Musical Stages

This book is devoted to tracing the variety of ways that theatre, theatricality, and performance are embedded in Hollywood cinema as screened stages. A screened stage is the literal or metaphorical appearance of a stage on screen. When the Hollywood style emerged in cinema history it traumatically severed the entwined relationship between film and theatre. The book makes the argument that cinema longs for theatre after that separation. The histories of stage and screen persistently crisscross one another making their separation problematic. The screened stage from the end of the nineteenth century until now offers a miniaturized version of cinema and theatre history. Moments of the stage within the screen compress historical styles and movements into saturated representations on film. Such examples overflow the cinematic screen into singular manifestations of presentness. Screened stages uncover what it means to be simultaneously present and absent. This book would be of great interest to students and scholars of theatre, film, dance, and performance.

The essays in Novel Stages examine the myriad intersections between drama and the novel in nineteenth-century France, a period when the two genres were in constant engagement with one another. The collection is unified by common intellectual concerns: the inscription of theatrical esthetics within the novel; the common practice among nineteenth-century novelists of adapting their works for the stage; and the novel's engagement with popular forms of theater. The essays provide insight into a specific aspect of the relationship between the theater and the novel in the nineteenth century. Their distinct perspectives form an overview of the literary landscape of nineteenth-century France, and demonstrate many ways in which all major nineteenth-century French novelists, including Hugo, Flaubert, Sand, and Zola, participated in the theatrical culture of their century.

One way or another, all playwrights use their work to explore the issues that interest them. The characters in a play may trumpet their creator’s political views from the stage, or an unusual structure or set design may result from the playwright’s interest in theatrical form. It is also common, particularly in the plays of the 20th and 21st century, to see a playwright delving into psychological issues raised by his own mental struggles or those of people he loves. Luigi Pirandello, tormented by the schizophrenia of his wife and other family members, repeatedly explored the problems caused by different visions of reality. Noël Coward’s self-obsessed characters reflect his own narcissism. Alcoholism is a recurrent theme in the works of many playwrights, including Eugene O’Neill, Edward Albee, and Brian Friel. Through their exploration of these issues and more, the great writers of the theater have turned suffering into art. This book looks at the work of 20 playwrights to see how their examination of the disturbed mind has influenced the modern theater.

The two-volume 'Oxford Handbook of Music Performance' provides the most comprehensive and authoritative resource for musicians, educators and scholars currently available. It is aimed primarily for practicing musicians, particularly those who are preparing for a professional career as performers and are interested in practical implications of psychological and scientific research for their own music performance development; educators with a specific interest or expertise in music psychology, who will wish to apply the concepts and techniques surveyed in their own teaching; undergraduate and postgraduate students who understand the potential of music psychology for informing music education; and researchers in the area of music performance who consider it important for the results of their research to be practically useful for musicians and music educators.

Gerald Bordman's American Musical Theatre has become a landmark book since its original publication in 1978. In this third edition, he offers authoritative summaries on the general artistic trends and developments for each season on musical comedy, operetta, revues, and the one-man and one-woman shows from the first musical to the 1999/2000 season. With detailed show, song, and people indexes, Bordman provides a running commentary and assessment as well as providing the basic facts about each production.