Drama Theatre

A compassionate, personal, and illuminating work of nonfiction that draws on the author's celebrated work as a director of socially conscious theater to connect listeners with the power of an ancient artistic tradition.

Had I become disenchanted with the form I had once fallen so madly in love with as a pubescent, pimple-faced suburban homo with braces? Maybe theatre was like an all-consuming high school infatuation that now, ten years later, I saw as the closeted balding guy with a beer gut he’d become. There were of course those rare moments of transcendence that kept me coming back. But why did they come so few and far between?

Why would the multimillionaire producer of Cats, The Phantom of the Opera, and Miss Saigon take his limo from Manhattan to the struggling former steel town of Levittown, Pennsylvania, to see a high school production of Les Misérables? To see the show performed by the astoundingly successful theater company at Harry S Truman High School, run by its legendary director, Lou Volpe. Broadway turns to Truman High when trying out controversial shows such as Rent and Spring Awakening before they move on to high school theater programs across the nation. Volpe’s students from this blue-collar town go on to become Emmy-winning producers, entertainment executives, newscasters, and community-theater founders.

Performing children have a very special existence which sometimes sets them apart from their peers. Parents are often excluded from this world but are expected to support them all the way. There is very little authoritative advice on how to cope and what to expect. This book will help children and their parents navigate their way through all of this: to advise, guide, inform and demystify the wonderful world of live theatre.

Is theater really dead? Does the theater, as its champions insist, really provide a more intimate experience than film? If so, how have changes in cinematic techniques and technologies altered the relationship between stage and film? What are the inherent limitations of representing three-dimensional spaces in a two-dimensional one, and vice versa? American Drama in the Age of Film examines the strengths and weaknesses of both the dramatic and cinematic arts to confront the standard arguments in the film-versus-theater debate.

The multi-award winning SmartPass full-cast, unabridged performance with comprehensive commentary and analysis for any student to fully understand and appreciate the play.

Joanne Taylor - former TV Diva - is on the verge of her 50-something birthday, seriously single, 'hot-flushing' and about to make some drastic changes in her life. Pulling Faces is an acerbic, topical comedy about society’s obsession with youth, beauty and transformation.

Lucian Msamati draws on his rich experience, particularly in the context of productions at the National Theatre to delve into sets of challenges and possibilities that actors might face. He offers up his tips on getting started in the industry; navigating the various professional relationships and roles inside a rehearsal room; and offers insights into running your own company and generating your own work.

The St. Charles Players present a unique telling of Owen Wister's classic Western, in a new multi-cast dramatization performed in exciting Radio Theatre style.

The action of this, the most famous play of the great English poet and playwright William Shakespeare, takes place in Elsinore, shortly after the death of the King of Denmark. Heartbroken, Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, suffers greatly over the death of his beloved father and the sudden remarriage of his mother, Queen Gertrude. A terrible ghost of his father, in full military dress, tells him a terrible secret: that the king did not die a natural death, but was killed by the hand of his brother Claudius, who became the current king.