On the Shelf at CCBC Libraries
Coward Plays: 3 by
The third volume of Coward's plays contains some of his best work from the thirties. Design for Living - is about a triangular alliance between two men and a woman, based on friends of Coward's, which he waited to write "until she and he and I had arrived by different roads in our careers at a time and a place when we felt we could all three play together with a more or less equal degree of success." Cavalcade was Coward's most ambitious stage project, set during the Boer War, which cost £30,000 in its day and which includes scenes of the relief of the sinking of the Titanic and the coming of the Jazz Age. Conversation Piece is a musical comedy that Noël wrote for the Parisian star Yvonne Printemps and includes the song "I'll Follow My Secret Heart". Also in the volume are three short plays including Tonight at 8.30 - Hands Across the Sea, a gentle satire of colonials and London Society; Still Life which became the film Brief Encounter and Fumed Oak a suburban comedy about a 'worm who turns'. The volume is introduced by Sheridan Morley.
Call Number: PR6005.O85 A153 1999ISBN: 0413461009
The Oberon Book of Monologues for Black Actors by
Foreword by Naomie HarrisHow many Black British plays can you name?Inspired by both classical and contemporary plays, The Oberon Book of Monologues for Black Actresses gives readers an insight into some of the best cutting-edge plays written by black British playwrights, over the last sixty years. This collection features over twenty speeches by Britain's most prominent black dramatists. The monologues represent a wide-range of themes, characters, dialects and styles. Suitable for young people and adults, each selection includes production information, a synopsis of the play, a biography of the playwright and a scene summary. The aim of this collection is that actors will enjoy working on these speeches, using them to help strengthen their craft, and by doing so, help to ensure these plays are always remembered.
Call Number: PN2080 .O25 2013ISBN: 9781783190560
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British Playwrights, 1956-1995 by
The year 1956 marked a point when British drama and theater fell into the hands of a group of young playwrights who revolutionized the stage. During that time, playwrights such as Samuel Beckett and Harold Pinter made the British theater as rich, varied, and vital as any national theater in history. This reference chronicles the history of British theater from 1956 to 1995 by providing detailed information about the playwrights of that period. Included are entries for some three dozen British playwrights active between 1956 and 1995. Entries are arranged alphabetically to facilitate use. Each entry supplies biographical information, the production history for particular plays, a survey of the playwright's critical reception, an assessment of the dramatist's work, and primary and secondary bibliographies. A selected, general bibliography at the end of the volume directs the reader to important sources of additional information about this period in theater history.
ISBN: 0313287597Publication Date: 1996
Contemporary British Drama by
This book provides a critical assessment of dramatic literature since 1995, situating texts, companies and writers in a cultural, political and social context. It examines the shifting role of the playwright, the dominant genres and emerging styles of the past decade and how they are related. Beginning with an examination of how dramatic literature and the writer are placed in the contemporary theatre, the book then provides detailed analyses of the texts, companies and writing processes involved in six different professional contexts: new writing, verbatim theatre, writing and devising, Black and Asian theatre, writing for young people and adaptation and transposition. The chapters cover contemporary practitioners, including Simon Stephens, Gregory Burke, Robin Soans, Alecky Blythe, Kneehigh Theatre, Punchdrunk, Kwame Kwei-Armah, Edward Bond, Filter Theatre and Headlong, and offers detailed case-studies and examples of their work. Key Features* The first book to examine contemporary British drama from the In-Yer-Face era (1995 - 2000) to the present day and track the changes and developments through this period* Extended case-studies of Simon Stephens, Gregory Burke and Caryl Churchill and the last decade of new writing in Britain* Focus on recent adaptation, including Kneehigh Theatre, Punchdrunk, Filter Theatre and Headlong
ISBN: 9780748643240Publication Date: 2010
Understanding Romeo and Juliet by
The tragic love story of Romeo and Juliet has touched the hearts of young and old for nearly four hundred years. In this work, Alan Hager has compiled a rich collection of primary materials and contemporary ranging from information about the earliest performances of Romeo and Juliet to discussions of suicide in the 1990s. Designed to help students of the play, Understanding Romeo and Juliet highlights many different aspects of the play's context. Such aspects include a discussion about religions of love in the East and West, and examination of vendetta and collective violence, and an analysis of the play in the context of classical and medieval thought. Hager relates the work to issues as recent as the so-called Werther Syndrome (copycat suicide based on fictional models) and as remote as the notion of reincarnated love such as that of Rama and Sita in the Sanskrit epic Ramayana. Following a literary analysis of the play, the casebook provides commentary and primary documents on the narrative backgrounds and sources of the play and selections from those sources; a discussion of its performance history on stage, in opera and film; the historical context of the play as an exploration of the nature of love, with selections from poetry of the period; and selections on real-life parallels, such as present-day Bosnia, the recent Leonardo DiCaprio-Claire Danes film of the play, and teen suicide in the 1990s, all of which will help readers to relate to the play. Each section of the work closes with topics for class discussion and papers and suggested works for further reading.
ISBN: 0313296162Publication Date: 1999
