A Theater of Our Own

A Theater of Our Own PDF

Author: Richard Christiansen

Publisher:

Published: 2004

Total Pages: 346

ISBN-13:

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Who produced the first stage adaptation of "The Wizard of Oz" in 1902-nearly forty years before the movie classic?

How to Start Your Own Theater Company

How to Start Your Own Theater Company PDF

Author: Reginald Nelson

Publisher: Chicago Review Press

Published: 2010

Total Pages: 205

ISBN-13: 1556528132

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With advice and instruction from an experienced actor and theater director, this pragmatic, authoritative guide imparts backstage know-how for wouldbe playhouse practitioners on everything from fundraising and finding a space to selecting plays and navigating legal issues. Chronicling three seasons at Chicago's award-winning Congo Square Theatre, this journey behind the curtain reveals the nitty-gritty details--such as managing rent, parking, and safety issues; determining tax status and calculating budgets; and finding flexible day jobs--that are often overlooked amid the zeal of artistic pursuit. Inspired by Congo Square's own unique inception, the valuable how-to also speaks directly to the many underserved audiences who want to create their own companies, including African American, Asian American, Latino, physically challenged, and GLBT communities. With lists of Equity offices, legal advisers, and important organizations, this complete resource is sure to help ambitious theater lovers establish and maintain their own successful companies.

Steppenwolf Theatre Company of Chicago

Steppenwolf Theatre Company of Chicago PDF

Author: John Mayer

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2016-08-11

Total Pages: 281

ISBN-13: 1474239471

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In 1974, a group of determined, young high school actors started doing plays under the name of Steppenwolf Theatre Company, eventually taking residence in the basement of a church in Highland Park, a suburb of Chicago. Thus began their unlikely journey to become one of the most prominent theatre companies in the world. Steppenwolf Theatre Company has changed the face of American Theatre with its innovative approach that blends dynamic ensemble performance, honest, straightforward acting, and bold, thought-provoking stories to create compelling theatre. This is the first book to chronicle this iconic theatre company, offering an account of its early years and development, its work, and the methodologies that have made it one of the most influential ensemble theatres today. Through extensive, in-depth interviews conducted by the author with ensemble members, this book reveals the story of Steppenwolf's miraculous rise from basement to Broadway and beyond. Interviewees include co-founders Jeff Perry, Gary Sinise and Terry Kinney, along a myriad of ensemble, staff, board members and others.

Ensemble

Ensemble PDF

Author: Mark Larson

Publisher: Agate Publishing

Published: 2019-08-13

Total Pages: 624

ISBN-13: 1572848057

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This definitive history brings Chicago’s celebrated theater and comedy scenes to life with stories from some of its biggest stars spanning sixty-five years. Chicago is a bona fide theater town, bursting with vitality that thrills local fans and produces generation after generation of world-renowned actors, directors, playwrights, and designers. Now Mark Larson shares the rich theatrical history of Chicago through first-person accounts from the people who made it. Drawing from more than three hundred interviews, Larson weaves a narrative that expresses the spirit of Chicago’s ensemble ethos: the voices of celebrities such as Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Ed Asner, George Wendt, Michael Shannon, and Tracy Letts comingle with stories from designers, composers, and others who have played a crucial role in making Chicago theater so powerful, influential, and unique. Among many other topics, this book explores the early days of the fabled Compass Players and the legendary Second City in the ‘50s and ‘60s; the rise of acclaimed ensembles like Steppenwolf in the ‘70s; the explosion of storefront and neighborhood companies in the ‘80s; and the enduring global influence of the city as the center of improv training and performance.

The Theater of War

The Theater of War PDF

Author: Bryan Doerries

Publisher: Vintage

Published: 2016-08-23

Total Pages: 306

ISBN-13: 0307949729

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For years theater director Bryan Doerries has been producing ancient Greek tragedies for a wide range of at-risk people in society. His is the personal and deeply passionate story of a life devoted to reclaiming the timeless power of an ancient artistic tradition to comfort the afflicted. Doerries leads an innovative public health project—Theater of War—that produces ancient dramas for current and returned soldiers, people in recovery from alcohol and substance abuse, tornado and hurricane survivors, and more. Tracing a path that links the personal to the artistic to the social and back again, Doerries shows us how suffering and healing are part of a timeless process in which dialogue and empathy are inextricably linked. The originality and generosity of Doerries’s work is startling, and The Theater of War—wholly unsentimental, but intensely felt and emotionally engaging—is a humane, knowledgeable, and accessible book that will both inspire and enlighten.

Ensemble-Made Chicago

Ensemble-Made Chicago PDF

Author: Chloe Johnston

Publisher: Northwestern University Press

Published: 2018-11-15

Total Pages: 232

ISBN-13: 0810138794

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Featuring the work of: About Face Youth Theatre • Albany Park Theater Project • Barrel of Monkeys • Every house has a door • FEMelanin • 500 Clown • Free Street Theater • Honey Pot Performance • Lookingglass Theater • The Neo-Futurists • The Second City • Southside Ignoramus Quartet • Teatro Luna • Walkabout Theater • Young Fugitives Ensemble-Made Chicago brings together a wide range of Chicago theater companies to share strategies for cocreating performance. Cocreated theater breaks down the traditional roles of writer, director, and performer in favor of a more egalitarian approach in which all participants contribute to the creation of original material. Each chapter offers a short history of a Chicago company, followed by detailed exercises that have been developed and used by that company to build ensemble and generate performances. Companies included range in age from two to fifty years, represent different Chicago neighborhoods, and reflect both the storefront tradition and established cultural institutions. The book pays special attention to the ways the fight for social justice has shaped the development of this aesthetic in Chicago. Assembled from interviews and firsthand observations, Ensemble-Made Chicago is written in a lively and accessible style and will serve as an invaluable guide for students and practitioners alike, as well as an important archive of Chicago’s vibrant ensemble traditions. Readers will find new creative methods to enrich their own practice and push their work in new directions.

Build Your Own Home Theater

Build Your Own Home Theater PDF

Author: Robert Wolenik

Publisher: Elsevier

Published: 2001-10-25

Total Pages: 325

ISBN-13: 0080500382

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Written to provide information on all price ranges of equipment to everyone from the beginner to the experienced home theater owner, Build Your Own Home Theater has been completely updated for today's audience. This new edition contains valuable consumer information on the latest digital home theater components and technology, including digital surround sound receivers, DVD players, digital television & HDTV, digital satellites (DBS), digital camcorders, and digital hard-drive video recorders. It also features easy-to-understand explanations of surround sound technology and set ups—including Dolbyâ Digital, THX Surround EXTM, and DTS-ESTM. If you are interested in audio, video, and home theater technologies, this book will give you the information you need to choose the right components, hook the pieces together, and create a fabulous theater experience right in your own living room. When the first edition of Build Your Own Home Theater was published, decent home theater systems were primarily only affordable for wealthier consumers. Now, several years later, the technology is accessible to millions of homes as products such as wide-screen televisions, digital surround sound audio, DVD Video and Audio Players, and digital satellite systems have become commonplace. Though most people don't have actual home theater set-ups in their living rooms, more and more consumers are trying to combine components they already own with new high-tech components to create an affordable home theater experience. Complete with important home theater Web site addresses and resources, Build Your Own Home Theater, Second Edition is a comprehensive, current, and well-researched text. Beginners to advanced home theater consumers, Videophiles, technicians, engineers, and electronics hobbyists from all walks of life will especially find it invaluable. *"Dolby" and the double-D symbol are registered trademarks and "Surround Sound EX" is a trademark of Dolby Laboratories.THX and Lucasfilm are © Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All rights are reserved. Used under authorization. DTS and DTS-ES are trademarks of Digital Theater Systems, Inc. Covers all of the hot digital technologies and how to tie them together into one amazing home theater experience for budgets from $1,500 to $15,000 New edition includes cutting edge technology from Digital Surround Sound to High Definition and Digital Television, DVD, Video Hard-Drives, Digital Satellites, and much more

The Theater of Maria Irene Fornes

The Theater of Maria Irene Fornes PDF

Author: Marc Robinson

Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press

Published: 1999

Total Pages: 312

ISBN-13:

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Throughout the anthology, textual analysis is balanced with production criticism. Contributors assess Fornes's connection to the various traditions that have claimed her--absurdism, realism, and surrealism, among others. Several critics reveal Fornes's range by delving deeply into individual plays, particularly the landmark Fefu and Her Friends. Her work as a director is captured in rehearsal logs, interviews with her actors, and a sampling of production reviews from 1965 to 1993. The anthology closes with Fornes's own views on her work, in statements and interviews from each stage of her career. More than twenty production photographs accompany the text.

My Own Directions

My Own Directions PDF

Author: Sheldon Epps

Publisher: McFarland

Published: 2022-09-19

Total Pages: 197

ISBN-13: 1476646139

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Life in the theatre is often a rollercoaster ride, with all the excitement and occasional anguish that come with the highs and lows. The author's journey in the American theatre has been amplified by his experience as a Black man who has frequently been "one of the few," "the first" or even "the only." His directing career has been full of rewards and opportunities as well as huge challenges and frustrations, along with the anger that has come from being "chased by race" for so many years. Much of the author's experience comes from two decades artistic director of Pasadena Playhouse, one of the oldest and well-known theatres in America, and for a time early in his career, one of the whitest. This is the story of how the author came into leadership at Pasadena Playhouse after a successful career directing on Broadway, in London and all over the world. It relates how the theatre was radically changed and reignited by his leadership, including his insistence on making diversity a priority onstage and off. This is the very personal story of a person who wanted his race to be recognized, but never used as a reason to be less than fully respected. In many ways, this memoir tells the story of what people of color in America must face repeatedly to make their lives matter.

Rooms of Our Own

Rooms of Our Own PDF

Author: Susan Gubar

Publisher: University of Illinois Press

Published: 2006-10-30

Total Pages: 258

ISBN-13: 0252073797

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With a little help from Virginia Woolf, Susan Gubar contemplates startling transformations produced by the women's movement in recent decades. What advances have women made and what still needs to be done? Taking Woolf's classic A Room of One's Own as her guide, Gubar engages these questions by recounting one year in the life of an English professor. A meditation on the teaching of literature and on the state of the humanities today, her chapters also provide a crash course on the challenges and changes in feminist intellectual history over the past several decades: the influence of post-structuralism and of critical race, postcolonial, and cultural studies scholarship; the stakes of queer theory and the institutionalization of women's studies; and the effects of globalism and bioengineering on conversations about gender, sex, and sexuality. Yet Rooms of Our Own eschews a scholarly approach. Instead, through narrative criticism it enlists a thoroughly contemporary cast of characters who tell us as much about the comedies and tragedies of campus life today as they do about the sometimes contentious but invariably liberating feminisms of our future.