In this provocative book by actor Kyle Secor (Homicide: Life on the Street, The Flash, Veronica Mars), you're invited on a wild ride into the unknown where the 'me' and the 'actor' are not all they appear to be. Where the freedom of acting without an actor and doing with a doer may be the unavoidable expression of Love. Not only for actors, but a book anyone might keep nearby as a reminder of just what is.
In The Death of the Actor Martin Buzacott launches an all-out attack on contemporary theatrical practice and performance theory which identifies the actor, rather than the director, as the key creative force in the performance of Shakespeare. Because actors are absent from the site of Shakespearean meaning, he argues, the illusion of their centrality is sustained only by a rhetoric of heroism, violence and imperialism.
An aging actor, forced into retirement after a lifetime on the stage, decides he will create for himself a new life based on Rostand's immortal Cyrano de Bergerac. With the help of other actors, the actor's fantasy becomes true to life and the he is faced with a life or death choice.
In The Death of the Actor Martin Buzacott launches an all-out attack on contemporary theatrical practice and performance theory which identifies the actor, rather than the director, as the key creative force in the performance of Shakespeare. Because actors are absent from the site of Shakespearean meaning, he argues, the illusion of their centrality is sustained only by a rhetoric of heroism, violence and imperialism.
This book is concerned with such questions as the following: What is the life of the past in the present? How might “the theatre of death” and “the uncanny in mimesis” allow us to conceive of the afterlife of a supposedly ephemeral art practice? How might a theatrical iconology engage with such fundamental social relations as those between the living and the dead? Distinct from the dominant expectation that actors should appear life-like onstage, why is it that some theatre artists – from Craig to Castellucci – have conceived of the actor in the image of the dead? Furthermore, how might an iconology of the actor allow us to imagine the afterlife of an apparently ephemeral art practice? This book explores such questions through the implications of the twofold analogy proposed in its very title: as theatre is to the uncanny, so death is to mimesis; and as theatre is to mimesis, so death is to the uncanny. Walter Benjamin once observed that: “The point at issue in the theatre today can be more accurately defined in relation to the stage than to the play. It concerns the filling-in of the orchestra pit. The abyss which separates the actors from the audience like the dead from the living...” If the relation between the living and the dead can be thought of in terms of an analogy with ancient theatre, how might avant-garde theatre be thought of in terms of this same relation “today”?
A HOLLYWOOD TRAGEDY REVEALED AFTER 60 YEARS!!! Robert Morris should have been a star. He was producer Bert Leonard's original choice to ride alongside George Maharis in Route 66; however, as the concept for the series evolved, Morris was out and Martin Milner was in. As Maharis and Milner prepared to drive into the annals of television history, Robert Morris relocated from New York to California to boost his career. What initially appeared to be a good move ended in tragedy. Less than a year after moving out west, Robert Morris died under peculiar circumstances at a "health ranch" in southern California at the age of 25. For the first time ever, the story of Robert Morris is finally being told: From his humble beginnings as Bobby Morawczynski, growing up in Reading, Pennsylvania; to his days at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City; his summer internship at the American Shakespeare Festival Theatre in Stratford, Connecticut, in 1956; his television work in New York, most notably on episodes of Deadline and The Naked City, where he co-starred with George Maharis in a "backdoor pilot" for Route 66; to his final days in California where he met his untimely death. In his brief lifetime, Robert Morris worked alongside many people who would go on to fame and fortune, beginning with Lenny Moore, the Pro Football Hall of Famer whose career took shape on the field at Reading High School; Morris was the left halfback to Lenny Moore's right halfback. As a competitive bodybuilder, he shared the stage with Mickey Hargitay (Mr. Universe 1955), Yas Kuzuhara (Mr. USA 1954) and Harry Johnson (Mr. America 1959). At the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, he took classes and hung out with the likes of Eileen Brennan, George Coe, Richard Stahl, Hoke Howell and Clint Kimbrough. At the American Shakespeare Festival Theatre, he worked with notable veterans like John Houseman, Norman Lloyd, John Emery, Stanley Bell, and Morris Carnovsky, up-and-comers like Nina Foch, Pernell Roberts, Fritz Weaver and Jonathan Frid, and future entertainment luminaries like Peter Bogdanovich, Michael Lindsay-Hogg and Jerry Stiller. His television work saw him share the screen with Steve McQueen, William Shatner, Ralph Bellamy, George Maharis, Paul Stewart, Vic Morrow, Michael Ansara, Rory Calhoun and Walter Matthau, working under directors like Robert Mulligan (To Kill A Mockingbird) and Stuart Rosenberg (Cool Hand Luke). Promise Unfulfilled: The Brief Life and Bizarre Death of Actor Robert Morris is the portrait of a man who put his best foot forward to attain the American Dream -- only to have tragedy intervene. Read the story as told by those who knew him -- his friends, family and colleagues, including George Maharis, Michael Lindsay-Hogg, Tony Franke, Barbara Lord Warburton, Pamela Saunders, Susan Quick, Harvey Grossman and Robert Heide.
Do cheaters go to Hell? Actor Tom O'Rourke secretly cheated on his wife for thirty-five-years and went to Hell. Appearing to his wife in a lucid dream, he came back from the dead to set the record straight.After Tom's devastating revelation that he'd been a secret cheater, there were many troubled layers of deceit to peel back in the search to understand what drove him to cheat. You wouldn't think such an intelligent, sensitive man could get so messed up, but it's been my experience working in advertising and show business with models, photographers, actors, directors, and other creative types, that it is often the most intelligent, sensitive people who are the most messed up, particularly if they've had difficult childhoods, like Tom did.Author Marcy Casterline O'Rourke is a Barnard College graduate, former Eileen Ford high fashion model for Vogue, Elle, and Harper's Bazaar, and veteran actress of dozens of TV commercials. Moving from small town New Jersey to New York City, she studied acting at the Actor's Studio and with Lee Strasberg, working in many off-Broadway theaters. While pursuing her career, she met and married ex US Army paratrooper and Goodman Theater student, actor Tom O'Rourke. He subsequently became a popular TV star, creating the role of Justin Marler on the soap opera the Guiding Light; later co-starring opposite Sandra Bullock in the sitcom Working Girl for NBC; working as a regular on all the Law and Order shows, and appearing in Maid in Manhattan, American Gangster, United 93, and many more TV shows and films. If you've ever wondered about sin and Hell, this journey of one man's soul from his troubled life to his next world experiences will open your eyes and change the way you live. These afterlife revelations are a stunning new way to grasp the intimate connection between our minds, our choices, our souls and God's forgiving nature. The wisdom of a dead man can help you live a better life and avoid the Hell he found himself in. Thomasorourkeactor.blogspot.com
The 1978 murder of actor Bob Crane remains unsolved. Hook retested the original blood evidence, and searched for the identity of the killer. He shows how police mistakes and missing evidence impacted the investigation, and raises new questions in the search for truth.
