The Invisible Actor presents the captivating and unique methods of the distinguished Japanese actor and director, Yoshi Oida. While a member of Peter Brook's theatre company in Paris, Yoshi Oida developed a masterful approach to acting that combined the oriental tradition of supreme and studied control with the Western performer's need to characterise and expose depths of emotion. Written with Lorna Marshall, Yoshi Oida explains that once the audience becomes openly aware of the actor's method and becomes too conscious of the actor's artistry, the wonder of performance dies. The audience must never see the actor but only his or her performance. Throughout Lorna Marshall provides contextual commentary on Yoshi Oida's work and methods. In a new foreword to accompany the Bloomsbury Revelations edition, Yoshi Oida revisits the questions that have informed his career as an actor and explores how his skilful approach to acting has shaped the wider contours of his life.
An Actor Adrift is the remarkable account of Japanese actor director Yoshi Oida, who in 1968 left Japan and joined Peter Brook's international theatre company in Paris. Since then he has become a leading member and trainer in the company. In this book, part personal story and part a workbook for actors and directors wishing to understand and employ Peter Brook's techniques, Oida describes the formation and early training of Brook's company and provides an account of the first decade of work. It provides a fascinating account of the company's first public performance - The Conference of the Birds in Iran, of the extraordinary explorative journey that followed through Africa, of work in America and of the return to work in France. While he relates productions of The Ik, The Conference of the Birds, The Mahabharata, Orghast and Timon of Athens, he interweaves his vivid personal experience as an actor in whom Estern and Western culture and practices come together.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER USA TODAY BESTSELLER NATIONAL INDIE BESTSELLER THE WASHINGTON POST BESTSELLER Recommended by Entertainment Weekly, Real Simple, NPR, Slate, and Oprah Magazine #1 Library Reads Pick—October 2020 #1 Indie Next Pick—October 2020 BOOK OF THE YEAR (2020) FINALIST—Book of The Month Club A “Best Of” Book From: Oprah Mag * CNN * Amazon * Amazon Editors * NPR * Goodreads * Bustle * PopSugar * BuzzFeed * Barnes & Noble * Kirkus Reviews * Lambda Literary * Nerdette * The Nerd Daily * Polygon * Library Reads * io9 * Smart Bitches Trashy Books * LiteraryHub * Medium * BookBub * The Mary Sue * Chicago Tribune * NY Daily News * SyFy Wire * Powells.com * Bookish * Book Riot * Library Reads Voter Favorite * In the vein of The Time Traveler’s Wife and Life After Life, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue is New York Times bestselling author V. E. Schwab’s genre-defying tour de force. A Life No One Will Remember. A Story You Will Never Forget. France, 1714: in a moment of desperation, a young woman makes a Faustian bargain to live forever—and is cursed to be forgotten by everyone she meets. Thus begins the extraordinary life of Addie LaRue, and a dazzling adventure that will play out across centuries and continents, across history and art, as a young woman learns how far she will go to leave her mark on the world. But everything changes when, after nearly 300 years, Addie stumbles across a young man in a hidden bookstore and he remembers her name. Also by V. E. Schwab Shades of Magic A Darker Shade of Magic A Gathering of Shadows A Conjuring of Light Villains Vicious Vengeful At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
Invisible Ink is the story of Guy Stern’s remarkable life. This is not a Holocaust memoir; however, Stern makes it clear that the horrors of the Holocaust and his remarkable escape from Nazi Germany created the central driving force for the rest of his life. Stern gives much credit to his father’s profound cautionary words, "You have to be like invisible ink. You will leave traces of your existence when, in better times, we can emerge again and show ourselves as the individuals we are." Stern carried these words and their psychological impact for much of his life, shaping himself around them, until his emergence as someone who would be visible to thousands over the years. This book is divided into thirteen chapters, each marking a pivotal moment in Stern’s life. His story begins with Stern’s parents—"the two met, or else this chronicle would not have seen the light of day (nor me, for that matter)." Then, in 1933, the Nazis come to power, ushering in a fiery and destructive timeline that Stern recollects by exact dates and calls "the end of [his] childhood and adolescence." Through a series of fortunate occurrences, Stern immigrated to the United States at the tender age of fifteen. While attending St. Louis University, Stern was drafted into the U.S. Army and soon found himself selected, along with other German-speaking immigrants, for a special military intelligence unit that would come to be known as the Ritchie Boys (named so because their training took place at Ft. Ritchie, MD). Their primary job was to interrogate Nazi prisoners, often on the front lines. Although his family did not survive the war (the details of which the reader is spared), Stern did. He has gone on to have a long and illustrious career as a scholar, author, husband and father, mentor, decorated veteran, and friend. Invisible Ink is a story that will have a lasting impact. If one can name a singular characteristic that gives Stern strength time after time, it is his resolute determination to persevere. To that end Stern’s memoir provides hope, strength, and graciousness in times of uncertainty.
Drawing on Ken Rea's 35 years' teaching experience and research, as well as interviews with top actors and directors, The Outstanding Actor identifies seven key qualities that the most successful actors manifest, along with practical exercises that help nurture those qualities and videos to demonstrate them. Featuring contributions and insights from Ewan McGregor, Jude Law, Judi Dench, Al Pacino, Lily James, Rufus Norris and many more, The Outstanding Actor gives you techniques that you can immediately put into practice in rehearsals, classes or private preparation. It also shows you how to increase the chances of having a more successful career. This new edition covers topical issues such as the #MeToo movement, gender balance and race issues, and how these affect working conditions and careers. There are also brand new links to video resources that bring the valuable exercises to life. The book also includes forewords by Damian Lewis and Lily James.
A founding member of Peter Brook's international theatre company, Yoshi Oida infuses his acting and directing with the artistry of the Oriental traditions and a mastery of Western forms. In this disarmingly accessible study of the art of acting he shares his unique experience and range of expertise. An Actor's Tricks offers a meticulous scrutiny of the actor's preparation for performance and comes with a foreword by Peter Brook. Drawing on an unrivalled wealth and range of expertise in the fields of acting, directing and training, Yoshi Oida and Lorna Marshall provide an authoritative and fascinating study of the art of the actor. In scrutinising the process of performance from the twin perspectives of the actor and director, An Actor's Tricks is filled with hints, insights and stories from productions with Peter Brook and from around the world. Beginning with the daily preparation to train the body, it moves to the process of rehearsal for a performance right up to the moment when the actor steps onstage. An appendix of practical exercises is included for the actor to follow. The books combines principles and techniques from both Western and Eastern disciplines of acting to provide a masterful study essential for every actor and director.
THE SECOND EDITION OF THIS TITLE, ENTITLED ACTOR TRAINING, IS NOW AVAILABLE. Actor training is arguably the central phenomenon of twentieth century theatre making. Here for the first time, the theories, training exercises and productions of fourteen directors are analysed in a single volume, each one written by a leading expert. The practitioners included are: * Stella Adler * Bertolt Brecht * Joseph Chaikin * Jacques Copeau * Joan Littlewood * Vsevelod Meyerhold * Konstantin Stanislavsky * Eugenio Barba * Peter Brook * Michael Chekhov * Jerzy Grotowski * Sanford Meisner * Wlodimierz Staniewski * Lee Strasbourg Each chapter provides a unique account of specific training exercises and an analysis of their relationship to the practitioners theoretical and aesthetic concerns. The collection examines the relationship between actor training and production and considers how directly the actor training relates to performance. With detailed accounts of the principles, exercises and their application to many of the landmark productions of the past hundred years, this book will be invaluable to students, teachers, practitioners, and academics alike.
Reading this book will make you less sure of yourself—and that’s a good thing. In The Invisible Gorilla, Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons, creators of one of psychology’s most famous experiments, use remarkable stories and counterintuitive scientific findings to demonstrate an important truth: Our minds don’t work the way we think they do. We think we see ourselves and the world as they really are, but we’re actually missing a whole lot. Chabris and Simons combine the work of other researchers with their own findings on attention, perception, memory, and reasoning to reveal how faulty intuitions often get us into trouble. In the process, they explain: • Why a company would spend billions to launch a product that its own analysts know will fail • How a police officer could run right past a brutal assault without seeing it • Why award-winning movies are full of editing mistakes • What criminals have in common with chess masters • Why measles and other childhood diseases are making a comeback • Why money managers could learn a lot from weather forecasters Again and again, we think we experience and understand the world as it is, but our thoughts are beset by everyday illusions. We write traffic laws and build criminal cases on the assumption that people will notice when something unusual happens right in front of them. We’re sure we know where we were on 9/11, falsely believing that vivid memories are seared into our minds with perfect fidelity. And as a society, we spend billions on devices to train our brains because we’re continually tempted by the lure of quick fixes and effortless self-improvement. The Invisible Gorilla reveals the myriad ways that our intuitions can deceive us, but it’s much more than a catalog of human failings. Chabris and Simons explain why we succumb to these everyday illusions and what we can do to inoculate ourselves against their effects. Ultimately, the book provides a kind of x-ray vision into our own minds, making it possible to pierce the veil of illusions that clouds our thoughts and to think clearly for perhaps the first time.
In the Company of Actors is a wonderful ensemble of entertaining and illuminating discussions with sixteen of the most celebrated and prestigious actors in contemporary theatre, film and television. The impressive list of actors includes: Eileen Atkins, Alan Bates, Simon Callow, Judi Dench, Brenda Fricker, Nigel Hawthorne, Jane Lapotaire, Janet McTeer, Ian Richardson, Miranda Richardson, Stephen Rea, Fiona Shaw, Anthony Sher, Janet Suzman, David Suchet, and Penelope Wilton. Carole Zucker covers a wide range of topics including the actors' main childhood influences, their actor training, early acting experience, preparation for roles and sound advice for coping with actors' problems such as creative differences with other actors or directors.
