Real Life Drama is the classic history of the remarkable group that revitalized American theater in the 1930s by engaging urgent social and moral issues that still resonate today. Born in the turbulent decade of the Depression, the Group Theatre revolutionized American arts. Wendy Smith's dramatic narrative brings the influential troupe and its founders to life once again, capturing their joys and pains, their triumphs and defeats. Filled with fresh insights into the towering personalities of Harold Clurman, Lee Strasberg, Cheryl Crawford, Elia Kazan, Clifford Odets, Stella and Luther Adler, Karl Malden, and Lee J. Cobb, among many others, Real Life Drama chronicles a passionate community of idealists as they opened a new frontier in theater.

Theatre of Real People offers fresh perspectives on the current fascination with putting people on stage who present aspects of their own lives and who are not usually trained actors. After providing a history of this mode of performance, and theoretical frameworks for its analysis, the book focuses on work developed by seminal practitioners at Berlin's Hebbel am Ufer (HAU) production house. It invites the reader to explore the HAU's innovative approach to Theatre of Real People, authenticity and cultural diversity during the period of Matthias Lilienthal's leadership (2003–12). Garde and Mumford also elucidate how Theatre of Real People can create and destabilise a sense of the authentic, and suggest how Authenticity-Effects can present new ways of perceiving diverse and unfamiliar people. Through a detailed analysis of key HAU productions such as Lilienthal's brainchild X-Apartments, Mobile Academy's Blackmarket, and Rimini Protokoll's 100% City, the book explores both the artistic agenda of an important European theatre institution, and a crucial aspect of contemporary theatre's social engagement.

Draws on musicals, plays and experimental performances to show what theatre is made of and how we experience it.

"The cumulative power of these shared stories is nothing short of astonishing. Ping Chong creates a tremendous tapestry of lives."—Twin Cities Reader This three-piece volume of Undesirable Elements, the community-specific theater works series, examines the lives of those born into one culture but living in another. Each production grows out of an extended residency, during which Ping Chong and his collaborators conduct interviews of community members and then create a script that explores both historical and personal narratives. Ping Chong is a theater director, playwright, choreographer, and video and installation artist. The recipient of two OBIE awards, two Bessie awards, and a Guggenheim Fellowship, he has created more than fifty works for the stage, including twenty-five in his Undesirable Elements series.

In praising “the witty high school romp” How I Paid for College, the New York Times Book Review said, it “makes you hope there’s a lot more where this came from.” There is. In this hilarious sequel Attack of the Theater People, Edward Zanni and his merry crew of high school musical-comedy miscreants move to the magical wonderland that is Manhattan. It is 1986, and aspiring actor Edward Zanni has been kicked out of drama school for being “too jazz hands for Juilliard.” Mortified, Edward heads out into the urban jungle of eighties New York City and finally lands a job as a “party motivator” who gets thirteen-year-olds to dance at bar mitzvahs and charms businesspeople as a “stealth guest” at corporate events. When he accidentally gets caught up in insider trading with a handsome stockbroker named Chad, only the help of his crew from How I Paid for College can rescue him from a stretch in Club Fed. Laced with the inspired zaniness of classic American musical comedy, Attack of the Theater People matches the big hair of the eighties with an even bigger heart.

Exploring diverse human experiences in the US, Poland and Northern Ireland, this book is of interest to practitioners and students of applied theatre, peace and conflict studies, professionals working in conflict resolution, counselors, psychotherapists, professionals in the field of criminal and restorative justice, and spiritual seekers.

Out of the Depression was born a theatrical company that revolutionized American arts. This book reveals how this influential troupe opened a new frontier of dramatic subjects and techniques as they struggled to survive pressures from within and without. For the Group Theatre's founders, Harold Clurman. Lee Strasberg, and Cheryl Crawford, "real life" was lacking on the American stage. With their meticulously rehearsed and ardent performers and their politically charged ambitions, they aimed to turn theatre--and audiences--away from frivolous amusement toward the most urgent social and moral issues of the day. In plays that for the first time dramatized the lives of immigrants and workers, and made theatre available to a public previously excluded by exorbitant Broadway ticket prices, the Group demonstrated that, in Smith's words, "theatre could bring people together and make them whole." Her account shows how playwrights like Clifford Odets were nurtured and made famous by the Group, and why audiences were enthralled. The new social focus was only half the revolution: using methods adapted by Lee Strasberg from the teachings of Stanislavsky, as well as special training in movement, vocal control, and dance, the Group transformed acting technique, bringing to the American stage an unprecedented emotional realism and psychological depth.--From publisher description.