Stagecraft

WICKED: THE GRIMMERIE, A BEHIND-THE-SCENES LOOK AT THE HIT BROADWAY MUSICAL

Wicked is not just a musical, it is a phenomenon. Every week 15,000 people pack New Yorks Gershwin Theatre to see the show. The most successful musical on Broadway in 2004, Wicked is based on the bestselling novel of the same name by Gregory Maguire. It tells the story of Elphaba, the headstrong Wicked Witch of the West, and Glinda, the good witch, growing up in the Land of Oz. The show has cast a spell on fans, many of whom return for second and third viewings. In 2005, the show begins an extensive tour across the United States and Canada, hitting major cities such as Toronto, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington, D.C., and many more. This beautifully packaged, whimsical keepsake is designed to resemble the Grimmerie, an ancient book of spells that Elphaba uses in the show. Wicked: The Grimmerie offers fans a behind-the-curtains peek at the musical, profiles of the cast and creative team, and inside stories, with full-color photographs throughout. Some of the irresistible special features include an Ozian glossary, spells, the shows libretto, an illustrated family tree, and a step-by-step look at how Elphaba gets green before each showeverything fans need to relive the Broadway experience day after day.

Adrian: Silver Screen to Custom Label

Sanford Meisner on Acting

Sanford Meisner has been called "the theater's best-kept secret," and Sanford Meisner on Acting by Dennis Longwell gives some insight into what techniques the hugely influential drama teacher used in his 50-plus years of work. One of the founding members of the Actors Studio (with Lee Strasberg, Stella Adler, and Harold Clurman), Meisner developed his own special lessons based upon his understandings of the great Russian teacher Stanislavsky. Turning away from the sense-memory exercises common among his colleagues, his training focused instead on a realistic approach to imagination and creativity. Unlike many other educators associated with "the Method," Meisner had little tolerance for self-absorption or striving after strong emotional effect, instead preaching that clarity of purpose and efficient use of the psyche are the actor's greatest tools. Longwell's book follows a class of eight men and eight women through one of Meisner's 15-month courses at New York's Neighborhood Playhouse, with extensive transcripts taken directly from Meisner's notes to the students on the basis of their exercises. With an introduction by director Sydney Pollack, one of the many influential artists who studied with Meisner (the book includes accolades from Maureen Stapleton, Arthur Miller, Gregory Peck, and Eli Wallach), this is an excellent introduction that helps to demystify the work of a great theatrical teacher. --John Longenbaugh

This book, written in collaboration with Dennis Longwell, follows an acting class of eight men and eight women for fifteen months, beginning with the most rudimentary exercises and ending with affecting and polished scenes from contemporary American plays. Throughout these pages Meisner is 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

Respect for Acting

In her introduction to Respect for Acting, actress and teacher Uta Hagen talks about a time when she herself had no respect for the art of acting. "I used to accept opinions such as: 'You're just born to be an actor'; 'Actors don't really know what they're doing on stage'; 'Acting is just instinct--it can't be taught.'" But this attitude of "you got it or you don't" is fundamentally one that denigrates the craft, as she points out. Great actors do not perform effortlessly, or merely through learning the appropriate tricks and cheats to manipulate an audience. Great acting is about the difficult fusion of intellect and action--about sincerely and truthfully connecting to the moment, your fellow actors, and the audience--and Hagen's thoughtful and profound book contains a series of observations and exercises to help an actor do just that. Her prose style is admirably clear and filled with examples from her own lengthy career both as a performer and in the classroom. While her exercises in sense memory and basic objects skirt close to the sort of self-absorption that followers of "the Method" are routinely accused of, they are presented clearly and with a focus on practical results. And in such places as her chapter "Practical Problems," which includes discussions of stage nerves and how to stay fresh in a long run, her straightforward advice is invaluable. --John Longenbaugh

"This fascinating and detailed book about acting is Miss Hagen's credo, the accumulated wisdom of her years spent in intimate communion with her art. It is at once the voicing of her exacting standards for herself and those she teaches, and an explanation of the means to the end. For those unable to avail themselves of her personal tutelage, her book is the best substitute." —Publishers Weekly "Uta Hagen's Respect for Acting is not only pitched on a high artistic level but it is full of homely, practical information by a superb craftswoman. crafts-woman. An illuminating discussion of the standards and techniques of enlightened stage acting." —Brooks Atkinson "Hagen adds to the large corpus of titles on acting with vivid dicta drawn from experience, skill, and a sense of personal and professional worth. Her principal asset in this treatment is her truly significant imagination. Her `object exercises' display a wealth of detail with which to stimulate the student preparing a scene for presentation." —Library Journal "Respect for Acting is a simple, lucid and sympathetic statement of actors' problems in the theatre and basic tenets for their training wrought from the personal experience of a fine actress and teacher of acting." —Harold Clurman "Uta Hagen's Respect for Acting…is a relatively small book. But within it Miss Hagen tells the young actor about as much as can be conveyed in print of his craft." —Los Angeles Times "Uta Hagen is our greatest living actor; she is, moreover, interested and mystified by the presence of talent and its workings; her third gift is a passion to communicate the mysteries of the craft to which she has given her life. There are almost no American actors uninfluenced by her." —Fritz Weaver "This is a textbook for aspiring actors, but working thespians can profit much by it. Anyone with just a casual interest in the theater should also enjoy its behind-the-scenes flavor. Respect for Acting is certainly a special book, perhaps for a limited readership, but of its "How-To" kind I'd give it four curtain calls, and two hollers of "Author, Author —King Features Syndicate

Dressed: A Century of Hollywood Costume Design

From the lavish productions of Hollywood's Golden Age through the high-tech blockbusters of today, the most memorable movies all have one thing in common: they rely on the magical transformations rendered by the costume designer. Whether spectacular or subtle, elaborate or barely there, a movie costume must be more than merely a perfect fit. Each costume speaks a language all its own, communicating mood, personality, and setting, and propelling the action of the movie as much as a scripted line or synthetic clap of thunder. More than a few acting careers have been launched on the basis of an unforgettable costume, and many an era defined by the intuition of a costume designer—think curvy Mae West in I'm No Angel (Travis Banton, costume designer), Judy Garland in A Star is Born (Jean Louis and Irene Sharaff, costume designers), Diane Keaton in Annie Hall (Ruth Morley, costume designer), or Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones in Raiders of the Lost Ark (Deborah Nadoolman Landis, costume designer).

In Dressed: A Century of Hollywood Costume Design, Academy Award-nominated costume designer Deborah Nadoolman Landis showcases one hundred years of Hollywood's most tantalizing costumes and the characters they helped bring to life. Drawing on years of extraordinary research, Landis has uncovered both a treasure trove of costume sketches and photographs—many of them previously unpublished—and a dazzling array of first-person anecdotes that inform and enhance the images. Along the way she also provides and eye-opening, behind-the-scenes look at the evolution of the costume designer's art, from its emergence as a key element of cinematic collaboration to its limitless future in the era of CGI.

A lavish tribute that mingles words and images of equal luster, Dressed is one book no film and fashion lover should be without.

The Backstage Handbook: An Illustrated Almanac of Technical Information

First published in 1988, Backstage Handbook is one of the most widely used stagecraft textbooks in the United States, with about 10,000 copies sold every year.

This handy reference book brings together under one cover an incredible variety of information useful to designers, technicians and students who work behind the scenes in theatre, film and television. Its sturdy leatherette binding will stand up to years of constant use.

The third edition updates this popular reference book with new terminology and materials, and adds dozens of new illustrations of grip hardware, film lighting equipment and painting tools. Backstage Handbook includes chapters on Tools, Hardware, Materials, Electrics, Shop Math, Architecture and Theatre. There are hundreds of illustrations, tables and charts which cover everything from the stock sizes and specs of wood screws, to safe working loads for several kinds of rope, to illustrations of twenty-two types of standard lamp bases.

The Prop Builder's Molding & Casting Handbook

An Actor Prepares

So much mystery and veneration surrounds the writings of the great Russian teacher and director Stanislavski that perhaps the greatest surprise awaiting a first-time reader of An Actor Prepares is how conversational, commonsensical, and even at times funny this legendary book is. After many productions with the Moscow Arts Company, Stanislavski sought a way to introduce his new style of acting to the world outside of his rehearsal hall. The resulting book is a "mock diary" of an actor describing a series of exercises and rehearsals in which he participates. He details his own emotional and intellectual reactions to each effort, and how his superficial tricks and mannerisms begin to disappear as he increasingly gives over his conscious ego to a faith in the creative power of his subconscious. Rarely has any writer on the theater achieved the sort of lucid and inspired analysis of the acting process as Stanislavski does here, and his introduction of such now-standard concepts as "the unbroken line," "the magic if," and the idea of emotional memory has laid the groundwork for much of the great acting of the 20th century. While much excess and nonsense was to follow in the steps of Stanislavski's writings, his original texts remain invaluable, and surprisingly accessible, to any actor or student of drama. --John Longenbaugh

An Actor Prepares is the first volume of Stanislavski's enduring trilogy on the art of acting. Fusing psychological realism and expressionism, his exploratory exercises teach actors to evoke past emotions that draw out their vulnerability. Stanislavski here introduces such concepts as the "magic if," "emotion memory," the "unbroken line" and many more now famous rehearsal aids. This classic manual is written from the viewpoint of fictional actors taking lessons from a director (based on Stanislavski). Through the student's mistakes, questions, revelations, and struggles, Stanislavski teaches the actor about the stage, truth, and life itself.

Motion Picture and Video Lighting, Second Edition

Motion Picture and Video Lighting, Second Edition, is the indispensable guide to film and video lighting. Written by the author of the industry bible Cinematography, this book explores technical, aesthetic, and practical aspects of lighting for film and video. It will show you not only how to light, but why. Written by an experienced professional, this comprehensive book explores light and color theory; equipment, and techniques to make every scene look its best.

Now in full color, Motion Picture and Video Lighting is heavily illustrated with photos and diagrams throughout.

This new edition also includes the ultimate 'behind the scenes' DVD that takes you directly on a professional shoot and demonstrates technical procedures and equipment. In addition, 20 video clips include lighting demonstrations, technical tests, fundamentals of lighting demos, and short scenes illustrating different styles of lighting.

* The definitive book on film and video lighting
* Now in full color, with hundreds of illustrations and diagrams
* NEW ultimate DVD including "behind-the-scenes" video, lighting demonstrations, technical tests, fundamentals of lighting demos and so much more

Painting With Light

Painting With Light was the first book on cinematography written by a major Hollywood cameraman. Published in 1949 and now put back into print, it is one of the best and most unusual books in the field. Written with good humor and full of helpful diagrams and photographs, it is certainly the most entertaining. Its technological discussions are dated, but Painting With Light remains relevant because its primary focus is on light itself and the many complex ways the camera crew can manipulate it. This new edition contains a biographical introduction by Todd McCarthy, who describes how the man who shot the strikingly colorful ballet sequence in An American in Paris also helped define the stark, haunting style of the film noir.

Few cinematographers have had as decisive an impact on the cinematic medium as John Alton. Best known for his highly stylized film noir classics T-Men, He Walked by Night, and The Big Combo, Alton earned a reputation during the 1940s and 1950s as one of Hollywood's consummate craftsmen through his visual signature of crisp shadows and sculpted beams of light. No less renowned for his virtuoso color cinematography and deft appropriation of widescreen and Technicolor, he earned an Academy Award in 1951 for his work on the musical An American in Paris. First published in 1949, and long out of print since then, Painting With Light remains one of the few truly canonical statements on the art of motion picture photography, an unrivalled historical document on the workings of the postwar, American cinema. In simple, non-technical language, Alton explains the job of the cinematographer and explores how lighting, camera techniques, and choice of locations determine the visual mood of film. Todd McCarthy's introduction, written especially for this edition, provides an overview of Alton's biography and career and explores the influence of his work on contemporary cinematography.