Books about Stagecraft from Amazon.com

Wicked is not just a musical, it is a phenomenon Every week 15,000 people pack New York+s Gershwin Theatre to see the show. The most successful musical on Broadway in 2004, Wicked is based on the bestselling novel of the same name by Gregory Maguire. It tells the story of Elphaba, the headstrong Wicked Witch of the West, and Glinda, the good witch, growing up in the Land of Oz. The show has cast a spell on fans, many of whom return for second and third viewings. In 2005, the show begins an extensive tour across the United States and Canada, hitting major cities such as Toronto, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington, D.C., and many more.This beautifully packaged, whimsical keepsake is designed to resemble the Grimmerie, an ancient book of spells that Elphaba uses in the show. Wicked: The Grimmerie offers fans a behind-the-curtains peek at the musical, profiles of the cast and creative team, and inside stories, with full-color photographs throughout. Some of the irresistible special features include an -Ozian+ glossary, spells, an illustrated family tree, and a step-by-step look at how Elphaba gets green before each show-everything fans need to relive the Broadway experience day after day..
Price: $23.12 [Notify me when price goes down.]

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Price: $10.67 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Stanislavski's simple exercises fire the imagination, and help readers not only discover their own conception of reality but how to reproduce it as well..
Price: $10.00 [Notify me when price goes down.]

This book, written in collaboration with Dennis Longwell, follows an acting class of eight men and eight women for fifteen months, beginning with the most rudimentary exercises and ending with affecting and polished scenes from contemporary American plays. Throughout these pages Meisner is delight--always empathizing with his students and urging them onward, provoking emotion, laughter, and growing technical mastery from his charges. With an introduction by Sydney Pollack, director of "Out of Africa" and "Tootsie," who worked with Meisner for five years.

"This book should be read by anyone who wants to act or even appreciate what acting involves. Like Meisner's way of teaching, it is the straight goods."--Arthur Miller


"If there is a key to good acting, this one is it, above all others. Actors, young and not so young, will find inspiration and excitement in this book."--Gregory Peck.
Price: $8.53 [Notify me when price goes down.]

6 working actors describe their methods and philosophies of the theater All have worked with playwright David Mamet at the Goodman Theater in Chicago..
Price: $4.46 [Notify me when price goes down.]

First published in 1988, Backstage Handbook is one of the most widely used stagecraft textbooks in the United States, with about 10,000 copies sold every year.

This handy reference book brings together under one cover an incredible variety of information useful to designers, technicians and students who work behind the scenes in theatre, film and television. Its sturdy leatherette binding will stand up to years of constant use.

The third edition updates this popular reference book with new terminology and materials, and adds dozens of new illustrations of grip hardware, film lighting equipment and painting tools. Backstage Handbook includes chapters on Tools, Hardware, Materials, Electrics, Shop Math, Architecture and Theatre. There are hundreds of illustrations, tables and charts which cover everything from the stock sizes and specs of wood screws, to safe working loads for several kinds of rope, to illustrations of twenty-two types of standard lamp bases..
Price: $17.82 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Respect for Acting

"This fascinating and detailed book about acting is Miss Hagen's credo, the accumulated wisdom of her years spent in intimate communion with her art. It is at once the voicing of her exacting standards for herself and those she [taught], and an explanation of the means to the end."
--Publishers Weekly

"Hagen adds to the large corpus of titles on acting with vivid dicta drawn from experience, skill, and a sense of personal and professional worth. Her principal asset in this treatment is her truly significant imagination. Her 'object exercises' display a wealth of detail with which to stimulate the student preparing a scene for presentation."
--Library Journal

"Uta Hagen's Respect for Acting . . . is a relatively small book. But within it, Miss Hagen tells the young actor about as much as can be conveyed in print of his craft."
--Los Angeles Times

"There are almost no American actors uninfluenced by Uta Hagen."
--Fritz Weaver

"This is a textbook for aspiring actors, but working thespians can profit much by it. Anyone with just a casual interest in the theater should also enjoy its behind-the-scenes flavor."
--King Features Syndicate.
Price: $11.13 [Notify me when price goes down.]

No one interested in the history of dress, from art historians to stage designers, from museum curators to teachers of fashion and costume, can function effectively without Janet Arnold's Patterns of Fashion series. Since her untimely death in 1998, admirers of her work have been waiting, with increasing impatience, for the promised volume devoted to the linen clothes of the Elizabethan and early Stuart periods, a companion to her previous volume on tailored clothes of the same era. Planned and partly prepared by Janet herself, and completed by Jenny Tiramani, Janet's last pupil, no other book exists that is dedicated to the linen clothes that covered the body from the skin outwards. It contains full colour portraits and photographs of details of garments in the explanatory section, as well as patterns for 86 items of linen clothing, which range from men's shirts and women's smocks, from superb ruffs and collars to boot hose and children's stomachers. Beautifully produced, it is an invaluable guide to both the history and the recreation of these wonderful garments. There are 178 black and white illustrations and photographs, 86 patterns and detail, 433 color photographs and well as the patterns and details..
Price: $32.97 [Notify me when price goes down.]

This comprehensive and practical survey examines the technical and design aspects of play production, including scene design and construction, lighting, sound, costume, and makeup. Design is presented as both an art closely integrated with the director�s, actor�s, and playwright�s vision, and a craft that provides practical solutions for the physical manipulation of stage space. Health and safety precautions for the backstage crew appear throughout in boxes labeled �Safety Tips,� and �Design Inspiration� boxes show how professional designers create the desired look..
Price: $79.74 [Notify me when price goes down.]