Julie Taymor: Playing with Fire - Theater, Opera, Film

Julie Taymor is the avant-garde theater magician who turned Disney's The Lion King into a Broadway smash -- and became the first woman to win a Tony Award for best director. This richly illustrated book, the first edition of which was published before Taymor's Broadway triumph, has now been expanded to include The Lion King and other recent Taymor productions, including The Flying Dutchman, The Green Bird, and her forthcoming film of Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus, starring Sir Anthony Hopkins and Jessica Lange.

Award-winning theater critic Eileen Blumenthal traces Taymor's background and achievements in theater, opera, and film. Taymor herself provides notes on each of her projects, along with her original drawings for costumes and characters.j

Since the first edition of this work appeared in 1995, Julie Taymor's fame as one of the world's most imaginative theatrical director/designers has expanded beyond avant-garde cognescenti to the general public with her mega-hit Broadway adaptation of Disney's The Lion King and, most recently, her first feature film, Titus, based on the bloodiest of Shakespeare's tragedies. Still in her forties, Taymor is the recipient of a MacArthur "genius" grant and the first woman to win a Tony Award for directing. Theater critic Blumenthal's excellent introductory essay tracing Taymor's early theatrical influences is followed by shorter, heavily illustrated production histories of her major productions, from Way of Snow (1974) through Titus (1999). This updated edition is published to coincide with a major retrospective exhibition of her design work traveling from Columbus, OH, to North Adams, MA; Washington, DC; and Chicago. It is easily the most accessible introduction to Taymor available, appropriate and recommended for all public and academic library theater collections.
-Robert W. Melton, Univ. of Kansas, Lawrence
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