Script Analysis for Actors, Directors, and Designers

Script Analysis for Actors, Directors, and Designers teaches the skills of script analysis using a formalist approach that examines the written part of a play to gauge how the play should be performed and designed. Treatments of both classic and unconventional plays are combined with clear examples, end-of-chapter questions, and stimulating summaries that will allow actors, directors and designers to immediately incorporate the concepts and processes into their theatre production work.

Now thoroughly revised, the fifth edition contains a new section on postmodernism and postdramatic methods of script analysis, along with additional material for designers.

James Thomas, Professor of Theatre and Head of the PhD for Scholar-Directors at Wayne State University is a graduate of St. Ambrose College (BA), Villanova University (MA), and the University of Texas at Austin (PhD). Thomas has also taught theatre at Mount Holyoke College, Marquette University and Florida State University, where he was Associate Dean of the School of Theatre. His recent directing credits include Six Characters in Search of an Author and Cymbeline at Detroit's Hilberry Theatre, and Ah, Wilderness! and The Skin of our Teeth at the Bonstelle Theatre. His research has been published in Theatre Journal, Theatre Topics, and Contemporary Theatre Review. He is also translator of the books of Russian director Anatoly Efros and Director of Wayne State University’s Study Abroad Program with the Moscow Art Theatre School. He is currently at work on a directing textbook.