Performing Arts category: 25753 books

J.J. Abrams is one of the most successful director-writer-producers working in Hollywood, and now that he is being offered the chance to visit a galaxy far, far away to direct the long-awaited Star Wars sequel, his reputation is set to shoot ever higher.Much like his hero Steven Spielberg, such has...

This impressive new book from Sue-Ellen Case looks at how science has been performed throughout history, tracing a line from nineteenth century alchemy to the twenty-first century virtual avatar. In this bold and wide-ranging book that is written using a crossbreed of styles, we encounter a...

The first Karen Finley book to be published since 2006, this collection of the first ten years of the millennium shows an artist engaged in the deepest political and cultural issues of her time. Kathleen Hanna, the former lead singer of Bikini Kill and Le Tigre, is known widely to a generation...

This book provides a timely intervention in the fields of performance studies and theatre history, and to larger issues of global cultural exchange. The authors offer a provocative argument for rethinking the scholarly assessment of how diverse performative cultures interact, how they are interwoven,...

Richard Harris was never an easy person to get along with. He was a difficult schoolboy (and was later disowned by his Limerick teachers), then he went to work in the family flour and milling business - where he organised a strike against his father. It was as a gifted and compelling actor...

By the mid-1920s, Buster Keaton had established himself as one of the geniuses of cinema with such films as Sherlock, Jr., The Navigator, and his 1927 work The General, which was the highest ranked silent on the American Film Institute's survey of the 100 greatest films. Before Keaton ventured into...

Before he was the Academy Award-nominated director of The Last Picture Show, Peter Bogdanovich (b. 1939) interviewed some of cinema's great masters: Orson Welles, Alfred Hitchcock, John Ford, and others. Since becoming an acclaimed filmmaker himself, he has given countless interviews to the press...

• Accompanying DVD of thirty short films offers an instructive mini film festival • Shows beginners how to make meaningful films without fancy equipment • Great for film students and independent filmmakers Want to make an art film, a documentary, a video biography? Here’s how to create real movies...

Herbert Brenon, was one of the most influential film directors and producers, in the history of the American cinema. He had an output of over a hundred films and worked for most of the major studios. He was a unique film visionary, constantly experimenting, using his intelligence to push America to...

A man of many film firsts, James Stuart Blackton promoted motion pictures as a mass commercial medium by creating the first true movie studio, adopting the star system, pioneering film animation, and publishing Motion Picture Magazine, one of the first film periodicals. As much of a seminal figure...

Frontier dramas were among the most popular and successful of early-twentieth-century Broadway type plays. The long runs of contemporary dramas not only indicate the popularity of these plays but also tell us that these plays offered views about the frontier that original audiences could and did embrace.

Young, cocksure, handsome and absurdly talented, Australian actor Heath Ledger shot to prominence with his first Hollywood film "10 Things I Hate About You": and a star was born. With huge charisma and smouldering looks lighting up the screen in a series of subsequent films, Heath was soon...

Of all the actors and personalities thrown up by that strangest of periods. The 1970s, surely Robin Askwith was one of the most 'of his time'? As star of the infamous CONFESSIONS films, as well as over 25 other movies, Askwith was huge. His cheeky, innocent face, his Mick Jagger lips and more often...

6-time Academy Award nominee Jeff Bridges is indeed a legend in Hollywood. Coming from a bloodline of actors, Jeff got exposed into the world of acting at an early age, and by 22, he earned his 1st Oscar nomination for the film The Last Picture Show. Over his 4 decades in the industry, he was hailed...