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12 books match the query 'Type'
Acting and Its Refusal in Theatre and Film
The Devil Makes BelieveMarian McCurdy
Intellect Books, 2017
In Acting and its Refusal in Theatre and Film, Marian McCurdy considers the ethical desire of refusing to act—which results from blurred boundaries of acting and living—and examines how real life and performance are intertwined. Offering a number of in-depth case studies, the book contextualizes refusals of acting on stage and screen and engages in an analysis of fascist theatricality, sexual theatricality, and the refusal of theatricality altogether.
Bug
A PlayTracy Letts
Northwestern University Press, 2007
Tracy Letts's tale of love, paranoia, and government conspiracy is a thought-provoking psycho-thriller that mixes terror and laughter at a fever pitch.
This dark comedy takes place in a seedy motel room outside Oklahoma City, where Agnes, a drug-addled cocktail waitress, is hiding from her ex-con ex-husband. Her lesbian biker friend R.C. introduces her to Peter, a handsome drifter who might be an AWOL Gulf War veteran. They soon begin a relationship that takes place almost entirely within the increasingly claustrophobic confines of her motel room. Peter begins to rant about the war in Iraq, UFOs, the Oklahoma City bombings, cult suicides, and then secret government experiment on soldiers, of which he believes he is a victim. His delusions infect Agnes and the tension mounts as mysterious strangers appear at their door, past events haunt them at every turn and they are attacked by real bugs.
Hideous Characters and Beautiful Pagans
Performing Jewish Identity on the Antebellum American StageHeather S. Nathans
University of Michigan Press, 2017
Using an eclectic range of sources including theatrical reviews, diaries, letters, cartoons, portraiture, tax records, rumors flying around the tavern, and more, Heather S. Nathans has listened for the echoes of vanished audiences who witnessed and responded to these stereotypes onstage, from the earliest appearance of Shylock on an American stage in 1752 to Jewish theater artists on the eve of the Civil War. The book integrates social, political, and cultural histories, with an examination of those texts (both dramatic and literary) that shaped the stage Jew.
My Excellency
Comedy in Three ActsLuis Rechani Agrait
Swan Isle Press, 2025
William Carlos Williams’s passion for his matrilineal Puerto Rican roots led him to visit Puerto Rico for the first time in 1941. There at a writers’ conference, he befriended the playwright Luis Rechani Agrait, who gave him his play Mi señoría, staged to acclaim the previous year.
My Excellency, as Williams calls the play in his translation, is a political farce set in an “imaginary country” that resembles Puerto Rico during the Great Depression, with its high unemployment and labor unrest. The play focuses on the plight of an idealistic but naive man, Buenaventura Padilla, in a completely corrupt political system. Through an unscrupulous election, he becomes the nation’s leader.
The play is successful as a satire largely because of Buenaventura’s hilarious language—recreated by Williams—with its pompous style combined with stunning malapropisms and clownish errors in history and grammar. The play’s very title is a laughable malapropism. My Excellency shows the corrupting power of success and the tragic flaw of materialism. Driving the comedy in Williams’s translation is his firm command of the play’s dialogue interwoven with popular idioms in which the charm of pure nonsense abounds. This edition is Luis Rechani Agrait’s debut as a playwright in English.
Sacred Players
The Politics of Response in the Middle English Religious DramaHeather Hill-Vásquez
Catholic University of America Press, 2007
The City-Women
Mallorie Sievert
Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2026
This debut play from Mallorie Sievert follows what happens after two nuns fall in love.
When two young nuns in a seventeenth-century cloistered convent discover their feelings for each other, they must decide whether to conform to the life that was chosen for them or forge their own path and discover who God truly wants them to be. Set against the backdrop of Latin America during the Counter-Reformation, The City-Women explores love, spirituality, and sisterhood, and seeks to redefine what it means to be queer in the eyes of God.
The Complete Tragedies, Volume 1
Medea, The Phoenician Women, Phaedra, The Trojan Women, OctaviaLucius Annaeus Seneca
University of Chicago Press, 2017
Edited by world-renowned classicists Elizabeth Asmis, Shadi Bartsch, and Martha C. Nussbaum, the Complete Works of Lucius Annaeus Seneca series offers authoritative, modern English translations of the writings of the Stoic philosopher and playwright (4 BCE–65 CE). The two volumes of The Complete Tragedies present all of his dramas, expertly rendered by preeminent scholars and translators.
This first volume contains Medea, The Phoenician Women, Phaedra, The Trojan Women, and Octavia, the last of which was written in emulation of Senecan tragedies and serves as a unique example of political tragedy. High standards of accuracy, clarity, and style are maintained throughout the translations, which render Seneca into verse with as close a correspondence, line for line, to the original as possible, and with special attention paid to meter and overall flow. In addition, each tragedy is prefaced by an original translator’s introduction offering reflections on the work’s context and meaning. Notes are provided for the reader unfamiliar with the culture and history of classical antiquity. Accordingly, The Complete Tragedies will be of use to a general audience and professionals alike, from the Latinless student to scholars and instructors of comparative literature, classics, philosophy, drama, and more.
The Complete Tragedies, Volume 2
Oedipus, Hercules Mad, Hercules on Oeta, Thyestes, AgamemnonLucius Annaeus Seneca
University of Chicago Press, 2017
Edited by world-renowned classicists Elizabeth Asmis, Shadi Bartsch, and Martha C. Nussbaum, the Complete Works of Lucius Annaeus Seneca offers authoritative, modern English translations of the writings of the Stoic philosopher and playwright (4 BCE–65 CE). The two volumes of The Complete Tragedies presents all of his dramas, expertly rendered by preeminent scholars and translators.
The first volume contains Medea, The Phoenician Women, Phaedra, The Trojan Women, and Octavia, the last of which was written in emulation of Senecan tragedies and serves as a unique example of political tragedy. This second volume includes Oedipus, Hercules Mad, Hercules on Oeta, Thyestes, and Agamemnon. High standards of accuracy, clarity, and style are maintained throughout the translations, which render Seneca into verse with as close a correspondence, line for line, to the original as possible, and with special attention paid to meter and overall flow. In addition, each tragedy is prefaced by an original translator’s introduction offering reflections on the work’s context and meaning. Notes are provided for the reader unfamiliar with the culture and history of classical antiquity. Accordingly, The Complete Tragedies will be of use to a general audience and professionals alike, from the Latinless student to scholars and instructors of comparative literature, classics, philosophy, drama, and more.
The Half of It
Domenick Scudera
Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2026
A play that explores the influence of pioneer drag artist Bert Savoy.
The Half of It is inspired by the life and work of Bert Savoy, a Vaudeville drag artist who was active in the 1910s and early 1920s. Savoy was at the height of his career when he was tragically killed by lightning in 1923. The play highlights the groundbreaking and inspirational work of this important, yet largely forgotten, pioneer. Characters include some of Savoy’s famous friends, such as Klondike Kate and Mae West (who many believe borrowed her sassy stage persona from Savoy’s drag act). The play explores themes of gender identity, gender expression, celebrity in the modern era, the LGBTQ community of the early twentieth century, and the origins of contemporary drag performance.
The Light and the Dark
(The Life and Times of Artemisia Gentileschi)Kate Hamill, Kristin Leahey
Northwestern University Press, 2026
A play from the inimitable Kate Hamill, based on the true story of the groundbreaking Italian painter Artemisia Gentileschi
During the seventeenth century, Italian artists strove to reshape the very image of humanity. Artemisia Gentileschi—the daughter of a painter—dreams of making her mark at a time when a woman is not thought capable of being an artist, let alone one of the greats. Just as her career begins to gain unexpected momentum, a series of devastating betrayals crack the foundation of her work—and her life. In electrifying verse and gorgeous artwork, The Light and The Dark depicts the deeply moving true story of a young woman who changed the very image of women in society . . . weaving a magnetic and empowering tapestry of ambition, rage, and resilience across the ages.
The Odyssey
A PlayMary Zimmerman
Northwestern University Press, 2006
With her trademark irreverent and witty twist on classic works, Zimmerman brings to life the story of Odysseus's ten-year journey
This dramatic adaptation of Homer's myth begins with a modern young woman who is struggling to understand Robert Fitzgerald's translation of The Odyssey. A classical muse appears, and the young woman becomes the goddess Athena--a tireless advocate for Odysseus in his struggle to get home. Zimmerman's adaptation depicts his encounters with characters such as Circe, the Cyclops, Poseidon, Calypso, the Sirens, and others in new and exciting ways.
The Secret in the Wings
A PlayMary Zimmerman
Northwestern University Press, 2014
A dark and mysterious homage to lesser-known fairy tales
Mary Zimmerman’s The Secret in the Wings adapts a group of lesser-known fairy tales to create a theatrical work that sets their dark mystery against her signature wit and humor. The framing story concerns a child and the frightening babysitter with whom her parents leave her. As the babysitter reads from a book, the characters in each of the tales materialize, with each tale breaking off just at its bleakest moment before giving way to the next one.
The central tale is told without interruption, after which each previous tale is successively resumed, with each looming disaster averted. As in Zimmerman’s other productions, here she uses costumes, props, sets, and lighting to brilliant effect, creating images and feelings that render the fairy tales in all their elemental and enduring power.