plays theater

Hardcover. Boston, David R. Godine, 1st, 2015, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, oblong format, 188 pages illustrated in color. Long before television and the internet, entertainment was often a performance at the local grange or Town Hall. Since there wasn't much money for costumes or props, the plays relied on all-purpose scenic backdrops - painted canvases of local scenes and interest. And they were often glorious. Many of these minor masterpieces of vernacular art still survive and are presented in all their glory in this richly illustrated book celebrating the colorful and memorable painted curtains that graced the stages of countless New England towns. A remarkable team of conservators from "Curtains Without Borders" has overcome a century of dirt, damage, and neglect to restore hundreds of these historic theater curtains. This book presents exquisite photographs of these enormous pieces of art that have been hidden away and neglected for too long. Bump to top corner, causing mild crease to pages. Otherwise bright and clean.

Hardcover. NY, Arbor House, 1st, 1983, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 352 pages with photographs. Biography co-written by the author's brother. The definitive biography of one of America's most celebrated playwrights. Drawing on previously unseen diaries, letters, and interviews, the authors explore the life and work of Williams, from his early years in Mississippi to his landmark plays of the 1950s and 1960s. Clean copy.

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, Random House, 1st US, 1937, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, off-white cloth with red and gilt stamping. Tanning to edges of cloth, no markings. A two-act play.

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. 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, 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.

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. 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. NY, Viking Press, 1st, 1954, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, two-tone blue cloth covers, 120 pages. The blackly comic play about the oppressed lives of women in 1950s New York. One of literature's leading humorists, Dorothy Parker drew from the dark side of her imagination to pen The Ladies of the Corridor, a searing drama about women living on their own in a New York residence hotel. Loosely based on Parker's life, and co-written with famed Hollywood playwright Arnaud d'Usseau, The Ladies of the Corridor exposes the limitations of a woman's life in a drama teeming with Parker's signature wit. This copy INSCRIBED BY FRANCES STARR on the front fly leaf who had a leading role in the play as Mrs. Nichols.

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. 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.

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

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.

Softcover. NY, Harmony Books, 1st, 1985, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 249 pages. The original, complete, and totally unedited scripts from the now famous BBC "Hitchhiker Radio Show." Clean, bright copy.

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.

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".

Softcover. Los Angeles, The Augustan Reprint Society , reprint, 1986, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 80,pages. A facsimile reprint, Introduction by Deborah C. Payne. Clean, bright copy.

Hardcover. Boston, Little, Brown, and Company, reprint, 1928, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover in black cloth with gilt lettering on spine, 298 pages. A collection of articles about the theater by Edward Gordon Craig (1872-1966), a stage designer and theatrical producer and director. Although he directed only a handful of plays, "his controversial theories of scene design and stagecraft gave him eminence in the European and American theater" (The New York Times). For instance, he favored three-dimensional stage effects and more innovative lighting than the traditional footlights. Craig argues that theatre is not just a form of entertainment, but a powerful medium for social and political change. He advocates for a new kind of theatre that is not bound by traditional conventions and that challenges the audience's expectations. Craig also emphasizes the importance of the actor's body and movement, and he proposes new techniques for training actors to be more expressive and dynamic on stage. Previous owner's inscription on front fly leaf, otherwise clean.

Hardcover. Boston, David Godine, 1st, 2009, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 192 pages. The photography of Angus McBean encompasses more than three decades of the history of British theater. His work includes most of the memorable productions of the Old Vic Company and of what is now the Royal Shakespeare Company; opera productions at Glyndebourne and the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden; ballet and operetta at Sadler's Wells; and West End productions of plays and musicals both old and new-hundreds of productions in all. McBean was the favorite photographer of Vivien Leigh, Laurence Olivier, and Edith Evans, and he photographed countless plays starring John Gielgud, Ralph Richardson, and Alec Guinness, not to mention younger stars such as Audrey Hepburn, Richard Burton, and Elizabeth Taylor. In fact, McBean photographed virtually every great actor of his era, perhaps the most brilliant years in the annals of British theater.

Hardcover. Boston, David R. Godine, 1st, 2009, Hardcover, 192 pages. The photography of Angus McBean encompasses more than three decades of the history of British theater. His work includes most of the memorable productions of the Old Vic Company and of what is now the Royal Shakespeare Company; opera productions at Glyndebourne and the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden; ballet and operetta at Sadler's Wells; and West End productions of plays and musicals both old and new -- hundreds of productions in all. He was the favorite photographer of Vivien Leigh, Laurence Olivier, and Edith Evans, and he photographed countless plays starring John Gielgud, Ralph Richardson, and Alec Guinness, not to mention younger stars such as Audrey Hepburn, Richard Burton, and Elizabeth Taylor. In fact, McBean photographed virtually every great actor of his era, perhaps the most brilliant years in the annals of British theater.His studio was active and eclectic; among his patrons were not only actors, singers, and dancers, but also playwrights, producers, composers, artists, and writers. In his early career, McBean had been a pioneer of surrealist photography, with a highly popular series of "surrealized" portraits that appeared in The Sketch, and, later, of montage and multiple-exposure photography in a long-running series for The Tatler.In 1969, McBean approached Harvard University to initiate the sale of his collection, and in the following year his archive of glass plate negatives, index prints, and programs, together with the copyrights, became a part of the Harvard Theatre Collection, where it remains the most often-requested collection of visual material. The photographs in this book, selected and captioned by the archive's curator, Fredric Woodbridge Wilson, have been carefully reproduced from the original negatives.

Hardcover. NY, Alfred A. Knopf, 1st, 1969, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a lightly worn dust jacket, unclipped. A collection of essays and articles relating to the "new theatre," the Third Theatre off-off Broadway, and the Living Theatre as it displayed itself on its recent American tour. Also includes non-theatre essays - on the Madison Avenue Villain; on horror movies; a memoir, and an assortment of literary reviews and speculations. 294 pages, clean copy.