The Comedy Diva Diaries

The Comedy Diva Diaries is the tale of a twenty-nine year old comedienne who gives herself an ultimatum: achieve success before her next birthday, or die trying. Our sassy, deluded and insecure heroine endures disastrous stand-up gigs and humiliating TV commercial auditions. Her rich boyfriend, pampered pooch, flamboyant agent, dysfunctional family and back-stabbing rivals arent much help. On the brink of emotional collapse, Diva finds inspiration in a self help book, and makes the fateful decision to move across the continent in pursuit of the Hollywood dream. Will Diva admit defeat? Or will she find fame and fortune before turning thirty? Hip and outrageously funny! As a young comedian, its frightening how much I can relate. ~ Christel Bartelse, 2011& 2010 Canadian Comedy Award Nominee Van Ritzen is one of the funniest humans Ive ever met. Read her book, laugh, lather, rinse, repeat. ~ Mark Leiren-Young, author of Never Shoot a Stampede Queen 2009 Leacock Medal For Humour Really, really funny. ~ Terry Fallis, author of The Best Laid Plans 2008 Leacock Medal For Humour You will root for Diva every step of the way. ~ Ian Ferguson, author of Village of the Small Houses 2004 Leacock Medal for Humour

A Romantic Comedy With No Age Limits One Panto, three stories with more than one happy ending. The Diva Diaries series, a laugh-a-minute farce set in the world of Scottish amateur dramatics. You will find romance, comic setups, and a fire of epic proportion with an ending that will intrigue, entertain and make you chuckle in your shoes.

From the headline-making, New York Times bestselling author of I Hate Everyone...Starting With Me comes another intimate glimpse into the delightfully hilarious mind of Joan Rivers. When her daughter Melissa gives her a diary for Christmas, at first Joan is horrified—who the hell does Melissa think she is? That fat pig, Bridget Jones? But as Joan, being both beautiful and introspective, begins to record her day-to-day musings, she realizes she has a lot to say. About everything. And everyone, God help them. The result? A no-holds-barred, delightfully vicious and always hilarious look at the everyday life of the ultimate diva. Follow Joan on a family vacation in Mexico and on trips between New York and Los Angeles where she mingles with the stars, never missing a beat as she delivers blistering critiques on current events, and excoriating insights about life, pop culture, and celebrities (from A to D list), all in her relentlessly funny signature style. This is the Diary of a Mad Diva. Forget about Anais Nin, Anne Frank, and Sylvia Plath. For the first time in a century, a diary by someone that’s actually worth reading.

The legendary comedian presents the contents of her diary, offering insights, quips, musings, and critiques on her daily life, pop culture, and celebrities.

Dakota, Chrasey, and Jordan have been best friends since college. Now they're about to discover their wild school days have nothing on the dramas of adulthood. . . As friends, Dakota, Chrasey, and Jordan are alike and dissimilar in many ways. Dakota is the only single one in the group. She and Jordan both thrive on their high-powered careers--and the men in their lives almost always come second. But when Dakota's boyfriend becomes more than she can handle, she realized that strength in the boardroom does not translate to the bedroom. Chrasey and Jordan have marriage in common--and the temptation to have an affair with two irresistible men. Now these three friends who have been through the best and worst times together, will have to rely on their strong bonds and trust the truth that lies buried deep within their hearts to discover who they really are--and find the life they've been waiting for all along. . . "I felt like I was experiencing one of my own girls' nights out." --Lala, MTV VJ "More juicy drama than any reality show. . ..Janine writes for the everyday diva in all of us." --Miss Info, author of Bling, Bling: Hip Hops Crown Jewels, Hot 97 Jock, Vibe columnist

The Diva's Gift to the Shakespearean Stage traces the transnational connections between Shakespeare's all-male stage and the first female stars in the West. The book is the first to use Italian and English plays and other sources to explore this relationship, focusing on the gifted actress whoradically altered female roles and expanded the horizons of drama just as the English were building their first paying theaters. By the time Shakespeare began to write plays, women had been acting professionally in Italian troupes for two decades, traveling across the Continent and acting in allgenres, including tragicomedy and tragedy. Some women became the first truly international stars, winning royal and noble patrons and literary admirers beyond Italy, with repeat tours in France and Spain.Elizabeth and her court caught wind of the Italians' success, and soon troupes with actresses came to London to perform. Through contacts direct and indirect, English professionals grew keenly aware of the mimetic revolution wrought by the skilled diva, who expanded the innamorata and made the typemore engaging, outspoken, and autonomous. Some English writers pushed back, treating the actress as a whorish threat to the all-male stage, which had long minimized female roles. Others saw a vital new model full of promise. Faced with rising demand for Italian-style plays, Lyly, Marlowe, Kyd, andShakespeare used Italian models from scripted and improvised drama to turn out stellar female parts in the mode of the actress, altering them in significant ways while continuing to use boys to play them. Writers seized on the comici's materials and methods to piece together pastoral, comic, andtragicomic plays from mobile theatergrams - plot elements, roles, stories, speeches, and star scenes, such as cross-dressing, the mad scene, and the sung lament. Shakespeare and his peers gave new prominence to female characters, marked their passions as un-English, and devised plots that figuredthem as self-aware agents, not counters traded between men. Playing up the skills and charisma of the boy player, they produced stunning roles charged with the diva's prodigious theatricality and alien glamour. Rightly perceived, the diva's celebrity and her acclaimed skills posed a radicalchallenge that pushed English playwrights to break with the past in enormously generative and provocative ways.

These divas represent the voices of past and future generations, such as Tyra Banks, Terry McMillan, Harriette Cole, Maya Angelou, Iyanla Vanzant, Nikki Giovanni, Dawn Davis, Adrienne Ingrum, Carol Mackey, Oprah Winfrey, Rosa Parks, Shirley Chisholm, Coretta Scott King, Zora Neal Hurston, and Octavia Butler.

A comprehensive biography of the life and career of American star of stage and film musicals, Ethel Merman, that chronicles her childhood, family, early film appearances, and success in the entertainment industry.