On Politics and the Art of Acting
On Politics and the Art of Acting

Author: Arthur Miller

Publisher: Viking Adult

Published: 2001

Total Pages: 104

ISBN-13:

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At once witty, wise and deeply provocative, On Politics and the Art of Acting is essential reading for everyone seriously interested in the American political scene."--BOOK JACKET.

What's the Story
What's the Story

Author: Anne Bogart

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2014-04-16

Total Pages: 202

ISBN-13: 1317703685

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Anne Bogart is an award-winning theatre maker, and a best-selling writer of books about theatre, art, and cultural politics. In this her latest collection of essays she explores the story-telling impulse, and asks how she, as a ‘product of postmodernism’, can reconnect to the primal act of making meaning and telling stories. She also asks how theatre practitioners can think of themselves not as stagers of plays but ‘orchestrators of social interactions’ and participants in an on-going dialogue about the future. We dream. And then occasionally we attempt to share our dreams with others. In recounting our dreams we try to construct a narrative... We also make stories out of our daytime existence. The human brain is a narrative creating machine that takes whatever happens and imposes chronology, meaning, cause and effect... We choose. We can choose to relate to our circumstances with bitterness or with openness. The stories that we tell determine nothing less than personal destiny. (From the introduction) This compelling new book is characteristically made up of chapters with one-word titles: Spaciousness, Narrative, Heat, Limits, Error, Politics, Arrest, Empathy, Opposition, Collaboration and Sustenance. In addition to dipping into neuroscience, performance theory and sociology, Bogart also recounts vivid stories from her own life. But as neuroscience indicates, the event of remembering what happened is in fact the creation of something new.

Why Acting Matters
Why Acting Matters

Author: David Thomson

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 2015-03-01

Total Pages: 191

ISBN-13: 0300213697

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Does acting matter? David Thomson, one of our most respected and insightful writers on movies and theater, answers this question with intelligence and wit. In this fresh and thought-provoking essay, Thomson tackles this most elusive of subjects, examining the allure of the performing arts for both the artist and the audience member while addressing the paradoxes inherent in acting itself. He reflects on the casting process, on stage versus film acting, and on the cult of celebrity. The art and considerable craft of such gifted artists as Meryl Streep, Laurence Olivier, Vivien Leigh, Marlon Brando, Daniel Day-Lewis, and others are scrupulously appraised here, as are notions of “good” and “bad” acting. Thomson’s exploration is at once a meditation on and a celebration of a unique and much beloved, often misunderstood, and occasionally derided art form. He argues that acting not only “matters” but is essential and inescapable, as well as dangerous, chronic, transformative, and exhilarating, be it on the theatrical stage, on the movie screen, or as part of our everyday lives.

Life and Acting
Life and Acting

Author: Jack Garfein

Publisher: Northwestern University Press

Published: 2010

Total Pages: 311

ISBN-13: 0810126737

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"Jack Garfein's book is a touching reminder of our early attempts at creating theater without artifice. It is good to know that he is still working hard at it."---Ben Gazzara --

Sanford Meisner on Acting
Sanford Meisner on Acting

Author: Sanford Meisner

Publisher: Vintage

Published: 2012-11-07

Total Pages: 272

ISBN-13: 0307830632

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Sanford Meisner was one of the best known and beloved teachers of acting in the country. This book follows one of his acting classes for fifteen months, beginning with the most rudimentary exercises and ending with affecting and polished scenes from contemporary American plays. Written in collaboration with Dennis Longwell, it is essential reading for beginning and professional actors alike. Throughout these pages Meisner is a delight—always empathizing with his students and urging them onward, provoking emotion, laughter, and growing technical mastery from his charges. With an introduction by Sydney Pollack, director of Out of Africa and Tootsie, who worked with Meisner for five years. "This book should be read by anyone who wants to act or even appreciate what acting involves. Like Meisner's way of teaching, it is the straight goods."—Arthur Miller "If there is a key to good acting, this one is it, above all others. Actors, young and not so young, will find inspiration and excitement in this book."—Gregory Peck

From Acting to Performance
From Acting to Performance

Author: Philip Auslander

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2002-04-12

Total Pages: 196

ISBN-13: 1134727194

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From Acting to Performance collects for the first time major essays by performance theorist and critic Philip Auslander. Together these essays provide a survey of the changes in acting and performance during the crucial transition from the ecstatic theatre of the 1960s to the ironic postmodernism of the 1980s. Auslander examines performance genres ranging from theatre and dance to performance art and stand-up comedy. In doing so he discusses an impressive line-up of practitioners including Antonin Artaud, Jerzy Grotowski, Peter Brook, Willem Dafoe, the Wooster Group, Augusto Boal, Kate Bornstein, and Orlan. From Acting to Performance is a must for all students and scholars interested in contemporary theatre and performance.