Download or read book A Life in a Wooden O written by Ben Iden Payne and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 1977-01-01 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ben Iden Payne spent more than seventy years in the theatre in England and America. On his retirement at the age of ninety it was a very different theatre from the one he entered at nineteen on joining Frank Benson's touring Shakespeare company. That change was due in no small part to his own efforts. Payne could point to many experiences that would have guaranteed him a place in theatre annals: He was a director of the Abbey Theatre in Dublin. He staged plays for such stars as John Drew, William Gillette, John and Ethel Barrymore, Otis Skinner, and Helen Hayes. And for eight years he was general director of the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre at Stratford-upon-Avon. Though Payne's career fills three columns in Who's Who in the Theatre, two unique achievements stand out from the others. In 1907, as director of Miss Horniman's Gaiety Theatre company in Manchester, he initiated the repertory movement in England. In four years he brought it to a peak of excellence that has never been surpassed. Later, in America, he began a career in educational theatre that would span half a century. At the Carnegie Institute of Technology he developed his "modified Elizabethan staging" - a technique that has left an indelible mark on the production of Shakespeare's plays. In this memoir Payne recalls the English theatre at the turn of the century with wit and affection. His accounts of the popular actor-managers, the fit-up companies, the Playboy riots, and of Yeats, Miss Horniman, and William Poel vividly depict an era. He captures the spirit of the American theatre of the teens, twenties, and thirties - the flamboyance of its producers, the foibles of its stars, and the casting practices that reduced able actors to types. Above all, Payne tells of his consuming desire to recreate the basic conditions of Shakespeare's own theatre in order to present his plays most effectively. No antiquarian, he does not quibble over structural details of the "wooden O's" that housed Elizabethan stages. Instead he writes as a practical theatre man determined to achieve the continuous and fluid movement needed to preserve the "melodic line" of Shakespeare's plays. The success with which he pursued this ambition has influenced theatre design and inspired others to carry on his work. Yet, in spite of the distinction of his long career, Payne recalls it with the modest simplicity that endeared him to generations of actors and students.
Download or read book Strutting and Fretting written by Kevin McKeon and published by . This book was released on 2017-08-04 with total page 214 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "At the forefront of all the serious new fiction released this year." - Midwest Book Review School's over, and Bob has landed an acting job at a major repertory theatre on the California coast. But instead of relishing his success, Bob is preoccupied with doubts about his talent, his life choices and his future. And his wife has left him. And he's broke. But hey - four months of solid work is something, right? Maybe, just maybe, Bob can turn his life around over the summer - and perhaps be invited to keep his job in the fall. But it may take a resolve and a determination that Bob does not, at this point in his life, have an abundance of: "Who am I to think I can do this? My marriage is failing, my tenure in the Ivory Tower of Education is over and my MFA degree is really a great credential for a career in fast food. What does it matter to the deep fryer guy that I've done the definitive Macbeth at age 24?" Life to Bob: Make something happen. October is bearing down fast. "McKeon times these beats impeccably; he writes with a kinetic energy that propels Bob's darkest and funniest moments at the same pace, making for both a fully realized narrator and a compulsive read." - Kirkus Reviews "This superb work of fiction peels back the layers of [Bob's] carefully guarded soul for readers to explore. It is a masterful examination of a young man struggling to balance chronic low self-esteem with a performer's perpetual need for approval." - Publishers Daily Reviews
Download or read book Joseph Banks written by Patrick O'Brian and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1997-12-08 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of our greatest writers about the sea has written an engrossing story of one of history's most legendary maritime explorers. Patrick O'Brian's biography of naturalist, explorer and co-founder of Australia, Joseph Banks, is narrative history at its finest. Published to rave reviews, it reveals Banks to be a man of enduring importance, and establishes itself as a classic of exploration. "It is in his description of that arduous three-year voyage [on the ship Endeavor] that Mr. O'Brian is at his most brilliant. . . . He makes us understand what life within this wooden world was like, with its 94 male souls, two dogs, a cat and a goat."—Linda Colley, New York Times "An absorbing, finely written overview, meant for the general reader, of a major figure in the history of natural science."—Frank Stewart, Los Angeles Times "[This book is] the definitive biography of an extraordinary subject."—Robert Taylor, Boston Globe "His skill at narrative and his extensive knowledge of the maritime history . . . give him a definite leg up in telling this . . . story."—Tom Clark, San Francisco Chronicle
Download or read book Wooden A Lifetime of Observations and Reflections On and Off the Court written by John Wooden and published by McGraw Hill Professional. This book was released on 1997-04-22 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NATIONAL BESTSELLER "I am just a common man who is true to his beliefs."--John Wooden Evoking days gone by when coaches were respected as much for their off-court performances as for their success on the court, Wooden presents the timeless wisdom of legendary basketball coach John Wooden. In honest and telling passages about virtually every aspect of life, Coach shares his personal philosophy on family, achievement, success, and excellence. Raised on a small farm in south-central Indiana, he offers lessons and wisdom learned throughout his career at UCLA, and life as a dedicated husband, father, and teacher. These lessons, along with personal letters from Bill Walton, Denny Crum, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and Bob Costas, among others, have made Wooden: A Lifetime of Observations and Reflections on and off the Court an inspirational classic.
Download or read book A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare written by James Shapiro and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2009-10-13 with total page 618 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the Baillie Gifford Prize’s 25th Anniversary Winner of Winners award What accounts for Shakespeare’s transformation from talented poet and playwright to one of the greatest writers who ever lived? In this gripping account, James Shapiro sets out to answer this question, "succeed[ing] where others have fallen short." (Boston Globe) 1599 was an epochal year for Shakespeare and England. During that year, Shakespeare wrote four of his most famous plays: Henry the Fifth, Julius Caesar, As You Like It, and, most remarkably, Hamlet; Elizabethans sent off an army to crush an Irish rebellion, weathered an Armada threat from Spain, gambled on a fledgling East India Company, and waited to see who would succeed their aging and childless queen. James Shapiro illuminates both Shakespeare’s staggering achievement and what Elizabethans experienced in the course of 1599, bringing together the news and the intrigue of the times with a wonderful evocation of how Shakespeare worked as an actor, businessman, and playwright. The result is an exceptionally immediate and gripping account of an inspiring moment in history.
Download or read book Henry V written by William Shakespeare and published by . This book was released on 1918 with total page 162 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book How to Be Like Coach Wooden written by Pat Williams and published by Health Communications, Inc.. This book was released on 2006-03-07 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: John Wooden is an American icon. Since he announced his retirement thirty years ago, “Coach” remains one of our country's most popular and heroic figures. What John Wooden accomplished as basketball coach at UCLA will never be repeated—eighty-eight victories in a row, ten national championships—but what makes his legacy even more amazing is how he did it: with honor, integrity and grace. In his research for How to Be Like Coach Wooden, Pat Williams recounts well over 800 interviews. The result is an inspiring motivational biography about a great hero of basketball and one of the most amazing leaders in history. How to Be Like Coach Wooden is the next dynamic book in the How to Be Like "character biography" series, which focuses on drawing out important lessons from the lives of great men and women. In this book, readers will learn from Coach Wooden, a beacon of honesty, goodness and faith. Wooden cared about winning in basketball, but he cared more about winning in life.
Download or read book The Command of the Ocean written by N. A. M. Rodger and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2005 with total page 1022 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "N. A. M. Rodger provides reassessments of such famous figures as Pepys, Hawke, Howe, and St. Vincent. The particular and distinct qualities of Nelson and Collingwood are contrasted, and the world of the officers and men who made up the originals of Jack Aubrey and Horatio Hornblower is brought to life. Rodger's comparative view of other navies - French, Dutch, Spanish, and American - allows him to make a fresh assessment of the qualities of the British."--BOOK JACKET.
Download or read book The Life of King Henry the Fifth written by William Shakespeare and published by . This book was released on 1890 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Cumulative Book Index written by and published by . This book was released on 1928 with total page 892 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A world list of books in the English language.
Download or read book Wooden Os written by Vin Nardizzi and published by University of Toronto Press. This book was released on 2013-03-14 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Wooden Os is a study of the presence of trees and wood in the drama of Shakespeare and his contemporaries – in plays set within forests, in character dialogue, and in props and theatre constructions. Vin Nardizzi connects these themes to the dependence, and surprising ecological impact, of London’s commercial theatre industry on England’s woodlands, the primary resource required to build all structures in early modern England. Wooden Os situates the theatre within an environmental history that witnessed a perceived scarcity of wood and timber that drove up prices, as well as statute law prohibiting the devastation of English woodlands and urgent calls for the remedying of a resource shortage that was feared would result in eco-political collapse. By considering works including Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay, the revised Spanish Tragedy, and The Tempest, Nardizzi demonstrates how the “trees” within them were used in imaginative ways to mediate England’s resource crisis.
Download or read book I Know This Much Is True written by Wally Lamb and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1998-06-03 with total page 884 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With his stunning debut novel, She's Come Undone, Wally Lamb won the adulation of critics and readers with his mesmerizing tale of one woman's painful yet triumphant journey of self-discovery. Now, this brilliantly talented writer returns with I Know This Much Is True, a heartbreaking and poignant multigenerational saga of the reproductive bonds of destruction and the powerful force of forgiveness. A masterpiece that breathtakingly tells a story of alienation and connection, power and abuse, devastation and renewal--this novel is a contemporary retelling of an ancient Hindu myth. A proud king must confront his demons to achieve salvation. Change yourself, the myth instructs, and you will inhabit a renovated world. When you're the same brother of a schizophrenic identical twin, the tricky thing about saving yourself is the blood it leaves on your bands--the little inconvenience of the look-alike corpse at your feet. And if you're into both survival of the fittest and being your brother's keeper--if you've promised your dying mother--then say so long to sleep and hello to the middle of the night. Grab a book or a beer. Get used to Letterman's gap-toothed smile of the absurd, or the view of the bedroom ceiling, or the influence of random selection. Take it from a godless insomniac. Take it from the uncrazy twin--the guy who beat the biochemical rap. Dominick Birdsey's entire life has been compromised and constricted by anger and fear, by the paranoid schizophrenic twin brother he both deeply loves and resents, and by the past they shared with their adoptive father, Ray, a spit-and-polish ex-Navy man (the five-foot-six-inch sleeping giant who snoozed upstairs weekdays in the spare room and built submarines at night), and their long-suffering mother, Concettina, a timid woman with a harelip that made her shy and self-conscious: She holds a loose fist to her face to cover her defective mouth--her perpetual apology to the world for a birth defect over which she'd had no control. Born in the waning moments of 1949 and the opening minutes of 1950, the twins are physical mirror images who grow into separate yet connected entities: the seemingly strong and protective yet fearful Dominick, his mother's watchful "monkey"; and the seemingly weak and sweet yet noble Thomas, his mother's gentle "bunny." From childhood, Dominick fights for both separation and wholeness--and ultimately self-protection--in a house of fear dominated by Ray, a bully who abuses his power over these stepsons whose biological father is a mystery. I was still afraid of his anger but saw how he punished weakness--pounced on it. Out of self-preservation I hid my fear, Dominick confesses. As for Thomas, he just never knew how to play defense. He just didn't get it. But Dominick's talent for survival comes at an enormous cost, including the breakup of his marriage to the warm, beautiful Dessa, whom he still loves. And it will be put to the ultimate test when Thomas, a Bible-spouting zealot, commits an unthinkable act that threatens the tenuous balance of both his and Dominick's lives. To save himself, Dominick must confront not only the pain of his past but the dark secrets he has locked deep within himself, and the sins of his ancestors--a quest that will lead him beyond the confines of his blue-collar New England town to the volcanic foothills of Sicily 's Mount Etna, where his ambitious and vengefully proud grandfather and a namesake Domenico Tempesta, the sostegno del famiglia, was born. Each of the stories Ma told us about Papa reinforced the message that he was the boss, that he ruled the roost, that what he said went. Searching for answers, Dominick turns to the whispers of the dead, to the pages of his grandfather's handwritten memoir, The History of Domenico Onofrio Tempesta, a Great Man from Humble Beginnings. Rendered with touches of magic realism, Domenico's fablelike tale--in which monkeys enchant and religious statues weep--becomes the old man's confession--an unwitting legacy of contrition that reveals the truth's of Domenico's life, Dominick learns that power, wrongly used, defeats the oppressor as well as the oppressed, and now, picking through the humble shards of his deconstructed life, he will search for the courage and love to forgive, to expiate his and his ancestors' transgressions, and finally to rebuild himself beyond the haunted shadow of his twin. Set against the vivid panoply of twentieth-century America and filled with richly drawn, memorable characters, this deeply moving and thoroughly satisfying novel brings to light humanity's deepest needs and fears, our aloneness, our desire for love and acceptance, our struggle to survive at all costs. Joyous, mystical, and exquisitely written, I Know This Much Is True is an extraordinary reading experience that will leave no reader untouched.
Download or read book Full Bloom The Art and Life of Georgia O Keeffe written by Hunter Drohojowska-Philp and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2005-11-15 with total page 647 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Offers a portrait of the twentieth-century woman artist through discussions of her marriage to art photography pioneer Alfred Stieglitz, the impact of his infidelity on her psyche, and her relocation to New Mexico, where she created her signature works.
Download or read book Works The Text Carefully Restored According to the First Editions written by William Shakespeare and published by . This book was released on 1867 with total page 604 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book English Czech Czech English Dictionary written by Alois Čermák and published by . This book was released on 1928 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Classic Wooden Yachts of the Northwest written by Ron McClure and published by Sasquatch Books. This book was released on 2000-01-01 with total page 20 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Beautiful color photographs and evocative text transport the reader back to the golden age of Northwest yachting, when custom-designed and custom-built wooden yachts cruised the inland waters of the British Columbia and Washington.The Northwest is a premier center for classic wooden boats, and this book showcases nearly 40 of these beautiful craft. Most of these boats were built during the 1920s and 30s and have been lovingly restored to their original condition. Admire the gorgeous lines and teak decks of the exteriors, then go below to see fine woodwork -- gleaming varnished surfaces, bronze fittings, customized designs -- all the lavish details and craftsmanship that make these boats floating works of art from a bygone era.
Download or read book The Bookman written by and published by . This book was released on 1903 with total page 122 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
