Lessons From a 19-Year-Old Richard III
In this excerpt from a seasoned Shakespeare teacher’s new book, he recounts his initial youthful stab at one the Bard’s great villains, and what he’s since learned about the role.
Category Archives: Books
Can the American Theatre Unlearn Racism?
Going beyond diversity statements, antiracist theatre practices promise a liberatory future for all.
The Time Sam Shepard Taught Playwriting Way Out West
Recruited by Padua Hills Playwrights founder Murray Mednick, Shepard joined an ad-hoc faculty in 1978 for the experimental workshop. Among his pupils: a young David Henry Hwang.
Beautiful Non-Violent Anarchist Revolution, Where Are You?
Thoughts on reading the vibrant diaries of Living Theatre pioneer Judith Malina, whose passion for observation and commentary vied with her theatrical impulses.
Sorry-Grateful: 2 New Books Show the Many Sides of Sondheim
Daniel Okrent’s biography seeks the composer/lyricist’s motivation and finds complication and nuance, while Barry Joseph’s book asks what Sondheim’s games and puzzles can tell us about him.
When Beck Did Beckett: The Last Days of a Living Theater Cofounder
In this excerpt from her new book ‘Last Radiance: Radical Lives, Bright Deaths,’ a colleague of Julian Beck’s recalls his final years and roles.
‘Teeth,’ In-Your-Face and With Extra Bite
The maker of the original film reflects on how his gory fable about vagina dentata became a savagely witty stage musical by Anna K. Jacobs and Michael R. Jackson.
What Happened to the U.S. Nonprofit Theatre Movement?
An excerpt from a new book ponders an industry that seems to have lost its way, even as it has grown—and what its future may hold.
The Confidence of a Mediocre White Man, 19th-Century Edition
A new book explores what the life of a middling actor in the pre-Civil War era can teach us about his time—and about notions of individualism and merit that are still with us in American theatre culture.
From ‘Bent’ to ‘Rent’: How 2 Theatre Kids Found Their Way
New memoirs from playwright Martin Sherman and producer Jeffrey Seller recount their bumpy but determined journeys to lives in the theatre.
