Theater

Hardcover. NY, W. W. Norton, 1st, 2014, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket, 765 pages, b&w illustrations. John Lahr has produced a theater biography like no other. Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh gives intimate access to the mind of one of the most brilliant dramatists of his century, whose plays reshaped the American theater and the nation's sense of itself. This astute, deeply researched biography sheds a light on Tennessee Williams's warring family, his guilt, his creative triumphs and failures, his sexuality and numerous affairs, his misreported death, even the shenanigans surrounding his estate. With vivid cameos of the formative influences in Williams's life-his fierce, belittling father Cornelius; his puritanical, domineering mother Edwina; his demented sister Rose, who was lobotomized at the age of thirty-three; his beloved grandfather, the Reverend Walter Dakin-Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh is as much a biography of the man who created A Streetcar Named Desire, The Glass Menagerie, and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof as it is a trenchant exploration of Williams's plays and the tortured process of bringing them to stage and screen. The portrait of Williams himself is unforgettable: a virgin until he was twenty-six, he had serial homosexual affairs thereafter as well as long-time, bruising relationships with Pancho Gonzalez and Frank Merlo. With compassion and verve, Lahr explores how Williams's relationships informed his work and how the resulting success brought turmoil to his personal life. Lahr captures not just Williams's tempestuous public persona but also his backstage life, where his agent Audrey Wood and the director Elia Kazan play major roles, and Marlon Brando, Anna Magnani, Bette Davis, Maureen Stapleton, Diana Barrymore, and Tallulah Bankhead have scintillating walk-on parts. This is a biography of the highest order: a book about the major American playwright of his time written by the major American drama critic of his time.

Hardcover. NY, Association Press, 1st, 1973, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover, 312 pages, very good in an edgeworn, chipped dust jacket. 82 Broadway plays reviewed by Atkinson and all illustrated with Hirschfeld's caricatures.

Hardcover. NY, Oxford University Press, 1st, 1979, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. A critical biography of the comic genius who, as both a writer and a director, dominated the Broadway comedy theater during the twenties, thirties, and forties. Detailed accounts of GSK plays and how they came together -- or did not. Kaufman is captured as a man of the theatre who compulsively was involved in a show a year for decades, as writer or director. 503 pages, b&w photos. Clean copy.

Softcover. McKinleyville CA, Fithian Press/, 1st, 2014, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 238 pages, b&w illustrations. INSCRIBED BY COHEN on the front fly leaf. Robert Cohen is the founding Chair of Drama a the University of California, Irvine, and has written 20 book on theatre. In this memoir, he recounts the "lucky breaks" that took him from being a college student preparing for law school to a long career as a man of the theatre. The first lucky break took place in his junior year of high school when Judy Berkenbilt asked him to be in "Belles On Their Toes," a play she was directing. She wanted to cast him as a policeman but after reading the script, Cohen asked for the role as the family handyman, which she agreed to. He identifies Lucky Break #2, in the same year, as ending up in a Vocational Typing class when he transferred out of the Mechanical Drawing class to escape a creepy instructor. He became a fabulous typist and was able to earn lunch money in college by typing papers for other students. Lucky Break #3 was getting into the 12th grade Advanced English class taught by Miss Casey, which advanced his intellectual development and reading "like crazy." Lucky Break #6 was being asked to take over as coach of the swimming program at the camp where he was a counselor. When Cohen did not have the $20 needed to to get a Water Safety Instructor certification, the camp owner asked him take over the drama program instead. And so on.

softcover. New York, Theatre Communications Group, reprint, 2004, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 127 pages. Softcover. Clean, unmarked copy with only minor wear to wrappers.

Hardcover. Cambridge MA, The MIT Press, 1st, 1997, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, pictorial boards with brown cloth spine. 246 pages, Includes black and white illustrations, appendices, chronology, index. "Marsden Hartley (1877-1943), the American modernist painter, was also a prolific writer who published dozens of essays and reviews and several volumes of poetry and prose. Yet the revealing memoir he wrote about his own life and relationships has remained unpublished until now." Transcribed from Hartley1s own handwritten manuscripts, this edition is accompanied by photographs (some never before published), notes, and an introduction discussing Hartley1s fascination with autobiography in the context of his struggle with notions of self-representation in art. Susan Ryan also describes the circumstances surrounding the composition of Somehow a Past, and explains the distinctions between this original version and two later ones also in the Beinecke Library. Clean copy.

Hardcover. Baton Rouge, Claitor's Publishing, 1st, 1987, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 305 pages, illustrated in b&w. Bookplate SIGNED BY CALVERT AND RAUSCHER on a bookplate pasted to inside cover. In a bright dust jacket, unclipped.

Hardcover. NY, Aperture , 1st, 1997, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket with minor wear. 315 pages illustrated in color and b&w. Incorporates images of performances and rehearsals, along with candid photographs by many important photographers, including Imogen Cunningham, Arnold Eagle, Peter Hujar, James Klosty, Annie Leibovitz, Barbara Morgan, and Max Waldman. The book also features examples of Cunningham's choreographic notes, as well as scores, and set and costume designs by the artists with whom he has collaborated over the years. Top corner bumped, causing a mild crease to corner of pages. DOMESTIC SHIPPING ONLY.

Hardcover. NY, Disney Press, 1st thus, 1997, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, pictorial boards, 421 pages illustrated in color. illustrations from animated classics Includes Cinderella, Snow White and Seven Dwarfs, Sleeping Beauty, Pinocchio, Robin Hood, Ichabod Crane, Peter Pan, Alice in Wonderland, Bambi, Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree and more. The first combined edition which reprints two previously published books. Previous owner's inscription on front fly leaf. DUE TO WEIGHT, DOMESTIC SHIPPING ONLY.

Hardcover. Detroit MI, Wayne State University Press, 1st, 1978, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover in a lightly worn dust jacket, 263 pages, b&w illustrations. The author traces the origins of humor to primitive drama, folk ritual, and carnival play. from antiquity to the era of Laurel and Hardy. Light making to about 16 pages.

Softcover. NY, Routledge, reprint, 1997, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 511 pages. Illustrations by Zina Lee. 'Actors on Guard is the most comprehensive and detailed book on the art of theatrical swordplay available today. It provides the reader with the historical, theoretical and practical basis for learning, practicing and presenting theatrical sword fights.' Clean, bright copy.

Softcover. NY, Theatre Communications Group, 2nd printing, 2005, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 58 pages. SIGNED BY ACTRESS CHERRY JONES on title page. Clean, unmarked copy with only minor wear to wrappers.

Hardcover. NY, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1st, 1973, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, bright turquoise cloth with gilt stamping, dj flaps laid in. A look behind Graham's artistic interpretations of her work, reproducing her working notes. 464 pages, clean copy. NOTE: DUE TO WEIGHT, DOMESTIC SHIPPING ONLY.

Hardcover. New York , Random House , 1st, 1954, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 122 pages, b&w photographs from the 1953 play. In a very good dust jacket that's unclipped. Bright, clean copy.

Softcover. Los Angeles, Augustan Reprint Society, reprint, 1981, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, facsimile reprint of the 1682 edition, 80 pages. Introduction by Diane Dreher. An early historical play about Anne Boleyn, second queen of Henry VIII. Clean copy.

Hardcover. London, George Routledge and Sons, 1st, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover in maroon cloth with bright gilt lettering on spine. 439 pages + 8 pages of publisher's ads in rear.

Hardcover. NY, Zone Books, 1st, 2011, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. An examination of the ultimate power opera grants to singing: the reversal of death. In Operatic Afterlives, Michal Grover-Friedlander examines the implications of opera's founding myth-the story of Orpheus and Eurydice: Orpheus's attempt to revive the dead Eurydice with the power of singing. Grover-Friedlander examines instances in which opera portrays an existence beyond death, a revival of the dead, or a simultaneous presence of life and death. These portrayals-in operas by Puccini and other composers and performances by Maria Callas-are made possible, she argues, by the unique treatment of voice in the operas in question: the occurrence of a breach in which singing itself takes on an afterlife in the face of the singer's death. Clean copy, 252 pages.

Hardcover. NY, The Viking Press, 1st, 1978, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, price-clipped dust jacket, 79 pages. Illustrated by Arvis Stewart. Music by John Sebastian Brown. Small bookplate on front fly leaf. Otherwise clean.

Hardcover. Boston, John W. Luce and Company, 1st US, nd, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, olive green cloth over tan cloth boards, no dustwrapper; 149 pages. No date but appears to be circa 1900. A uncommon edition of a Tolstoy play. Title page states "Authorized Edition". Owner's signature on front fly leaf otherwise clean.

Hardcover. San Francisco, The Bohemian Club, 1st, 1983, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, red and green decorated white boards, no dj issued. 69 pages, Carl Eberhard, composer. J. Robert Minser, director. Color illustrated stage design spread by Herbert P. Buel. Clean copy.

Hardcover. London, Batsford Limited, 1st, 1970, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover, red cloth covers in a worn, chipped dust jacket. Black & white illustrations by the author. 120 pages. Contains drawings and instructions on: The characters of the drama; inside the glove puppet; making the head; making hands; making the body; clothes; trick puppets; theatres and more. NOTE: This book has a musty odor, otherwise a clean, bright copy.

Softcover. Los Angeles, The Augustan Reprint Society , reprint, 1988, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 88 pages. A facsimile reprint of a satirical play written in 1700. Name on front cover, otherwise clean copy.

Softcover. NY, Skyhorse, 1st, 2014, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 361 pages, b&w illustrations. Burlesque was one of America's most popular forms of live entertainment in the first half of the 20th century. Gaudy, bawdy, and spectacular, the shows entertained thousands of paying customers every night of the week. And yet the legacy of burlesque is often vilified and misunderstood, left out of the history books.By telling the intimate and surprising stories from its golden age through the women (and men!) who lived it, Behind the Burly Q reveals the true story of burlesque, even as it experiences a new renaissance. Lovingly interviewed by burlesque enthusiast Leslie Zemeckis who produced the hit documentary of the same name, are former musicians, strippers, novelty acts, club owners, authors, and historians--assembled here for the first time ever to tell you just what really happened in a burlesque show. From Jack Ruby and Robert Kennedy to Abbott and Costello--burlesque touched every corner of American life. The sexy shows often poked fun at the upper classes, at sex, and at what people were willing to do in the pursuit of sex. Sadly, many of the performers have since passed away, making this their last, and often only interview. Behind the Burly Q is the definitive history of burlesque during its heyday and an invaluable oral history of an American art form. Funny, shocking, unbelievable, and heartbreaking, their stories will touch your hearts. We invite you to peek behind the curtain at the burly show.

Hardcover. Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1st, 1988, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 178 pages. The drama is the most social of the arts, depending upon physical space, audience, and social factors for its existence. It is no surprise, therefore, that the most successful criticism approaches theater the way Barber and Mullaney do: as historical artifact. Barber is the better known, having authored the classic Shakespeare's Festive Comedy (1959); the present volume is based on his papers and examines three early Elizabethan tragedies"Tamburlaine" and "Dr. Faustus" by Marlowe and "The Spanish Tragedy" by Kyd. Particularly interested in locating these plays in the unstable religious atmosphere of the late 16th century, Barber ably demonstrates his understanding of the social, historical, and economic factors that defined the era. Mullaney takes the novel approach of examining the theater in light of London topography; the title thus refers to the physical location of the playhouses as well as the social importance of the theater. Mullaney points out that the prejudice that forced the great theaters of the age to operate outside the city walls encouraged a drama that was radical and iconoclastichence its greatness. Mullaney's argument is fascinating and thought-provoking, convincingly presented. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Praeger, 1st, 1956, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Cloth spine and border of boards faded, otherwise very clean, tight.

Hardcover. NY, Simon & Schuster, 1st, 1963, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, black cloth covers stamped in orange, yellow and white, 474 pages. The memoirs of a major American playwright, Pulitzer Prize winner for Street Scene. Clean copy.

Hardcover. Paris, Garnier, 1911, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 625 pages, original blue paper wrappers here bound in half leather and marbled boards, spines with raised ribs and gilt design, floral end papers. Top edge gilt, 4 color plates.

NY, William Morrow, 1988, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, price-clipped dust jacket. 364 pages, b&w photos. Novelist Peter Feibleman first met world-famous playwright Lillian Hellman when he was ten and she was thirty-five-years old, and out of that first encounter there grew romantic friendship that was to blossom into a love affair--one that ended only with her death. Drawing on many of her letters, private journals, and conversations recorded by them both specifically for this memoir, and on her later published and unpublished works, as well as on his own diaries, Feibleman brings to life one of the most glittering, fascinating, and complex women of our time. LILLY is replete with anecdotes about Miss Hellman's celebrated friends, including Dashiell Hammett, with whom she shared her life for many years; Dorothy Parker; Elizabeth Taylor, who made a triumphant stage appearance in 'The Little Foxes'; Mike Nichols; Elaine May; Leonard Bernstein; and her Martha's Vineyard neighbors--Jules Feiffer, Barbara and John Hersey, Ann and Art Buchwald, Rose and William Styron, and many, many others. Her animosities are depicted as well, including her lengthy and virulent feud with Mary McCarthy. What emerges is an intensely personal portrait, unique and fully realized, of an immensely talented writer, her ways of loving, and her world.

Hardcover. NY, Metro Books , 1st, 1998, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 178 pages illustrated in color and b&w. A pictorial history of the Broadway musical. Light edgewear to dust jacket. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, George Braziller, 1st, 1956, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Fair, Hardcover in a worn, chipped dust jacket. 257 pages, b&w illustrations. The Turbulent And Colorful History - 400 years long of the clown Harlequin - one of the most magical figures ever created in the theatre. No markings.

Hardcover. Winnipeg Canada, Blizzard Publishing, 1st, 1993, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 92 pages. SIGNED BY FINDLEY on title page. Slight wear to dust jacket with old price-sticker to back cover, else a very nice, tight, clean copy.

Hardcover. Middletown CT, Wesleyan University Press, 1st, 2008, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. The Dancer Within is a collection of photographic portraits and short essays based on confessional interviews with forty dancers and entertainers, many of them world-famous. Well-known on the concert stage, on Broadway, in Hollywood musicals, and on television, the personalities featured in this book speak with extraordinary candor about all stages of the dancer's life-from their first dance class to their signature performances and their days of reflection on the artist's life. The Dancer Within reveals how these artists triumphed, but also how they overcame adversity, including self-doubt, injuries, and aging. Most of all, this book is about the courage, commitment, love, and passion of these performers in their quest for artistic excellence. The reader will quickly realize that "the dancer within" is a metaphor of the human spirit.

Hardcover. NY, E.P. Dutton, 1st, 1955, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover, 219 pages, b&w photos. The author was the owner/manager of famous girl revue for 40 years and gives us this history. Preface by Maurice Chevalier. Dust jacket shoes wear, chipping.

Hardcover. New York, Knopf, 1st US, 1968, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 398 pages. Illustrated with 24 pages of black & white photographs. Light foxing to page fore edges. Light wear to price clipped dust jacket. Clean, tight copy.

Hardcover. NY, Random House, 1st, 1935, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, gray cloth stamped in blue and red. 161 pages, clean copy, no dust jacket.

Hardcover. NY, E.P. Dutton, 1st US, 1930, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, maroon cloth with gilt lettering. 231 pages with b/w illustrations, 28 photographs and twelve diagrams. Written to assist the producers of amateur plays. First published in London the same year. Clean copy.

Softcover. Los Angeles, Augustan Reprint Society, reprint, 1989, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover. A facsimile reprint.

Hardcover. Paris, France, Vilo, 1st, 1967, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: None, 72 pages. Hardcover. FRENCH TEXT. B/w illustrations throughout. Decorated glossy cover boards, some chipping of lamination at spine and corners, a couple scratch marks. Previous owner's bookplate on front endpaper. Back cover boards slightly warped so it curls just a touch at top and bottom. Pages clean. Binding tight. A beautifully photo-illustrated volume featuring performance photos and portraits of the world-famous prima ballerina.

Softcover. NY, Praeger, reprint, 1998, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 189 pages, b&w illustrations. This ground-breaking work brings dance into current discussions of the African presence in American culture. Dixon Gottschild argues that the Africanist aesthetic has been invisibilized by the pervasive force of racism. This book provides evidence to correct and balance the record, investigating the Africanist presence as a conditioning factor in shaping American performance, onstage and in everyday life. She examines the Africanist presence in American dance forms particularly in George Balanchine's Americanized style of ballet, (post)modern dance, and blackface minstrelsy. Hip hop culture and rap are related to contemporary performance, showing how a disenfranchised culture affects the culture in power. Clean copy.

Hardcover. Franklin Center,PA, The Franklin Library, 1st thus, 1977, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, full leather binding, all edges gilt, moire endpapers, sewn-in ribbon marker, hubbed spine, gilt decorations on spine and covers. Two=color illustrations by Jerry Pinkney.

Hardcover. NY, E.P. Dutton, 1st, 1937, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, cream color cloth with green lettering. A memoir of growing up with the author George W. Cable written by his daughter. 189 pages, frontis of Cable. Inscription on front flyleaf, otherwise clean. Light fading to cloth covers.

Hardcover. NY, Thomas Y. Crowell, 1st, 1972, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket. 166 pages. Lardner was one of the most remarkable satirists in American literature and one of the sharpest cultural historians of his time but is better known to many people as a successful journalist and popular entertainer. Geismar examines the development of this distinguished writer, a biographical and critical account. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Dodd, Mead and Company, 1st thus, 1895, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, 204 pages. b/w illustrations throughout by F.C. Gordon. All edges gilt. Beautiful binding, cover boards bound in blue cloth, extensive gilt decoration on spine and front cover board. Previous owner's signature on front flyleaf. Spine has a little fraying at bottom. Binding tight. Pages clean. Page 112 hinge split at gutter. Comedy in five acts.

Softcover. Los Angeles, Augustan Reprint Society, reprint, 1989, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 40 pages, b&w frontis. Facsimile reprint of 18th century (1732) edition. An anti-Catholic play by Fielding, Introduction by Connie Capers Thorson. Includes bibliographical references.

Hardcover. Philadelphia, J. B. Lippincott, 1st US, 1937, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, light green cloth with gilt stamping, spine faded. The prolific author's study of marriage and, controversially at the time, endorsing a journey from polygamy to monogamy. Frontis. portrait of author. Bookplate on inside cover, otherwise clean. Uncommon.

Hardcover. San Francisco, The Bohemian Club, 1st, 1984, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, 74 pages, illustrated orange paper over boards with title on front cover and spine. Illustrated with woodcuts by Vincent Perez. Issued without dust jacket. Bohemian Club Library Notes brochure laid in.

Hardcover. New York, Pantheon Books, 1st, 1993, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 80 pages. Hardcover with dust jacket. Very clean and tight copy. Light edgewear to cover edges.

Hardcover. NY, Samuel French, 1st, 1932, Book: Very Good, Hardcover, blue cloth with paper label on spine. 131 pages. covers slightly splayed, clean copy. Robert Caplan and his wife are entertaining her brother and sister-in-law. Because Robert insists on uncovering the truth about his brother Martin's 'suicide', many unpalatable revelations ensue which cause Robert to shoot himself. At this point, the opening scene is repeated, but this time they bypass the dangerous corner at which the truth is demanded, thus averting the disaster.Written in 1932 this forms one of the three 'time plays'.

Hardcover. New York, Random House, 2nd Printing, 1939, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, 159 pages. Previous owners bookplate on inside front cover and signature on front endpaper. Clean, tight copy. Oatmeal cloth with gilt titling over black, black topstain. Includes listing of original cast, including Tallulah Bankhead and Dan Duryea.