Used, Rare & Antiquarian Theater Books

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private journals, and conversations recorded by them both specifically for this memoir, and on her later published and unpublished works, as well as on his own diaries, Feibleman brings to life one of the most glittering, fascinating, and complex women of our time.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.

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. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 2nd printing, 1957, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 73 pages. Third book in the Poets' Theatre Series. Dark blue cloth covers, white titles to spine dust jacket with b&w illustration. Slight soiling to dust jacket, clean boards, pages crisp and unmarked; a very clean, tight copy.

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. College Station TX, Texas A & M University Press, 1st, 2000, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 174 pages, b&w photos. The show traveled in West Texas, Kansas, Oklahoma and Eastern Colorado from 1920 to 1945. Clean copy in a bright dust jacket.

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.

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.

Hardcover. NY, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1st, 1973, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover in a lightly worn and chipped dust jacket. 401 pages with index. Ex-lib copy with stamp to front fly leaf, envelope on rear endpaper, sticker on dust jacket spine, interior clean.

Hardcover. London, Routledge, 1st, 2011, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover in pictorial boards, 198 pages illustrated in color and b&w. Focusing on the house and museum and its considerable collections of architectural fragments, models, drawings folios and publications, this book is about thirteen Lincoln's Inn Fields in London, England, built in the early 1800s by the renowned eighteenth-century architect Sir John Soane. The book maps the influences, references, connections, extensions, and productions at play in Soane's house-museum. The house, still a public museum, was highly original in its period, and it continues to influence and impress architects and historians alike. Today's visitor is confronted by a dense, complex series of spaces, a strange aCCU1mulation of rooms, objects and effects. This book examines the ways in which Soane enlisted light, shadow, color, fiction and narrative, vistas, spatial complexity, the fragment, and the mirror to produce a spectacular space. No dj issued, 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. NY/London, Theatre Arts/W. Heinemann, reprint, 1956, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, blue cloth with faded gilt lettering on spine, 90 pages. Written when Michael Redgrave was at the height of his power and acclaim, The Actor's Ways and Means is a spirited and knowledgeable account of the most influential ideas about the art and craft of acting. Drawing on his own direct experience, Redgrave evaluates the influence of famous actors and directors, from Copeau to Stanislavski, from Meyerhold to Edward Gordon Craig. Illustrated with b&w photos of Redgrave in performance. Checkmark on front flyleaf, otherwise clean.

Hardcover. NY, Atheneum, 1st, 1988, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 227 pages, b&w illustrations. In a clean, unclipped dust jacket. Rattigan was a renowned English playwright, the author of 22 plays.

Hardcover. NY/New Haven, Coward-McCann / Yale University, 1st, 1931, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, #38/525 copies, Numbered and SIGNED by Wilder on a leaf tipped onto the copyright page, bound in faux-vellum spine, flowered paper covered boards. Mild foxing to a few pages, otherwise clean. A one act play whose action spans 90 years in the home of one family, specifically in the dining room during Christmas dinners. laid in is a page of The Yale Alumni Weekly from 1931 with a review of the play.

Hardcover. NY, Benjamin Blom, 1st, 1964, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, light orange cloth with brown titles on spine. Traces the history of the time-honored farce, featuring Pulcinella, Harlequin, Pierrot, Pantaleone, and other traditionsl characters, from Roman comedy to Cruikshank's Punch & Judy. Originally published in 1912, this new edition adds 46 pages of illustrations and a folding color frontispiece. Clean copy, no dust jacket.

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.

Hardcover. London, William Heinemann, 1st, 1956, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a lightly worn and soiled dust jacket priced at 9s 6d net. 88 pages, b&w frontis of Dame Edith Evans, another plate with photos from the stage production. The plot tells the story of the imperious Mrs St Maugham and her granddaughter Laurel, a disturbed child under the care of Miss Madrigal, a governess, whose past life is a mystery. Previous owner's signature on the front fly leaf.

Hardcover. London, Allen & Unwin, 1st, 1970, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a lightly worn dust jacket with fading to spine. INSCRIBED BY THE TRANSLATOR INGALLS on the front fly leaf. The desperate struggle between the aging Manchu Empress T z'u-hsi and her young nephew the Emperor, at the close of the nineteenth century. A story told as a parable against both Japanese occupation and the Communist rule. Small ownersjp stamp on first page, otherwise clean.

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. Carbondale, Southern Illinous University Press, 1st, 1938, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, 289 pages. Hardcover with price-clipped dust jacket. Dust jacket shows moderate wear, spine fading and rubbing, internally cleann and tight 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, Robert M. McBride, 2nd pr., 1927, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, floral decorated boards, black cloth spine, paper title labels, lacking dust jacket. American playwright, Green won the Pulitzer in 1927 for In Abraham's Bosom. 317 pages, top edge stained red. A clean, bright copy.

Softcover. London, The Curtain Press, 1946-48, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcovers, five stapled pamphlets. 1) Oscar Wilde and the Theatre, 23 pages. Contains eight pages of costume designs by Cecil Beaton four in color, along with other cartoons and drawings and a text by James Agate. 2) Notes on the Verse Drama by Christopher Hassall. 36 pages. With Wood Engravings By Joan Hassall. 3) The Masque of Christmas: Dramatic Joys of the Festival described by Laurence Whistler, 40 pages. 4) The Masque. a Theatre Notebook. the Old Vic. King Lear. Reviewed by Ivor Brown. No. 1 December 1946, 16 pages. 5) Designs for the Theatre by Rex Whistler (Part 1) with color and b&w illustrations, 20 pages. All very good, clean.

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.

Softcover. Los Angeles, Augustan Reprint Society, reprint, 1986, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 42 pages. Facsimile reprint of the 1732 pamphlet with introduction by Robert Hume. Published anonymously but thought to have been written by Aaron Hill (1685-1750). The pamphlet turns out to be a fascinatingly particular review of the cultural affairs in London during the winter and spring of 1732. 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. Charlottesville, University of Virginia, 1st Thus, 1977, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 106 pages. A Play with black & white illustrations by Faulkner. Clean, tight copy. Introduction by Noel Polk. In a bright yellow dust jacket.

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

Softcover. NY, New York Theatre Program Corp., 1938, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 48 page playbill program for the Shubert revue "Hooray for What!" starring Ed Wynn (featured on the cover) and Vivian Vance ( of The Lucy Show). Great ads feature night spots like Sardi's and The Cotton Club. Light wear, stapled, clean. 6 3/4 X 9 1/4".

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.

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. 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. NY, Bantam Books, 1st, 1987, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover ina bright, unclipped dust jacket. Conceived by Mikhail Baryshnikov. Written and directed by Peter Anastos. Photographs by Arthur Elgort. Introduction by Jean Poniatowski. A humorous takeoff of the classical ballet conceived by a classical ballet dancer. 80 unnumbered pages. Clean copy.

Softcover. West LafayetteIN, Bordighera, 1st, 1999, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 224 pages, b&w illustrations. The biography of an Italian actress, playwright, and lecturer. Clean copy.

Hardcover. London, Hodder & Stoughton, nd (1913), Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, purple cloth covers with elaborate gilt design featuring 3 ladies drinking tea, 197 pages. 17 color illustrations plus frontispiece by Hugh Thomson, all tipped in and with tissue guards. Previous owner's inscription front end paper. Corners lightly rubbed, spine wear, light stain to rear cover. No date but assumed 1920s and first illustrated thus.

Hardcover. NY, Henry Holt, 1st, 2005, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover. 249 pages. Black and red striped dust jacket with light edgewear. A clean, tight copy.

Hardcover. London, Beaumont Press, 1st, 1919, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, Cloth-backed patterned paper boards designed by Michel Sevier. The sixth book published by the Press. Paper label on spine is chipped and tanned. Cover edges and corners worn, there is a small splash of red color to middle of sine cloth on front. Interior is bright and clean. #192 of 250 copies. One Day More' is a reworking of Conrad's short story 'Tomorrow'. It centers on a family which have structured their lives around the hope and promise of their son returning from a long stint at sea. Joseph Conrad was a Polish-British writer regarded as one of the greatest novelists to ever write in the English language.

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. NY, Dodd Mead, 1st, 1958, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover in a worn, chipped dust jacket, 84 pages with index. B&w photos. Ex-lib with minimal signs, light reside to rear endpapers. Beryl Grey was the first Western ballerina to dance in Moscow's Bolshoi Theatre and she tells of her experiences on tour. Clean internally.

Hardcover. NY, Random House, 2nd pr., 1943, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, putty cloth with blue and red stamping, 146 pages, b&w photos from the 1943 production directed by Rouben Mamoulian. Top edge stained blue. Stated second printing, a tight, clean copy with a mild musty odor. No dust jacket.

Hardcover. NY , Harper Brothers, 1st, 1904, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover light gray boards stamped with a white and gilt design, gray cloth spine. Top edge gilt. Originally published in France in 1902, this is the first US edition of a play set in Italy at the end of the fifteenth century. B&w frontis of the author with a tissue guard. Previous owner's name on the front fly leaf, otherwise an exceptionally 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.

Softcover. Louisville KY, Cole Brothers Circus, 1st, 1949, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, softcover, 20 page circus promotional brochure. 16 pages with 60 b&w photographs featuring behind the scenes circus activity- setting up the big top, loading the train, daily life of performers, etc. Light edgewear.

Hardcover. New York, William Morrow and Company, 1st, 1978, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: Good, 225 pages. Hardcover with dust jacket. Gutter cracked in three places. Dust jacket shows edgewear and small tears at corners. Fading to top cover boards.

Hardcover. Chapel Hill NC, University of North Carolina , 1st, 1938, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, decorated yellow cloth covers with light soil, 227 pages. Illustrated with 7 b&w photos. These five one-act plays, originally produced by the Carolina Playmakers at Chapel Hill and on various tours, offer an unusual combination of brilliant local color and truth about human nature everywhere. Well written, with skillful stage directions and notes on Mexican costume and Spanish pronunciation, they are highly practical for production. Internally clean, no dust jacket.

Hardcover. NY, Thomas Y. Crowell, 1st, 1896, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, green cloth stamped in gilt and black, 399 pages. Forty-one chapters, each on a different actor, with a portrait of each. Each of the mini-biographies was written by a different writer or critic. The editors include such actors as John Drew, Edwin Booth, Rose Coughlan, James O'Neill, Edward Harrigan, Joseph Jefferson. Very good copy of the first edition. The book has brighttop edge gilt. Previous owner's bookplate, inscription on front endpapers.

Hardcover. NY, Random House, 1st, 1954, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, "A Random House Play", 131 pages illustrated with photographs from the stage production featuring Kaye Ballard and Jerry Stiller. Cover label illustration by Hirschfeld. John Latouche's Introduction is his unusual expository curtain speech recounting the circumstances of the plays inception and history. Front end paper tanned. No dust jacket.

Hardcover. London, George Routledge & Sons, ist thus, 1905, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, The Photogravure Series. Attractive green cloth covers with gilt titles and gilt embossed design. 12 b/w tissue-guarded photogravures after drawings by Gilbert James. 91 pages. Top edge gilt. Small scar to cloth on rear cover, spine gilt faded. Previous owner's inscription on front fly leaf, otherwise clean.

Softcover. Los Angeles, Augustan Reprint Society, reprint, 1987, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 40 pages. A facsimile reprint of a scandalous pamphlet published in 1772. Kendrick was a notorious literary libeler who had a grudge against David Garrick, manager of Drury Lane, imagining he sabotaged his theatrical career. 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.