Off Centre Stages

Relating the histories of two important London fringe theaters--the Round House and the Open Space--with the use of rare archives, this text offers a detailed look at these pioneering companies and answers key questions about performance space and its influence on the types of productions successfully presented. The work of maverick American playwright and director Charles Marowitz, who founded the Open Space Theater, is fully detailed, as is that of political playwright Arnold Wesker, who founded the Round House. Also explored is the role Thelma Holt played in the development of both theaters. Rare photographs of productions and a complete list of plays and events staged at the two venues are included.

Unrivalled in its coverage of recent work and writers, The Methuen Drama Guide to Contemporary American Playwrights surveys and analyses the breadth, vitality and development of theatrical work to emerge from America over the last fifty years. This authoritative guide leads you through the work of 25 major contemporary American playwrights, discussing more than 140 plays in detail. Written by a team of 25 eminent international scholars, each chapter provides: · a biographical introduction to the playwright's work; · a survey and concise analysis of the writer's most important plays; · a discussion of their style, dramaturgical concerns and critical reception; · a bibliography of published plays and a select list of critical works. Among the many Tony, Obie and Pulitzer prize-winning playwrights included are Sam Shepard, Tony Kushner, Suzan-Lori Parks, August Wilson, Paula Vogel and Neil LaBute. The abundance of work analysed enables fresh, illuminating conclusions to be drawn about the development of contemporary American playwriting.

Youtopia A Passion for the Dark celebrates architecture at the intersection of Digital Processes and Theatrical Performance. 'Youtopia' pursues dreams: of other spaces and times; of outrageous and fascinating experiences; of the glamour and lights of the Sydney Festival. The book reviews design conversations between architectural practice, architectural theory, audio and acoustics, digital fabrication, interaction and mediation, structural engineering, theatre and performance studies, and cultural research. It parallels an exhibition that showcases ephemeral and captivating interactive landscapes, theatre installations, iconographic architectural objects, heterotopias and performative spaces. These speculative projects are developed by advanced design processes in 3D modelling and scripting environments, and by the production of prototypes through structural analysis and digital fabrication. Edited by Dagmar Reinhardt, with interviews and essays by Dirk Anderson, Eduardo Barata, Joseph Buch, Densil Cabrera, Bill Harris, Lindy Hume, Alexander Jung, Sandra Kaji-O'Grady, William L Martens, Luis Miranda, Patrick Nolan, Harry Partridge, Dagmar Reinhardt, Chris L Smith, Michael Scott-Mitchell, and Simon Weir.

Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) is among the most important medical imaging techniques available today. There is an installed base of approximately 15,000 MRI scanners worldwide. Each of these scanners is capable of running many different "pulse sequences", which are governed by physics and engineering principles, and implemented by software programs that control the MRI hardware. To utilize an MRI scanner to the fullest extent, a conceptual understanding of its pulse sequences is crucial. Handbook of MRI Pulse Sequences offers a complete guide that can help the scientists, engineers, clinicians, and technologists in the field of MRI understand and better employ their scanner. Explains pulse sequences, their components, and the associated image reconstruction methods commonly used in MRI Provides self-contained sections for individual techniques Can be used as a quick reference guide or as a resource for deeper study Includes both non-mathematical and mathematical descriptions Contains numerous figures, tables, references, and worked example problems

Numerous plays have professionals as major characters, but academia has ignored them to a large extent. The Professions in Contemporary British Drama fills this extraordinary gap with a series of nine papers discussing the educational professions (Bennett, Mangan), the medical profession (Shields, Buse, ), priests (Kurdi), archaeologists (Forsyth) and artists (Di Benedetto, Meyer-Dinkgräfe, Edwards). The book is of relevance to theatre academics and students at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. It is based on a conference organised in conjunction with the Centre for English Studies, School of Advanced Studies, University of London, 6 March 1998.

To coincide with the 70th anniversary of its present home on Beaumont Street, Oxford, this account traces the history of the Oxford Playhouse from its earliest roots--a production of Agamemnon in 1880--and the founding of the Oxford University Dramatic Society to the rebuilding of Oxford's New Theatre and, eventually, the launch of the Playhouse itself. Recalling actress Jane Ellis' early desire for a venue where she might play decent roles, as well as her efforts to make it happen, the book also celebrates a galaxy of stars who have acted there, including Flora Robson, John Gielgud, Maggie Smith, Ronnie Barker, Judi Dench, and Helena Bonham Carter, and records the first steps of students such as Rowan Atkinson. In addition to chronicling developments in the theater's management and architecture, this comprehensive tribute explores its highbrow and lowbrow programs, its period of prosperity and postwar collapse, and its unique and vital relationship with the University of Oxford.

Samir Amin remains one of the world's most influential thinkers about the changing nature of North-South relations in the development of contemporary capitalism. In this highly prescient book, originally published in 1997, he provides a powerful analysis of the new unilateral capitalist era following the collapse of the Soviet model, and the apparent triumph of the market and globalization. Amin's innovative analysis charts the rise of ethnicity and fundamentalism as consequences of the failure of ruling classes in the South to counter the exploitative terms of globalization. This has had profound implications and continues to resonate today. Furthermore, his deconstruction of the Bretton Woods institutions as managerial mechanisms which protect the profitability of capital provides an important insight into the continued difficulties in reforming them. Amin's rejection of the apparent inevitability of globalization in its present polarising form is particularly prophetic - instead he asserts the need for each society to negotiate the terms of its inter-dependence with the rest of the global economy. A landmark work by a key contemporary thinker.

This book examines the effect of Information Technology on our lives, illustrating how a lack of proper social control over IT has led to a scene of technological wizardry and real everyday gains, contaminated by discrimination, deprivation and unacceptable ethical standards. The book states the case, analyses the mistakes, hits hard at those responsible for these, offers ways of ensuring that we all get the benefits of IT, and argues the need to put some integrity into technology.