In twenty-four chapters David Kaplan offers ideas, opinions, theories, and facts for someone who wants to be a theater artist today in hopes of creating their own vision of theater-making, one informed by, and in the context of, theater history. This book explores what theater artists have done before and what they, inspired by history, might do next. A non-lineal theater history, Shakespeare Shamans, and Show Biz explores theater as a shaman’s vision, as a storyteller’s heritage, as religious propaganda, as a mirror of life, as a critique of society, as a prompt for hard laughter, as fantasy, and as national epic, with plays as different (and the same) as the writings of August Wilson, Gertrude Stein, Shakespeare, and people who never made it into history. Each chapter explores a particular theme: “The Middle Ages as a State of Mind,” “Commedia dell’arte and Molière,” “Shakespeare—To Begin,” “Euripides—Forever Modern,” “Aeschylus—Writing in an Age of Certainty,” “Sophocles and Aristotle—Defining Tragedy,” “Greek Comedy,” “Roman Theater,” “Asian Classics and Rules” (Bunrakuken, Chikamatsu, Zeami), China—The Pear Garden and the Red Pear Garden,” “Neoclassic Theater and Why There is Such a Thing,” “Shakespeare’s Classic,” “Bad Boys Breaking the Rules” (Brecht, Ibsen, and Jarry), “Inside Outside” (Ibsen, Strindberg, Turgenev, Stanislavsky, Chekhov, Antoine), “Beyond Illusion” (Appia, Craig, Poel), “Melodrama and Popular Theater in America” (Aiken, Brice, Cohan, Stone, Tyler, Bert Williams), “American Classic: Eugene O’Neill and Martha Graham,” “Expressionism to Epic” (Brecht, Meyerhold, O’Neill, Piscator, Treadwell), “American Agitprop: Overt and Disguised” (Adler, Clurman, Flanagan, Kazan, Le Gallienne, Miller, Odets, Robeson, Strasberg, Wilder), “Poetry of the Theater” (Artaud, Breton, Cocteau, Ionesco, Kharms, Stein), “Personal Mythology” (Genet, Lorca, Mishima, Strindberg), “Two Masters: Samuel Becket and Tennessee Williams,” “Theater of Identity” (Baraka, Ensler, Kramer, Wilson), and “Missing from History” (Bonner, Fornés, Kennedy, Maeterlinck).

This book is to motivate and inspire actor's to trust in their craft without feeling the fear of failure and uncertain future. In the city of dreams Mumbai, eight ordinary people gather in an acting studio to embark on a unique journey together in a creative 6 weeks drama class to see to the very bottom of their souls, and feel how the artificial intimacy of the acting class shapes their lives in substantial ways to knowing their true selves. Kalamanch is an acting studio based in Mumbai, founded by a former actress Kanika Arora, a free-spirited and supportive teacher, the group - Anant, a recently divorced, emotionally vulnerable small shop owner, Sunaina, an earnest and vibrant model, Kunal, Kanika’s charming husband and sophisticated business owner, Jheel, a posh trendy college student with a keen eye, Azim, a focused and a privy individual owning small coffee shop, Ragini, a raging bull and a bold feminist sales executive and Hiten, an over smart loud personality full of lust and a die hard salman bhai fan -- move through a series of acting exercises, ranging from the heartbreaking to the ridiculous. The story unfolds exclusively through the games and exercises these characters take part in. Each character has a personal trauma or demon and the games they play brings the problem to the surface and the characters are forced to confront them. Characters make terrible realizations about each other and their own lives which draws some closer and some away from each other. By the end we seem to see to the very bottom of these souls, and feel how the artificial intimacy of the acting class has shaped their lives in substantial ways. This book gives reveals the vulnerability of each character and makes us delve into their lives to know their inner life. It also has the nuance of making people aware of the art of acting and what it takes to be an actor.

Sport has gained increasing importance for welfare society. In this process, however, the term of ‘sport’ has become less and less clear. Larger parts of what nowadays is called ‘sport for all’ are non-competitive and derived from traditions of gymnastics, dance, festivity, games, outdoor activities, and physical training rather than from classical modern elite sports. This requires new philosophical approaches, as the philosophy of sport, so far, has been dominated by topics of elite sports. Based on Scandinavian experiences, the book presents studies about festivities of sport, outdoor activities, song and movement, and play and game. The engagement of elderly people challenges sports. Games get political significance in international cooperation, for peace culture and as means against poverty (in Africa). The empirical studies result in philosophical analyses on the recognition of folk practice in education and on relations between identity and recognition. The study of ‘sport for all’ opens up for new ways of phenomenological knowledge, moving bottom-up from sport to the philosophy of "the individual", of event, of nature, and of human energy. Popular sports give inspiration to a philosophy of practice as well as to a phenomenological understanding of ‘the people’, of civil society and the ‘demos’ of democracy – as folk in movement. This book was published as a special issue in Sport, Ethics and Philosophy.

Performer Training is an examination of how actors are trained in different cultures. Beginning with studies of mainstream training in countries such as Poland, Australia, Germany, and the United States, subsequent studies survey: · Some of Asia's traditional training methods and recent experiments in performer training · Eugenio Barba's training methods · Jerzy Grotowski's most recent investigations · The Japanese American NOHO companies attempts at integrating Kyogen into the works of Samuel Beckett · Descriptions of the training methods developed by Tadashi Suzuki and Anne Bogart at their Saratoga International Theatre Institute · Recent efforts to re-examine the role and scope of training, like Britain's International Workshop Festival and the European League of Institutes of Arts masterclasses · The reformulation of the use of emotions in performer training known as Alba Emoting.

William Esper, one of the most celebrated acting teachers of our time, takes us through his step-by-step approach to the central challenge of advanced acting work: creating and playing a character. Esper’s first book, The Actor’s Art and Craft, earned praise for describing the basics taught in his famous first-year acting class. The Actor’s Guide to Creating a Character continues the journey. In these pages, co-author Damon DiMarco vividly re-creates Esper’s second-year course, again through the experiences of a fictional class. Esper’s training builds on Sanford Meisner’s legendary exercises, a world-renowned technique that Esper further developed through his long association with Meisner and the decades he has spent training a host of distinguished actors. His approach is flexible enough to apply to any role, helping actors to create characters with truthful and compelling inner lives.

In this insightful book you will discover the range wars of the new information age, which is today's battles dealing with intellectual property. Intellectual property rights marks the ground rules for information in today's society, including today's policies that are unbalanced and unspupported by any evidence. The public domain is vital to innovation as well as culture in the realm of material that is protected by property rights.