The Art of Theatre: Then and Now - Softcover

Downs, William Missouri; Wright; Ramsey, Erik

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0495391042 ISBN 13: 9780495391043

Publisher: Wadsworth Publishing, 2008

Synopsis

THE ART OF THEATRE: THEN AND NOW, Second Edition, explores issues of diversity and creativity, presents a full day-in-the-life of theatre, and offers comprehensive coverage of theatre history. The authors make timely and relevant connections between theatre and the familiar world of television and film to help students understand how the living art of theatre relates to and influences today's screen entertainment. For flexibility in the way you teach, THE ART OF THEATRE is available in two versions. THE ART OF THEATRE: THEN AND NOW contains 17 chapters, 7 of which cover theatre history in both Western and non-Western contexts. THE ART OF THEATRE: A CONCISE INTRODUCTION features 12 chapters and a briefer treatment of theatre's key movements.

About this title

About the Author:

William Missouri Downs has taught introduction to theatre courses for 18 years. More than 14,000 students have taken his class and he has won 18 university teaching and research awards, including seven Top Ten Professor honors. Bill is a full professor at the University of Wyoming where he heads the playwriting program, and teaches in the Department of Religious Studies. Also a playwright, Bill has authored 20 full-length plays, won numerous playwriting awards, and has had over 100 productions from New York to Singapore and from Austria to South Africa, including productions at the Kennedy Center and the Berkeley Rep. In addition, Samuel French and Playscripts have published several of his plays. In Hollywood he was a staff writer on the NBC sitcom "My Two Dads" (which starred Paul Reiser). He also wrote episodes of "Amen" (Sherman Helmsley), "The Fresh Prince of Bel Air" (Will Smith), and sold/optioned screenplays to Imagine Pictures and Filmways. He is a member of both the Writers Guild of America (WGA) and Dramatists Guild of America (DGA). Bill holds an MFA in acting from the University of Illinois and an MFA in screenwriting from UCLA film school. He was trained in playwriting by Lanford Wilson and Milan Stitt at the Circle Rep in New York City and was a member of the Denver Center for the Performing Arts Playwrights unit. He has directed over 30 plays including the musical "Good Morning Athens," which was performed at the Kennedy Center during the American College Theatre Festival. He has authored several articles and three other books including: SCREENPLAY: WRITING THE PICTURE and NAKEN PLAYWRITING, both published by Silman/James.

Lou Anne Wright is an actor, dialect coach, professor, and writer; she holds an MFA in Voice, Speech and Dialects from the National Theatre Conservatory and is a certified Fitzmaurice Voicework teacher. Lou Anne has served as voice/dialect coach for such companies as the Colorado Shakespeare Festival, Denver Center for the Performing Arts, and the Playmakers Repertory Theatre. Film roles include Judy Shepard in HBO's "The Laramie Project" and Nell in "Heresay". As a playwright, she authored the play "Kabuki Medea," which won the Bay Area Critics Award for Best Production in San Francisco. It was also produced at the Kennedy Center. She is the coauthor of the book PLAYWRITING: FROM FORMULA TO FORM and her screenwriting credits include the film adaptation of Eudora Welty's "The Hitch-Hikers," which featured Patty Duke and Richard Hatch (and for which she was nominated for the Directors Guild of America's Lillian Gish Award). Lou Anne teaches acting, voice, speech, dialects, and theatre history at the University of Wyoming where she has won several teaching awards.

Erik Ramsey is an Associate Professor of Playwriting at Ohio University; he is Head of BFA Playwriting and teaches in the MFA Playwriting Program. Several of his plays are available from Samuel French and Dramatic Publishing. His recent play "Lions Lost" has been developed at numerous regional theaters including Cleveland Public Theatre, American Stage, Victory Gardens, and Pittsburgh Irish and Classical Theatre. Currently, he is writing a trilogy of historical dramas about the surprising turn of events that boosted Joseph Smith from a rural crystal ball gazer to Prophet of the Mormon Church; the first in the series, titled "Smith Unearthed," has been work-shopped at the International Society of Contemporary Literature and Theatre Conference in Estonia (July, 2007), the Gwen Frostic National Reading Series at Western Michigan University (November, 2008), Brick Monkey Theater Ensemble (December, 2008) and Pittsburgh Irish and Classical Theatre (January, 2011). After several years of new-play dramaturgy nationwide, working with both professional and emerging playwrights, Erik was named a Kennedy Center Faculty Fellow (2007) and has been appointed as Director of Innovation and Research Theory for WordBRIDGE Playwrights' Laboratory (2010). Most recently, he taught master classes in playwriting and new play development techniques at Lubimovka Playwrights Laboratory in Moscow, Russia.

Review:

"The pictures are wonderful--clear, colorful, current, and exciting. There are plenty of online sources offered to get more information. The quotes in the margins are great discussion starters and inspiration."

"It is exciting, colorful, diverse, clear, and covers most of the material I teach. I like the colorful text headings for the boxes."

"My students have given very favorable feedback on this text as opposed to the other books I have used. I find that this text is informative on a level that is age appropriate and allows for open discussion in the classroom. The multi-media is full of positive additions and the ability to make multiple versions of the same exam is wonderful."

About this edition

• Publisher: Wadsworth Publishing
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0495391042
• ISBN 13: 9780495391043
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 512