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EBookClubs

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Book A Pride of Terrys

Download or read book A Pride of Terrys written by Marguerite Steen and published by Praeger. This book was released on 1978-06 with total page 464 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Picture of a great theatrical family.

Book A Strange Eventful History

Download or read book A Strange Eventful History written by Michael Holroyd and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2010-03-02 with total page 772 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: PLEASE NOTE: THIS EBOOK DOES NOT CONTAIN PHOTOS INCLUDED IN THE PRINT EDITION. Deemed "a prodigy among biographers" by The New York Times Book Review, Michael Holroyd transformed biography into an art. Now he turns his keen observation, humane insight, and epic scope on an ensemble cast, a remarkable dynasty that presided over the golden age of theater. Ellen Terry was an ethereal beauty, the child bride of a Pre-Raphaelite painter who made her the face of the age. George Bernard Shaw was so besotted by her gifts that he could not bear to meet her, lest the spell she cast from the stage be broken. Henry Irving was an ambitious, harsh-voiced merchant's clerk, but once he painted his face and spoke the lines of Shakespeare, his stammer fell away to reveal a magnetic presence. He would become one of the greatest actor-managers in the history of the theater. Together, Terry and Irving created a powerhouse of the arts in London's Lyceum Theatre, with Bram Stoker—who would go on to write Dracula—as manager. Celebrities whose scandalous private lives commanded global attention, they took America by stormin wildly popular national tours. Their all-consuming professional lives left little room for their brilliant but troubled children. Henry's boys followed their father into the theater but could not escape the shadow of his fame. Ellen's feminist daughter, Edy, founded an avant-garde theater and a largely lesbian community at her mother's country home. But it was Edy's son, the revolutionary theatrical designer Edward Gordon Craig, who possessed the most remarkable gifts and the most perplexing inability to realize them. A now forgotten modernist visionary, he collaborated with the Russian director Stanislavski on a production of Hamlet that forever changed the way theater was staged. Maddeningly self-absorbed, he inherited his mother's potent charm and fathered thirteen children by eight women, including a daughter with the dancer Isadora Duncan. An epic story spanning a century of cultural change, A Strange Eventful History finds space for the intimate moments of daily existence as well as the bewitching fantasies played out by its subjects. Bursting with charismatic life, it is an incisive portrait of two families who defied the strictures of their time. It will be swiftly recognized as a classic. Please note: This ebook edition does not contain photos and illustrations that appeared in the print edition.

Book Plays and Players

Download or read book Plays and Players written by and published by . This book was released on 1962 with total page 342 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Book Maggie Smith

Download or read book Maggie Smith written by Caroline Fevrier and published by Book Guild Publishing. This book was released on 2018-03-26 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dame Maggie Smith stands as a remarkable example of the concomitance – in a performer’s career – of typecasting and characterisation, that is the ability to impersonate ‘against type’ infinitely various screen or stage characters. This book of appreciation essentially aims at correcting the preconceived image that the general public has of Dame Maggie Smith. Focusing on the last twenty-five years, it examines, through the many parts she has played since the early 1990s, her ability to go beyond typecasting and give, thanks to her chameleon skills, nuanced and convincing portrays of infinitely diverse characters. From The Importance of Being Earnest to Gosford Park and Becoming Jane, to Downton Abbey and Sister Act, to The Last September and the Harry Potter saga, Dame Maggie Smith has had a wide spanning career in TV and Film. Not to mention her theatrical work on the stage. Author Caroline Fevrier lives in Paris, France and has a passion for theatre and performing. Caroline holds a PhD in Literature and Humanities and an MA in Literature and Drama. She was also trained as a professional performer and has been involved in several stage productions and short movies. Caroline regularly gives lectures on theatre and performance to academic audiences and had published several books on literature and humanities, and now focuses closely on the performing arts.

Book John Gielgud

Download or read book John Gielgud written by Sheridan Morley and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2010-05-08 with total page 526 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sir John Gielgud's career as an actor was perhaps the most distinguished of any of his generation, and, in a lifetime that spanned almost a century, he appeared in hundreds of theatrical productions and films, receiving virtually every honor given, including an Academy Award. Now, in this wonderfully insightful biography, fully authorized and written with first-ever access to Gielgud's personal letters and diaries, bestselling biographer Sheridan Morley not only traces the actor's fascinating career, but provides a fresh and remarkably frank look into John Gielgud the man, showing how his success as an actor in many ways came at the expense of his personal happiness. Born into a theatrical family, John Gielgud took to the stage as naturally as a duck to water, and almost from the beginning, those who saw him perform knew that they were experiencing something extraordinary. A determined actor, intent on learning and polishing his craft, he worked incessantly, taking on one role after another, the greater the challenge, the better. During his long and remarkable career, he took on every truly great and demanding role, including all of Shakespeare's major plays as well as many contemporary and experimental productions. At ease in both great drama and light comedy, he was blessed with a great range and a seemingly infinite capacity to inhabit whatever character he attempted. Basically a somewhat shy man offstage, however, Gielgud for the most part limited his friendships to those with whom he worked, and as a result the theater -- and later, film -- made up just about his entire life. That he was flesh and blood, however, was reflected in the fact that he did enter into two long-term relationships, the first with a man who eventually left him for another, but with whom Gielgud maintained a strong tie, and the second with a handsome, mysterious Hungarian who lived with him until he died, just a few months before Sir John. True scandal came into Gielgud's life only once. In 1953, just weeks after Gielgud had been knighted by the Queen, he was arrested in a public men's room and charged with solicitation. The British press had a field day, but Gielgud's friends and fellow actors rallied to his support, as did his thousands of fans, and the result was the eventual change of law in England regarding sex between consenting adults. While these and many other aspects of his personal life are discussed for the first time in this distinguished biography, it is Gielgud's career as an actor, of course, that receives the greatest attention. And while British audiences had the pleasure of seeing him perform in the theater for his entire life, Americans came to know him best for his work in the movies, and most especially for his Oscar-winning performance as Hobson the butler in the Dudley Moore film Arthur. As dramatic and captivating as one of Sir John's many performances, this authorized biography is an intimate and fully rounded portrait of an unforgettable actor and a remarkable man.

Book A Widening Sphere  Routledge Revivals

Download or read book A Widening Sphere Routledge Revivals written by Martha Vicinus and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-10-08 with total page 347 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First published in 1977, this book is a companion volume to Suffer and Be Still. It looks at the widening sphere of women’s activities in the Victorian age and testifies to the dual nature of the legal and social constraints of the period: on the one hand, the ideal of the perfect lady and the restrictive laws governing marriage and property posed limits to women’s independence; on the other hand, some Victorian women chose to live lives of great variety and complexity. By uncovering new data and reinterpreting old, the contributors in this volume debunk some of the myths surrounding the Victorian woman and alter stereotypes on which many of today’s social customs are based.

Book Ellen Terry  Player in Her Time

Download or read book Ellen Terry Player in Her Time written by Nina Auerbach and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 1997-01-29 with total page 540 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nina Auerbach brilliantly reveals the Ellen Terry whose roles, on stage and off, embodied everything that a rapidly changing world exhorted women to be.

Book The Collected Letters of Ellen Terry  Volume 6

Download or read book The Collected Letters of Ellen Terry Volume 6 written by Katharine Cockin and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2024-08-01 with total page 227 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ellen Terry's correspondence was both exuberant and extensive. Her remaining letters provide a fascinating insight into the dynamics of the Victorian theatre, and the difficulties of life for a woman maintaining a successful public persona whilst raising two illegitimate children.

Book Routledge Library Editions  Victorian Theatre

Download or read book Routledge Library Editions Victorian Theatre written by Various and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-03-04 with total page 1622 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reissuing works originally published between 1971 and 1981, this compact set offers an outstanding collection of scholarship devoted to 19th Century, Victorian, theatre. A small set of performance history and criticism, this set includes a biography of Henry Irving, a look at the rise of the status of a career as actor, and a consideration of the advent of dramatic criticism. These volumes present together a lively picture of the development of the contemporary theatre.

Book Oscar Wilde

Download or read book Oscar Wilde written by Richard Ellmann and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2013-09-04 with total page 737 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of both the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Pulitzer Prize, Oscar Wilde is the definitive biography of the tortured poet and playwright and the last book by renowned biographer and literary critic Richard Ellmann. Ellmann dedicated two decades to the research and writing of this biography, resulting in a complex and richly detailed portrait of Oscar Wilde. Ellman captures the wit, creativity, and charm of the psychologically and sexually complicated writer, as well as the darker aspects of his personality and life. Covering everything from Wilde's rise as a young literary talent to his eventual imprisonment and death in exile with exquisite detail, Ellmann's fascinating account of Wilde's life and work is a resounding triumph.

Book Nights Out

    Book Details:
  • Author : Judith Walkowitz
  • Publisher : Yale University Press
  • Release : 2012-05-15
  • ISBN : 0300183682
  • Pages : 629 pages

Download or read book Nights Out written by Judith Walkowitz and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2012-05-15 with total page 629 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: London's Soho district underwent a spectacular transformation between the late Victorian era and the end of the Second World War: its fin-de-siècle buildings and dark streets infamous for sex, crime, political disloyalty, and ethnic diversity became a center of culinary and cultural tourism servicing patrons of nearby shops and theaters. Indulgences for the privileged and the upwardly mobile edged a dangerous, transgressive space imagined to be "outside" the nation. Treating Soho as exceptional, but also representative of London's urban transformation, Judith Walkowitz shows how the area's foreignness, liminality, and porousness were key to the explosion of culture and development of modernity in the first half of the twentieth century. She draws on a vast and unusual range of sources to stitch together a rich patchwork quilt of vivid stories and unforgettable characters, revealing how Soho became a showcase for a new cosmopolitan identity.

Book The Rise of the Victorian Actor

Download or read book The Rise of the Victorian Actor written by Michael Baker and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-07-24 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Originally published in 1978. Between 1830 and 1890 the English theatre became recognisably modern. Standards of acting and presentation improved immeasurably, new playwrights emerged, theatres became more comfortable and more intimate and playgoing became a national pastime with all classes. The actor’s status rose accordingly. In 1830 he had been little better than a social outcast; by 1880 he had become a member of a skilled, relatively well-paid and respected profession which was attracting new recruits in unprecedented numbers. This is a social history of Victorian actors which seeks to show how wider social attitudes and developments affected the changing status of acting as a profession. Thus the stage’s relationship with the professional world and the other arts is dealt with and is followed by an assessment of the moral and religious background which played so decisive a part in contemporary attitudes to actors. The position of actresses in particular is given special consideration. Many non-theatrical sources are used here and there is a survey of salaries and working conditions in the theatre to show how the rising social status of the actor was matched by changes in his theatrical standing. A novel area of study is covered in tracing the changing social composition of the acting profession over the period and in exploring the case-histories of three generations of performers.

Book Theatre and Celebrity in Britain 1660 2000

Download or read book Theatre and Celebrity in Britain 1660 2000 written by Mary Luckhurst and published by Springer. This book was released on 2005-10-18 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Theatre has always been a site for selling outrage and sensation, a place where public reputations are made and destroyed in spectacular ways. This is the first book to investigate the construction and production of celebrity in the British theatre. These exciting essays explore aspects of fame, notoriety and transgression in a wide range of performers and playwrights including David Garrick, Oscar Wilde, Ellen Terry, Laurence Olivier and Sarah Kane. This pioneering volume examines the ingenious ways in which these stars have negotiated their own fame. The essays also analyze the complex relationships between discourses of celebrity and questions of gender, spectatorship and the operation of cultural markets.

Book The Collected Letters of Ellen Terry  Volume 2

Download or read book The Collected Letters of Ellen Terry Volume 2 written by Katharine Cockin and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2024-08-01 with total page 213 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ellen Terry's correspondence was both exuberant and extensive. Her remaining letters provide a fascinating insight into the dynamics of the Victorian theatre, and the difficulties of life for a woman maintaining a successful public persona whilst raising two illegitimate children.

Book Lives of Shakespearian Actors  Part V  Volume 3

Download or read book Lives of Shakespearian Actors Part V Volume 3 written by Tetsuo Kishi and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2024-05-17 with total page 547 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Extracts from diaries, memoirs, private letters, obituaries and other rare ephemera are drawn together to build a contemporary account of the acting achievements and personal lives of three inspiring figures from the late nineteenth-century theatre; Herbert Beerbohm Tree, Henry Irving and Ellen Terry.

Book Louise Jopling

    Book Details:
  • Author : Patriciade Montfort
  • Publisher : Routledge
  • Release : 2017-07-05
  • ISBN : 1351559664
  • Pages : 201 pages

Download or read book Louise Jopling written by Patriciade Montfort and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-07-05 with total page 201 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Louise Jopling: A Biographical and Cultural Study is the first in-depth study of this nineteenth-century painter who was among the first women admitted to the Royal Society of British Artists (in 1902). In part an engaging biography of a compelling celebrity figure and social campaigner in Victorian England, Patricia de Montfort?s book interweaves a vivid and rounded portrait of this Manchester-born artist, teacher, and author with insightful analysis of Jopling?s artwork and the aristocratic-bohemian social milieu that she inhabited. Painted by Whistler and Millais, Jopling herself portrayed Victorian-era celebrities like the actress Lillie Langtry and her patrons included members of the de Rothschild banking family. Her work also included figure compositions, interiors, landscape and genre scenes. Drawing upon Jopling's unpublished diaries, notebooks and correspondence as well as her 1925 memoir Twenty Years of My Life, de Montfort?s study opens the way for a twenty-first century rediscovery of this now little-known artist, who combined professional artistic practice with social activism, against the backdrop of an often troubled private life. The full scope of Jopling?s artistic endeavours are discussed in relation to the cultural framework for fin de si?e working women, as are her progressive views on education and women?s suffrage.

Book Portsmouth Book of Days

    Book Details:
  • Author : John Sadden
  • Publisher : The History Press
  • Release : 2012-02-29
  • ISBN : 0752485873
  • Pages : 402 pages

Download or read book Portsmouth Book of Days written by John Sadden and published by The History Press. This book was released on 2012-02-29 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Taking you through the year day by day, The Portsmouth Book of Days contains a quirky, eccentric, amusing or important event or fact from different periods of history, many of which had a major impact on the religious and political history of England as a whole. Ideal for dipping into, this addictive little book will keep you entertained and informed. Featuring hundreds of snippets of information gleaned from the vaults of Portsmouth’s archives, it will delight residents and visitors alike.