During the pandemic, theatermakers Sheila Callaghan, Meg Miroshnik, & Kelly Miller made a book with artwork from their peers: Liz Duffy Adams, Nayna Agrawal, Tessa Albertson, Jazmine Aluma, Liz Appel, Mallery Avidon, Rachel Axler, Jenny Lyn Bader, Kari Bentley-Quinn, Kate Bergstrom, Susan Bernfield, Larry Biederman, Rachel Bonds, Amy Boratko, Mattie Brickman, Eleanor Burgess, Adrienne Campbell-Holt, Jonathan Caren, Marisa Carr, Jaime Castañeda, Jo Cattell, Jennifer Chambers, Jackie Chung, Carmela Corbett, Adam D. Crain, Cusi Cram, Migdalia Cruz, Francisca Da Silveira, Mashuq Deen, Steph Del Rosso, Kristoffer Diaz, Julie Felise Dubiner, Erik Ehn, Larissa FastHorse, Annah Feinberg, Liz Frankel, Gibson Frazier, Matt Freeman, Edith Freni, Jeremy Gable, Joanna Glum, Emma Goidel, Jacqueline Goldfinger, Isaac Gómez, Tasha Gordon-Solmon, Kirsten Greenidge, Rinne Groff, Jason Grote, Lauren M. Gunderson, April Dawn Guthrie, Mary Elizabeth Hamilton, Adrien-Alice Hansel, Elizabeth Harper, Julie Hébert, Justice Hehir, Laura Heisler, Alex Henrikson, Deb Hiett, Daniel Hirsch, Lily Holleman, Jess Honovich, Scott Horstein, Andy Horwitz, Emma Horwitz, Lily Houghton, Lindsay Brandon Hunter, Kristin Idaszak, Naomi Iizuka, Rachel Jendrzejewski, Kate Jopson, Lila Rose Kaplan, MJ Kaufman, Lucas Kavner, Lisa Kenner Grissom, Callie Kimball, Ramona Rose King, Krista Knight, Andrea Kuchlewska, Jenni Lamb, Jacqueline E. Lawton, Jer Adrianne Lelliott, Sarah Rose Leonard, Sofya Levitsky-Weitz, Danielle Levsky, Mike Lew, Jerry Lieblich, Katie Lindsay, Craig Lucas, Kirk Lynn, Wendy MacLeod, Jennifer Maisel, Chelsea Marcantel, Winter Miller, Rehana Lew Mirza, Michael Mitnick, Anne G. Morgan, Matt Moses, Allie Moss, Gregory S. Moss, Rebecca Mozo, Nick Hadikwa Mwaluko, Katie Locke O'Brien, Kira Obolensky, Laurel Ollstein, Matthew Paul Olmos, Julie Oullette, Kristen Palmer, Lina Patel, Christopher O. Peña, Roxie Perkins, Eric Pfeffinger, Rebecca Phillips Epstein, Daria Polatin, Christina Quintana (CQ), Stella Fawn Ragsdale, Molly Rice, Anya Richkind, Colette Robert, Alexis Roblan, Ashley Lauren Rogers, Elaine Romero, Whitney Rowland, Zoe Sarnak, Matt Schatz, Dana Schwartz, Betty Shamieh, Mike Shapiro, Alexandra Shilling, Jen Silverman, Jessy Lauren Smith, Elizabeth Spreen, Matt Stadelmann, Ellen Steves, Caridad Svich, Adam Szymkowicz, Kate Tarker, Ashley Teague, Melisa Tien, Ken Urban, Kathryn Walat, John Walch, Molly Ward, Seanan Palmero Waugh, Tatiana Wechsler, Jenny Rachel Weiner, Calamity West, Deborah Yarchun, Mackenzie Yeager, Gina Young.

Successful theatre relies on a complex interaction of all theatrical elements: script, direction, acting, and design interact in shifting configurations to offer a new work of art at every performance. Examining these relationships often enriches the theatrical experience. Theatre: Its Art and Craft is an introductory theatre text that focuses on the practitioners and their processes. Using an accessible tone and a focused exploration of how theatre artists work, the book covers every aspect of this art form: from writing, directing, and acting to the designing of sets and costumes, as well as the use of props, lights, sound, and new technology. This book also examines the varying roles of scholars, critics, and dramaturgs. This seventh edition has been thoroughly revised and features new statistics, new photos, and updated references. New sidebars have been added throughout, including one on cultural appropriation, another on lighting technology, and more and better discussions of what carpenters, technical directors, stage managers, and theatre artists do. Accessible to students who have little or no theatrical background, this book helps readers understand how theatre happens by explaining who makes it happen and what they do. Reflecting a commitment to explore how all theatre practitioners work, Theatre: Its Art and Craft is a useful text for beginning theatre majors, minors, and non-majors alike.

This annotated translation is the first systematic rendering into any Western language of the nine major treatises on the art of the Japanese No theater by Zeami Motokivo (1363-1443). Zeami, who transformed the No from a country entertainment into a vehicle for profound theatrical and philosophical experience, was a brilliant actor himself, and his treatises touch on every aspect of the theater of his time. His theories, mixing philosophical and practical insights, often seem strikingly contemporary. Since their discovery early in this century. these secret treatises have been considered among the most valuable and representative documents in the history of Japanese aesthetics. They discuss subjects from the art of the playwright to the reciprocal nature of the relationship between performer and audience.

What is artistic resonance and how can it be linked to one's life and one's art? This latest book of essays from legendary theatre director Anne Bogart, considers the creation of resonance in the artistic endeavour, with a focus on the performing arts. The word 'resonance' comes from the Latin meaning to 're-sound' or 'sound together'. From music to physics, resonance is a common thread that evokes a response and, in general, is understood as a quality that makes something personally meaningful and valuable. For Bogart, curiosity is a key personal quality to be nurtured throughout life and that very same curiosity, as an artist, thinker and human being. Creating pathways between performance theory, art history, neuroscience, music, architecture and the visual arts, and consistently forging new thought-paths, the writing draws upon Anne Bogart's own life and artistic journeys to illuminate potent philosophical ideas. Woven with personal anecdotes, stories and reflections, this is a book that will be of interest to any theatre artist and anyone who reflects on the power of the arts, of theatre-making and what it means to be engaged in the artistic process.

"The reality of a play is in its performance. "Making Theatre" focuses on the processes by which performance is realized, analyzing three major areas: "Words" and the interpretation of the text; "Vision", including scenery, costume and lighting; and "Music" which illustrates the importance of music in all stage action. The forms of theatre covered include straight drama, the musical and opera. Taking productions well-known on both sides of the Atlantic, Peter Mudford examines plays by Shakespeare, Chekhov, Pirandello, Beckett, Pinter, Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller and David Mamet; musicals by Rodgers and Hammerstein, Cole Porter and Stephen Sondheim; and operas by Verdi, Wagner and Berg. This account of what makes theatre important and how it works will be valuable to teachers and students of drama and performance, as well as all those interested in theatre as an art."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

How dull plays are killing theatre and what we can do about it. Had I become disenchanted with the form I had once fallen so madly in love with as a pubescent, pimple-faced suburban homo with braces? Maybe theatre was like an all-consuming high school infatuation that now, ten years later, I saw as the closeted balding guy with a beer gut he’d become. There were of course those rare moments of transcendencethat kept me coming back. But why did they come so few and far between? A lot of plays are dull. And one dull play, it seems, can turn us off theatre for good. Playwright and theatre director Jordan Tannahill takes in the spectrum of English-language drama – from the flashiest of Broadway spectacles to productions mounted in scrappy storefront theatres – to consider where lifeless plays come from and why they persist. Having travelled the globe talking to theatre artists, critics, passionate patrons and the theatrically disillusioned, Tannahill addresses what he considers the culture of ‘risk aversion’ paralyzing the form. Theatre of the Unimpressed is Tannahill’s wry and revelatory personal reckoning with the discipline he’s dedicated his life to, and a roadmap for a vital twenty-first-century theatre – one that apprehends the value of ‘liveness’ in our mediated age and the necessity for artistic risk and its attendant failures. In considering dramaturgy, programming and alternative models for producing, Tannahill aims to turn theatre from an obligation to a destination. ‘[Tannahill is] the poster child of a new generation of (theatre? film? dance?) artists for whom "interdisciplinary" is not a buzzword, but a way of life.’ —J. Kelly Nestruck, Globe and Mail ‘Jordan is one of the most talented and exciting playwrights in the country, and he will be a force to be reckoned with for years to come.’ —Nicolas Billon, Governor General's Award–winning playwright (Fault Lines)

A Director Prepares is a thought-provoking examination of the challenges of making theatre. In it, Anne Bogart speaks candidly and with wisdom of the courage required to create 'art with great presence'. Each chapter tackles one of the seven major areas Bogart has identified as both potential partner and potential obstacle to art-making. They are Violence; Memory; Terror; Eroticism; Stereotype; Embarrassment; and Resistance. Each one can be used to generate extraordinary creative energy, if we know how to use it. A Director Prepares offers every practitioner an extraordinary insight into the creative process. It is a handbook, Bible and manifesto, all in one. No other book on the art of theatre comes even close to offering this much understanding, experience and inspiration.