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5 books match the query 'Amateur theater'
Improvisation for the Theater
A Handbook of Teaching and Directing TechniquesViola Spolin
Northwestern University Press, 1999
The thoroughly revised third edition of the bible of improvisational theater.
Viola Spolin's improvisational techniques changed the very nature and practice of modern theater. The first two editions of Improvisation for the Theater sold more than 100,000 copies and inspired actors, directors, teachers, and writers in theater, television, film. These techniques have also influenced the fields of education, mental health, social work, and psychology.
The revised edition features:
- 30 new exercises, including introductions (Slow/Fast/Normal; Extended Sound; Mirror Speech; Unrelated Conversation)
- More than 200 updated classic exercises
- new section of traditional theater games for warm-up use
- “Paul Sills' Sayings of Viola Spolin”
- New glossary of side-coaching phrases, with definitions of their meaning and value
- Alphabetical list of all games and exercises
Rehearsing Revolutions
The Labor Drama Experiment and Radical Activism in the Early Twentieth CenturyMary McAvoy
University of Iowa Press, 2019
Choice Outstanding Academic Title, 2019
George Freedley Memorial Award Finalist, 2020
Between the world wars, several labor colleges sprouted up across the U.S. These schools, funded by unions, sought to provide members with adult education while also indoctrinating them into the cause. As Mary McAvoy reveals, a big part of that learning experience centered on the schools’ drama programs. For the first time, Rehearsing Revolutions shows how these left-leaning drama programs prepared American workers for the “on-the-ground” activism emerging across the country. In fact, McAvoy argues, these amateur stages served as training grounds for radical social activism in early twentieth-century America.Using a wealth of previously unpublished material such as director’s reports, course materials, playscripts, and reviews, McAvoy traces the programs’ evolution from experimental teaching tool to radically politicized training that inspired overt—even militant—labor activism by the late 1930s. All the while, she keeps an eye on larger trends in public life, connecting interwar labor drama to post-war arts-based activism in response to McCarthyism, the Cold War, and the Civil Rights movement. Ultimately, McAvoy asks: What did labor drama do for the workers’ colleges and why did they pursue it? She finds her answer through several different case studies in places like the Portland Labor College and the Highlander Folk School in Tennessee.
Stagecraft for Nonprofessionals
F. A. Buerki; Revised by Susan J. Christensen
University of Wisconsin Press, 1983
The Penelope Project
An Arts-Based Odyssey to Change Elder CareAnne Basting, Maureen Towey, and Ellie Rose
University of Iowa Press, 2016
At Milwaukee’s Luther Manor, a team of artists from the University of Wisconsin’s theatre department and Sojourn Theatre Company, university students, staff, residents, and volunteers traded their bingo cards for copies of The Odyssey. They embarked on a two-year project to examine this ancient story from the perspective of the hero who never left home: Penelope, wife of Odysseus. Together, the team staged a play that engaged everyone and transcended the limits not just of old age and disability but also youth, institutional regulations, and disciplinary boundaries.
Inviting readers to see through the eyes of residents, students, artists, staff, family members, and experts in the fields of education, long-term care, and civically engaged arts practice, this book underscores the essential role of the arts and humanities in living richly. Waiting, as Penelope waited, need not be a time of loss and neglect. The Penelope Project boldly dreams of how to make late life a time of growth and learning. If you dream of improving people’s lives through creative endeavors, this book provides practical advice.
Theater Games for Rehearsal
A Director's Handbook, Updated EditionViola Spolin with a foreword by Rob Reiner
Northwestern University Press, 2010
An updated edition of a key reference text by “the high priestess of improvisational theater”
A major force in the development of American theater, Viola Spolin devised pedagogical techniques that have influenced and inspired legions of actors, improvisers, and directors. Theater Games for Rehearsal: A Director's Handbook, first published in 1985, is a practical application of Spolin's famous method that guides directors and their companies step-by-step through all phases of the rehearsal period.
In Theater Games for Rehearsal, Spolin shows in easy-to-follow detail how her techniques can be used for a variety of theater needs, from selecting performance material, casting, and building a harmonious company to warming up actors, creating stage space, and overcoming opening-night jitters. This new edition, edited by Carol Bleackley Sills, incorporates Spolin's wished-for updates: four important exercises have been added, and instructions presenting her improvisational approach have been clarified throughout. Sidecoaching instructions and game evaluations are boxed and highlighted for on-the-spot reading by the director during rehearsal.
With these additions and improvements, Theater Games for Rehearsal: A Director's Handbook brings Spolin's ideas to a new generation with greater accessibility and excitement. Featuring a new foreword by renowned film director Rob Reiner, the updated edition is mandatory for any theater bookshelf.