachia's Roadside Theater This two-volume anthology tells the story of Roadside Theater's first 45 years and includes nine award-winning original play scripts; ten essays by authors from different disciplines and generations, which explore the plays' social, economic, and political circumstances; and a critical recounting of the theater's history from 1975 through 2020. The plays in Volume 1 offer a people's history of the Appalachian coalfields, from the European incursion through the American War in Vietnam.
Violence in the Films of Stephen King
In Violence in the Films of Stephen King, contributors analyze the theme of violence in the film adaptations of Stephen King's work--ranging from the earliest films in the King canonto his most recent iterations--through a variety of lenses. Investigating the diverse and varying roles that violence continues to play as both the level of violence and the gendered depictions of violence have evolved, many of the contributors come to the conclusion that King's films have grown more violent over time. This book also examines the fine line between necessary violence and sensationalist violence, discussing the complexity of determining what constitutes violence with a narrative and ethical significance versus violence intended solely to titillate, repulse, or otherwise draw an emotional reaction from viewers. Scholars of film studies, horror studies, literary studies, and gender studies will find this book particularly useful.
Silent Films/Loud Music
Silent Films/Loud Music discusses contemporary scores for silent film as a rich vehicle for experimentation in the relationship between music, image, and narrative. Johnston offers an overview of the early history of music for silent film paired with his own first-hand view of the craft of creating new original scores for historical silent films: a unique form crossing musical boundaries of classical, jazz, rock, electronic, and folk. As the first book completely devoted to the study of contemporary scores for silent film, it tells the story of the historical and creative evolution of this art form and features an extended discussion and analysis of some of the most creative works of contemporary silent film scoring.Johnston draws upon his own career in both contemporary film music (working with directors Paul Mazursky, Henry Bean, Philip Haas and Doris D繹rrie, among others) and in creating new scores for silent films by Browning, M矇li癡s, Kinugasa, Murnau & Reiniger. Through this book, Johnston presents a discussion of music for silent films that contradicts long-held assumptions about what silent film music is and must be, with thought-provoking implications for both historical and contemporary film music.
The City and the Town
Tricky things, memories. Not always the way you remember them. When Ben, a successful London lawyer, returns home for his father's funeral after thirteen years away, he is confronted with uncomfortable truths about the community and family he left behind. Anders Lustgarten, one of Britain's bravest and toughest writers of political fiction, produces an unflinching, insightful and utterly hilarious look at sibling rivalry, small town blues and exactly where the new British fascism comes from. This edition was published to coincide with the world premiere of The City and the Town in February 2023.
Eastern Heroes Scott Adkins Special Collectors Edition
Since the revamp of Eastern Heroes, we have done several specials on Iconic Martial art Stars.Including Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung, and Angela Mao, and now it's time to bring the new special edition home. And pay respects to Scott Adkins. Scott began his career in the early 2000s, and quickly made a name for himself as a talented and versatile performer. A highly skilled martial artist, known for his many roles in action movies. He has been praised for his many impressive fight scenes and physical athleticism. Scott has also made his mark in a number of popular films, including "Undisputed II: Last Man Standing," "Boyka" "Ninja" "Avengement" "The Bourne Ultimatum," "X-Men: First Class," "Doctor Strange," and "The Expendables 2." to name just a few! He is totally dedicated as a performer, and for his hard work and dedication to his craft. This reflects in his dynamic and thrilling performances on screen. Over the years, Scott has worked with many of the top directors and actors in the industry and has received praise for his performances in a variety of genres, including action, drama, and comedy. He has a strong following among action movie fans and is widely regarded as one of the most exciting and talented actors of his generation. Whether he is playing the lead role or a supporting character, Adkins always brings energy, commitment, and charisma to his work, and has proven himself to be a valuable asset to any film project.In this Eastern Heroes Special, we talk to Scott, along with his cast and the movie directors about their hit film "Accident Man 2: Hitman's Holiday."Accident Man 2: Hitman's Holiday features incredible fights. It's not only a vehicle for Scott Adkins but for the impressive martial arts action and comedy displayed by the cast".
