Books about Theatre from Amazon.com



August: Osage County

Winner of the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Drama

"A tremendous achievement in American playwriting: a tragicomic populist portrait of a tough land and a tougher people."-Time Out New York

"Tracy Letts' August: Osage County is what O'Neill would be writing in 2007. Letts has recaptured the nobility of American drama's mid-century heyday while still creating something entirely original."-New York magazine

One of the most bracing and critically acclaimed plays in recent Broadway history, August: Osage County is a portrait of the dysfunctional American family at its finest-and absolute worst. When the patriarch of the Weston clan disappears one hot summer night, the family reunites at the Oklahoma homestead, where long-held secrets are unflinchingly and uproariously revealed. The three-act, three-and-a-half-hour mammoth of a play combines epic tragedy with black comedy, dramatizing three generations of unfulfilled dreams and leaving not one of its thirteen characters unscathed. After its sold-out Chicago premiere, the play has electrified audiences in New York since its opening in November 2007.

Tracy Letts is the author of Killer Joe, Bug, and Man from Nebraska, which was a finalist for the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. His plays have been performed throughout the country and internationally. A performer as well as a playwright, Letts is a member of the Steppenwolf Theatre Company, where August: Osage County premiered.

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Price: $8.28 [Notify me when price goes down.]


Wicked - Piano/Vocal Arrangement
Nominated for a whopping 10 Tony Awards and grossing more than $1 million each week, Wicked is this year's Broadway smash! A prequel to the all-American classic The Wizard of Oz, this new musical is a character study of Elphaba and Glinda, school roommates who grow up to become the Wicked Witch and the Good Witch, respectively. Feature a special section of color photos from the production, a note from composer/lyricist Stephen Schwartz, and these fantastic tunes: As Long as You're Mine Dancing Through Life Defying Gravity For Good I Couldn't Be Happier I'm Not That Girl No Good Deed No One Mourns the Wicked One Short Day Popular What Is This Feeling? The Wizard and I Wonderful..
Price: $10.92 [Notify me when price goes down.]


The Clean House and Other Plays

"Passionate. Show-stopping Daringly over-the-top and impressively consistent in its delirious excess. The Clean House shines."-New Haven Advocate

"The Clean House is not, by any means, a traditional boy-meets-girl story. In fact disease, death, and dirt are among the subjects it addresses. This comedy is romantic, deeply so, but in the more arcane sense of the word: visionary, tinged with fantasy, extravagant in feeling, maybe a little nuts."-The New York Times

"Touching, inventive, invigoratingly compact, and luminously liquid, Eurydice reframes the ancient myth of ill-fated love to focus not on the bereaved musician but on his dead bride-and on her struggle with love beyond the grave."-San Francisco Chronicle

This volume is the first publication of Sarah Ruhl, "a playwright with a unique comic voice, perspective, and sense of theater" (Variety), who is fast leaving her mark on the American stage. In the award-winning Clean House-a play of uncommon romance and uncommon comedy-a maid who hates cleaning dreams about creating the perfect joke, while a doctor who treats cancer leaves his heart inside one of his patients. This volume also includes Eurydice, Ruhl's reinvention of the tragic Greek tale of love and loss, together with a third play still to be named.

Sarah Ruhl received the prestigious Susan Smith Blackburn Prize in 2004 for her play The Clean House, which has been produced at Yale Repertory Theatre in New Haven, Wilma Theatre in Philadelphia, South Coast Repertory Theatre in Costa Mesa, and Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company in Washington, DC. Her play Eurydice has been produced at Madison Repertory Theatre and Berkeley Repertory Theatre.

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Price: $10.13 [Notify me when price goes down.]


Anything Goes
From his Glaswegian childhood and American adolescence to his starring role in the Doctor Who spinoff Torchwood, this memoir traces the life and career of actor John Barrowman John made a name for himself with remarkable West End achievements, including an Olivier Award nomination and success in the movies The Producers and De-Lovely. Television success was also assured when Torchwood won a Best Drama BAFTA. John also lays bare his personal life: his emigration as a child, coming out to his family, turning down a job at Disney, and his civil partnership with long-term partner Scott Gill. Revelatory and insightful, told with real heart and characteristic Barrowman charm, this is a wonderful tale of how one boy achieved his dreams.
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Price: $19.76 [Notify me when price goes down.]


Hiding in Plain Sight: The Secret Life of Raymond Burr
The complete story of the actor's career, including his secret gay life. Raymond Burr (1917-1993) was an enigma. A film noir star regularly known for his villainous roles in movies like Rear Window, he delighted millions of viewers each week with the top-rated shows Perry Mason and Ironside, which ran virtually uninterrupted for 20 years. But Burr was leading a secret gay life at a time in Hollywood when such a lifestyle was akin to career suicide. He invented a tragic biography for himself in which he was mythologized as a heartbroken husband and father. There was even an invented affair with a teenage Natalie Wood, 21 years his junior. He fought for truth as Perry Mason and Robert T. Ironside, yet he couldn't admit his own deception. Burr met his partner, struggling actor Robert Benevides, on the set of Perry Mason, and they remained together for over 35 years until Burr's death. Together, they built a business empire, traveled the world, and shared their passion for orchids and fine wine - keeping the true nature of their relationship a secret from all but their closest friends - a secret revealed here for the first time in depth..
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An Actor Prepares
So much mystery and veneration surrounds the writings of the great Russian teacher and director Stanislavski that perhaps the greatest surprise awaiting a first-time reader of An Actor Prepares is how conversational, commonsensical, and even at times funny this legendary book is. After many productions with the Moscow Arts Company, Stanislavski sought a way to introduce his new style of acting to the world outside of his rehearsal hall. The resulting book is a "mock diary" of an actor describing a series of exercises and rehearsals in which he participates. He details his own emotional and intellectual reactions to each effort, and how his superficial tricks and mannerisms begin to disappear as he increasingly gives over his conscious ego to a faith in the creative power of his subconscious. Rarely has any writer on the theater achieved the sort of lucid and inspired analysis of the acting process as Stanislavski does here, and his introduction of such now-standard concepts as "the unbroken line," "the magic if," and the idea of emotional memory has laid the groundwork for much of the great acting of the 20th century. While much excess and nonsense was to follow in the steps of Stanislavski's writings, his original texts remain invaluable, and surprisingly accessible, to any actor or student of drama. --John Longenbaugh.
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The Theater Experience Tenth Edition
The ideal theater appreciation text for courses focusing on theater elements, The Theater Experience encourages students to be active theater-goers as they learn about the fundamentals of a production. By addressing the importance of the audience, Wilson brings the art of performance to life for students who may have little experience with the medium..
Price: $53.88 [Notify me when price goes down.]


No Exit and Three Other Plays
4 plays about an existential portrayal of Hell, the reworking of the Electra-Orestes story, the conflict of a young intellectual torn between theory and conflict and an arresting attack on American racism..
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On Stage: Theater Games and Activities for Kids
Kids learn about theater with games and activities that cover basic theater vocabulary, puppetry and pantomime, sound effects, costumes, props, makeup, and more.
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Price: $9.65 [Notify me when price goes down.]


The Seafarer

"Conor McPherson, who [turned] 35 in August, is one of the genuine treasures of the English-language theatre. It is absolutely intoxicating to ponder what he will give us in the future."-Irish Echo

"The unique and extraordinary aspect of McPherson's writing is the way in which his characters reveal themselves in tiny details which almost imperceptibly build up an extensive picture of the past, present and future, not just of themselves but of Ireland."-The Sunday Mail (London)

Conor McPherson returns to his native Dublin for the setting of his new play, which he will direct in a much-anticipated production at London's National Theatre in fall 2006. It is Christmas Eve, and James "Sharky" Harkin, erstwhile fisherman/van driver/chauffeur, gathers with friends at the dingy flat he shares with his blind brother to drink booze and play cards. As Christmas Eve becomes Christmas Day, the familiar-looking stranger Mr. Lockhart reminds Sharky of the bargain he made when they last met in prison-and Sharky suddenly finds himself playing a game with the stakes set at his soul. With this magnificently atmospheric new play, McPherson is once again set to entrance his audience, this time with a new take on the Faustian theme.

Conor McPherson was born in Dublin, where he still lives. His plays include This Lime Tree Bower, St. Nicholas, The Weir, Port Authority, Dublin Carol, and Shining City, which premiered on Broadway in spring 2006. One of Ireland's leading playwrights, his work has been produced throughout the United Kingdom and the United States.

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Price: $8.12 [Notify me when price goes down.]


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