The Art of Theatre: Then and Now - Softcover

Downs, William Missouri; Wright; Ramsey, Erik

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1111348308 ISBN 13: 9781111348304

Publisher: Wadsworth Publishing, 2012

Synopsis

THE ART OF THEATRE: THEN AND NOW, Third Edition, explores issues of cultural diversity and creativity, presents a full day-in-the-life of theatre, and offers comprehensive coverage of theatre history. The authors make timely and relevant connections between theatre and the familiar world of television and film to help students understand how the living art of theatre relates to and influences today's screen entertainment. For flexibility in instruction, THE ART OF THEATRE is available in two versions. This full version contains 17 chapters, six of which cover theatre history in both Western and non-Western contexts, and concludes with a chapter on "The Musical". THE ART OF THEATRE: A CONCISE INTRODUCTION features 12 chapters and a briefer treatment of theatre's history, and also features a chapter on "The Musical".

About this title

About the Author:

William Missouri Downs is a playwright and director. His plays have been produced by The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, The Orlando Shakespeare Theatre, The InterAct Theatre in Philadelphia, The San Diego Rep, The Berkeley Repertory Theatre, the Salt Lake City Acting Company, the Actors Theatre of Charlotte, the International Theatre Festival in Israel, the Stadt Theater Walfischgasse in Austria, the Jewish Theatre of Toronto, The Bloomington Playwright's Project, the Detroit Rep, the New York City Fringe Festival, the Durban Performing Arts Center in South Africa, and 150 theatres worldwide. His numerous playwriting awards include two rolling premieres from the National New Play Network ("Women Playing Hamlet" and "The Exit Interview"), and twice he was a finalist at the Eugene O'Neill ("Mad Gravity" and "How to Steal a Picasso"). Samuel French, Playscripts, Next Stage Press, and Heuer have published his plays. In addition, Bill has authored several articles and three other books, including SCREENPLAY: WRITING THE PICTURE and NAKED PLAYWRITING, both published by Silman/James. In Hollywood he was a staff writer on the NBC sitcom "My Two Dads" (starring Paul Reiser). He also wrote episodes of "Amen" (starring Sherman Hemsley) and "Fresh Prince of Bel Air" (starring Will Smith) as well as sold/optioned screenplays to Imagine Pictures and Filmways. Trained under the Oscar Nominated Polish Director Jerzy Antczak, Bill has directed over 40 college and professional productions. He holds an MFA in acting from the University of Illinois and an MFA in screenwriting from UCLA. Lanford Wilson and Milan Stitt at the Circle Rep in New York City trained him in playwriting.

Lou Anne Wright is an actor, dialect coach, professor, and writer; she holds an MFA in Voice, Speech, and Dialects from the National Theatre Conservatory and is a certified Fitzmaurice Voicework teacher. Lou Anne has served as voice/dialect coach for such companies as the Colorado Shakespeare Festival and the Denver Center for the Performing Arts, and her film roles include Judy Shepard in HBO's "The Laramie Project" and Nell in "Hearsay". As a playwright, she authored "Kabuki Medea", which won the Bay Area Critics Award for Best Production in San Francisco. It was also produced at the Kennedy Center. She is the coauthor of the book PLAYWRITING: FROM FORMULA TO FORM, and her screenwriting credits include the film adaptation of Eudora Welty's "The Hitch-Hikers", which featured Patty Duke and Richard Hatch (for which she was nominated for the Directors Guild of America's Lillian Gish Award). Lou Anne teaches acting, voice, speech, and dialects at the University of Wyoming, where she has won several teaching awards.

Erik Ramsey is an Associate Professor of Playwriting in the MFA Playwriting Program at Ohio University. His plays have been developed at various theaters including Cleveland Public Theatre, American Stage, Victory Gardens, and Pittsburgh Irish and Classical Theatre, and been published by Samuel French and Dramatic Publishing. As a new play dramaturg, he has worked in diverse settings from Steppenwolf Theater to WordBridge Lab. Over the past decade he has been a guest artist and taught playwriting, new play development, and narrative theory in a variety of national and international venues, including the St. Petersburg Academy of Dramatic Arts "New American Plays" Conference and Lubimovka Playwrights Laboratory at Teatr.doc in Moscow. Erik's newest play, a two-hander for actresses in their 40s, explores the intersection of rodeo clowning and time-travel.

Review:

Part I: THEATRE LITERACY. 1. Theatre, Art, and Entertainment. 2. Stage vs. Screen. 3. Theatre and Cultural Diversity. 4. Experiencing and Analyzing Plays. Part II: THE ARTS WITHIN THE ART. 5. A Day in the Life of a Theatre. 6. The Playwright and the Script. 7. The Art of Acting. 8. The Art of Directing. 9. The Art of Design. 10. A Creative Life. Part III: A CONCISE HISTORY. 11. Non-Western Theatre. 12. The Greeks to the Rise of Christianity. 13. The Dark Ages to the Dawn of the Renaissance. 14. The Renaissance. 15. The Restoration, the Enlightenment, and Romanticism. 16. Modern Theatre. 17. The Musical.

About this edition

• Publisher: Wadsworth Publishing
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 1111348308
• ISBN 13: 9781111348304
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 3
• Number of pages: 496