Stagecrafters Handbook

A great source for Odyssey of the Mind or Destination Imagination. Very details instructions for props and make up. Small community theater should have the book available to those who are new on working on sets.

Polish-born director, writer, playwright, and scholar Braun (State U. of New York-Buffalo) sets down the approach to creative theatre directing that he teaches in his classes. It is based on the two premises that directing is an act of creating--of making something out of nothing--and that is also a craft that requires skills, techniques, methods, and tools to express the artistic energies and spiritual abundance of human life. After an introduction, he discusses shaping a theater style, creative text analysis, creating the human layer of the performance, performance space and time, action, mind and imagination, the director's practical preparations, implementing the project before rehearsals, creative rehearsals, and final rehearsals leading to the opening. The text is double spaced. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR.

Actors and playwrights, can self-produce. There is notable precedence for self-producing, from Moliere to Shaw, from Shepard to the hundreds of playwrights and actors backing their work today. The How to Produce a Play without a Producer: A Survival Guide for Actors and Playwrights will empower the actor or writer by clarifying the intricacies of theatre production. Topics include budgeting, theatre spaces, building artistic and technical teams, legal and tax issues, box office management, marketing, publicity, press agents, and transferring the play to a higher production level.

Basic techniques for putting on children's plays, including directions for three productions.