Drama and Theatre

This book offers a comprehensive guide to teaching acting exercises that will unleash the inner creativity of students aged 8-18.

Theories and techniques of some of the greatest theatre practitioners including Sanford Meisner, Constantin Stanislavski, Lee Strasberg and Uta Hage provide a basis for Samantha Marsden 's original exercises for students between these ages. You won 't find Duck, Duck, Goose, Zap, Zap, Boing or any other traditional drama games in this book- instead, the craft of acting technique takes the limelight.

These exercises have been tried and tested in the author 's own classroom, and are guaranteed to inspire, ignite imagination and encourage heartfelt performances. Focus points used in leading drama schools such as voice, movement, relaxation, character development and understanding text are recreated for a younger student. They are easy to follow and will be fun, challenging and immensely rewarding for teachers and students alike.

The book features a foreword by Paul Roseby, CEO and Artistic Director of the National Youth Theatre.

Imprint: Bloomsbury Publishing
RRP: $32.99

An intimate life of Shakespeare and his age, following him through a single year that changed not only his fortunes but the course of literature


How did Shakespeare go from being a talented writer of comedies and histories to become one of the greatest writers of tragedies who ever lived? In this one exhilarating year we follow what he reads and writes, what he saw and who he worked with as he rebuilds the Globe theatre and writes four of his most famous plays - Henry V, Julius Caesar, As You Like It and, most remarkably, Hamlet.

James Shapiro illuminates both Shakespeare's staggering achievement and what Elizabethans experienced in the course of 1599: sending off an army to crush an Irish rebellion, weathering an Armada threat from Spain, gambling in a fledgling East India Company, and waiting to see who would succeed their ageing and childless Queen.

This book brings the news, intrigue and flavour of the times together with wonderful detail about how Shakespeare worked as a showman, businessman and playwright, to create an exceptionally immediate and gripping account of a fascinating and inspiring moment in history.

Imprint: Faber and Faber
RRP: $24.99

The sequel to James Shapiro's multi-award winning bestseller 1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare.

1606 traces Shakespeare's life and work from the autumn of 1605, when he came upon an old and anonymous play - The True Chronicle History of King Leir - in one of the bookstalls near his Silver Street lodgings. From there, he traces the story's shocking and brilliant transformation into King Lear as we know it - and then to Macbeth, written in a white heat in the tumultuous spring of 1606.

For most authors, writing and revising Lear, then rapidly composing Macbeth, would have been a lifetime's accomplishment. But Shapiro's new book goes on to explore how, with the theatres closed indefinitely in autumn 1606 because of the plague, and with time on his hands, Shakespeare began a third great tragedy, Antony and Cleopatra.

Never before, and never again, would Shakespeare's plays explore so relentlessly the problems of aging, of losing authority, and of mortality.

Following the biographical style of 1599, a way of thinking and writing that Shapiro has made his own, 1606 promises to be one of the most significant and accessible new works on Shakespeare in the decade to come.

Imprint: Faber and Faber
RRP: $24.99

Acting (Re)Considered is an exceptionally wide-ranging collection of theories on acting, ideas about body and training, and statements about the actor in performance. This second edition includes five new essays and has been fully revised and updated, with discussions by or about major figures who have shaped theories and practices of acting and performance from the late nineteenth century to the present.The essays - by directors, historians, actor trainers and actors - bridge the gap between theories and practices of acting, and between East and West. No other book provides such a wealth of primary and secondary sources, bibliographic material, and diversity of approaches.

It includes discussions of such key topics as:* how we think and talk about acting* acting and emotion* the actor's psychophysical process* the body and training* the actor in performance* non-Western and cross-cultural paradigms of the body, training and acting.Acting (Re)Considered is vital reading for all those interested in performance.

Imprint: ROUTLEDGE
RRP: $70.99

A practical and theoretical guide to the world of the professional actor, skilfully combining ideas from a range of practitioners and linking the academy to the industry. It covers key areas such as: the development of modern drama and acting processes over the years the approach and legacy of acting pioneers and practitioners from around the world acting techniques and practicalities, including training, auditioning, rehearsing and performing both for stage and camera Complete with a glossary of terms and useful website suggestions, this is the ideal introduction for anyone wanting to learn more about the practice of acting and the people who have advanced its evolution.

Imprint: ROUTLEDGE
RRP: $29.99

An inspiring new approach to acting from a respected drama teacher - concise, succinct and full of practical exercises.

Nick Moseley's Acting and Reacting: Tools for the Modern Actor establishes a new, intensely practical actor-training system incorporating the best of Stanislavsky, David Mamet and Sanford Meisner.

Starting with the technique of Transactional Improvisation, it covers topics such as:

** The World of the Play
** Inhabiting the Space
** Learning to Trust Your Body
** Approaches to Text

The result is a punchy and empowering book intended to shake up ideas about acting. Each theory is tested and reinforced with games and exercises that stretch and challenge the student actor at each stage.

Acting and Reacting is a must for drama teachers and drama students alike

Imprint: NICK HERN
RRP: $29.99

Stanislavski was the first to outline a systematic approach for using our experience, imagination and observation to create truthful acting. 150 years after his birth, his approach is more widely embraced and taught throughout the world – but is still often rejected, misunderstood and misapplied.

In Acting Stanislavski, John Gillett offers a clear, accessible and comprehensive account of the Stanislavski approach, from the actor's training to final performance, exploring:

• ease and focus
• the nature of action, interaction and objectives
• the imaginary reality, senses and feeling
• active analysis of text
• physical and vocal expression of character
• the actor in the context of training and the industry.

Drawing on Stanislavski's major books, in both English translations, and on records of his directing process and final studio classes, Acting Stanislavski demystifies terms and concepts. It is for actors from an actor's point of view, and offers many practical exercises and examples as an integrated part of each subject.

Acting Stanislavski also creates an up-to-date overview of the Stanislavski approach, connecting his legacy with the work of his successors, from Michael Chekhov to Meisner, Adler and Strasberg.

A new, extended and fully updated edition of Acting on Impulse: Reclaiming the Stanislavski Approach (Methuen Drama, 2007), Acting Stanislavski now includes new exercises and biographies, a further chapter on The Character, and an expanded glossary along with many other additions to the previous chapters. It is an essential practical and educational resource for any acting student, professional or teacher.

Imprint: METHUEN DRAMA
RRP: $33.99

The figure of Stella Adler towers high among the memorable acting teachers in American theatre. Her methods of training, her principles of acting and character interpretation, her analyses of the seminal plays of the modern theatre comprise a legacy for everyone who followed her. In this book, that legacy gains the special immediacy and authenticity of her own spoken words.

Over three years in the 1970s, Joanna Rotte worked with Adler as a student and as an actress under her direction, all the white taking the copious notes that have become the heart of this book. Throughout, Adler speaks about her principles in a tough minded and demanding way, inspired by her overriding conviction that as a person an actor 'becomes bigger through working'.

This book provides an opportunity to sit in on the classes of this remarkable woman of whom her student Marlon Brando said, "My debt and gratitude to her are enormous. As a teacher of acting, she has few peers. As a human being, few equals."

Imprint: LIMELIGHT
RRP: $29.99

Written by the founding director of the new Royal Shakespeare Company Academy, this book outlines the eight 'blocks' an actor is likely to encounter, offering instructions on how to overcome them.

Imprint: NICK HERN
RRP: $28.99

How do audiences look at an actor in costume onstage? Monks explores this question, engaging with the main theoretical approaches to the study of actors in performance. The book considers costume's power to shape identity and form bodies drawing on examples from Modernist performance to nudity and stage ghosts.

Imprint: PALGRAVE
RRP: $54.00

'Beginning with what every first-year acting student faces in class and ending with what leading professional actors must achieve every night on the three stages of the Royal National Theatre, Patsy Rodenburg's celebrated work as one of the world's foremost voice and acting coaches is fully revealed in this thoughtful and inspirational book about the process of acting.

Through a seven-step process, she takes the actor through an intensive voice and speech workshop tackling the vexing problems faced in rehearsal and on stage: breathing and relaxation; vocal range and power, communication with other actors and the audience; integrating movement, singing and speaking; deciphering and animating a text; adjusting voice to different size stages and auditoria; working in mediums beyond the stage; sustaining a performance through an entire evening and a long run and identifying and overcoming the countless potential problems that face every performer who works in front of an audience.

''The Actor Speaks is a stimulating read and an invaluable reference for all actors. . .a landmark book'' (The Stage)'

Imprint: METHUEN DRAMA
RRP: $39.99