This groundbreaking play starred Sidney Poitier, Claudia McNeill, Ruby Dee and Diana Sands in the Broadway production which opened in 1959. Set on Chicago's South Side, the plot revolves around the divergent dreams and conflicts within three generations of the Younger family: son Walter Lee, his wife Ruth, his sister Beneatha, his son Travis and matriarch Lena, called Mama. When her deceased husband's insurance money comes through, Mama dreams of moving to a new home and a better neighborhood in Chicago. Walter Lee, a chauffeur, has other plans, however: buying a liquor store and being his own man. Beneatha dreams of medical school.
The tensions and prejudice they face form this seminal American drama. Sacrifice, trust and love among the Younger family and their heroic struggle to retain dignity in a harsh and changing world is a searing and timeless document of hope and inspiration. Winner of the NY Drama Critic's Award as Best Play of the Year, it has been hailed as a "pivotal play in the history of the American Black theatre." by Newsweek and "a milestone in the American Theatre."

It is virtually impossible to discuss modern acting or actor training without first mentioning the Russian thoerist and director Konstantin Stanislavsky. Complete in one volume, Mel Gordon explores the actor training systems of Stanislavsky and his two most important disciples, Evgeni Vakhtangov and Michael Chekhov, tracing the major teachings and refinements over the first 50 years of use by actors. Gordon reconstructs the actual exercises taught at the Moscow Art Theatre and various Russian acting studios, and he clears away the myths and confusion about the practical use of Stanislavsky's System. This volume contains: The Stanislavsky System - First Studio Exercises 1912-1916; Vakhtangov as Rebel and Theoretician - Exercises 1919-1921; Michael Chekhov - Exercises 1919-1952; and Stanislavsky's Fourth Period - Theory of Physical Actions, 1934-1938.

Out of the large body of materials -- articles, speeches, notes and memoirs -- left behind by Stanislavski at the time of his death in 1938, Elizabeth Hapgood, his friend and translator, chose items which concentrate on the essence of his work. The result is a volume which supplements the other books he wrote, and re-emphasizes, sometimes in condensed and particulary vivid form, his views about acting, the theatre and life.

The mystery plays and other drama of the English Middle Ages are perennially popular with students and theater audiences alike. This book gives an up-to-date account of the field, aimed at students of English literature and theater, as well as showing how the plays can be appreciated by the theater-going public in modern productions. It introduces new readers to famous mystery cycles such as those of Chester and York, and to great morality plays such as Everyman. There is a strong emphasis on theatricality, with numerous illustrations and valuable reference material.

Signs of Performance provides the beginning student with working examples of theatrical analysis. Its range covers the whole of twentieth century theatre, from Stanislavski to Brecht and Samuel Beckett to Robert Wilson. Colin Counsell takes an historical look at theatre as a cultural practice, clearly tracing connections between: * Key practitioners' ideas about performance * The theatrical practices prompted by those ideas * The resulting signs which emerge in performance * The meanings and political consequences of those signs It provides an understandable theoretical framework for the study of theatre as a an signifying practice, and offers vivid explanations in clear, direct language. It opens up this fascinating field to a broad audience.

'It is a pleasure to read. Well-written, free of cant, impressively wide-ranging. The book is really an introduction to the avant-garde.' - John Lahr

'Every day, thousands of women enter acting classes where most of them will receive some variation on the Stanislavsky-based training that has now been taught in the U.S. for nearly ninety years. Yet relatively little feminist consideration has been given to the experience of the student actress: What happens to women in Method actor training?' An Actress Prepares is the first book to interrogate Method acting from a specifically feminist perspective. Rose Malague addresses "the Method" not only with much-needed critical distance, but also the crucial insider's view of a trained actor. Case studies examine the preeminent American teachers who popularized and transformed elements of Stanislavsky's System within the U.S.-Strasberg, Adler, Meisner, and Hagen- by analyzing and comparing their related but distinctly different approaches. This book confronts the sexism that still exists in actor training and exposes the gender biases embedded within the Method itself. Its in-depth examination of these Stanislavskian techniques seeks to reclaim Method acting from its patriarchal practices and to empower women who act. 'I've been waiting for someone to write this book for years: a thorough-going analysis and reconsideration of American approaches to Stanislavsky from a feminist perspective ...lively, intelligent, and engaging.' - Phillip Zarrilli, University of Exeter 'Theatre people of any gender will be transformed by Rose Malague's eye-opening study An Actress Prepares...This book will be useful to all scholars and practitioners determined to make gender equity central to how they hone their craft and their thinking.' - Jill Dolan, Princeton University

When Woolf debuted in 1961, audiences and critics alike could not get enough of Edward Albee's masterful play. A dark comedy, it portrays husband and wife George and Martha in a searing night of dangerous fun and games. By the evening's end, a stunning revelation provides a climax that has shocked audiences for years. With the play's razor-sharp dialogue and the stripping away of social pretense, Newsweek keenly foresaw Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? as "a brilliantly original work of art-an excoriating theatrical experience, surging with shocks of recognition and dramatic fire that will be igniting Broadway for some time to come."

Tori Haring-Smith is a director and instructor as well as administrator of the Jane Chambers Memorial Playwriting Award. Her experience in the theatre has shown her, time and time again, that actors constantly draw from the same sources for monologues. This second volume should supply a greater source of refreshingly new material from some of the country's top new female playwrights.