Plays Players And Playhouses At Home And Abroad With Anecdotes Of The Drama And The Stage Vol 1 Of 2 Classic Reprint

Excerpt from Plays, Players and Playhouses at Home and Abroad, With Anecdotes of the Drama and the Stage, Vol. 1 of 2 Thespis-The Early English Drama - Mysteries, Interludes, Masques - "Gammer Gurton's Needle," The First English Comedy, By John Still, Afterwards Bishop Of Bath And Wells, Produced In 1552 - The Tragedy of "Gorboduc," By Lord Buckhurst And Thomas Norton, Exhibited Before Elizabeth By The Students Of The Inner Temple, January, 1562 - Ancient Playhouses - Dramatic Writers, Otway, Sotherne, Rowe. Thespis, inventor of dramatic art, Conveyed his vagrant actors in a cart; High o'er the crowd the mimic tribe appeared, And played and sung, with lees of wine besmeared. Then AEschylus a decent vizard used, Built a low stage, the flowing robe diffused; In language more sublime the actors rage, And in the graceful buskin tread the stage. Translation from Horace. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works."

Excerpt from The Plays and Books of the Little Theatre What is wanting in this volume the reader will only too soon discover for himself. I do not, however, wish to offer a faltering apology for the incompleteness of the book. In truth, it needs none. Nevertheless, a brief word of explanation may not be amiss. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Excerpt from The Lives of the Players, Vol. 1 of 2 Pay of some Of the nobility, * and it is not probable that the patron of the player withheld his munificence from the decorations of the theatre. The reverse should be inferred; besides, in all probability, the ornaments Of the courtly masques and pageants were disposed of to the theatres in the same manner as the wardrobes of the London houses, in our own time, are sometimes recruited from cast-off court-dresses. If I am correct in this con jecture, we may form some idea of the style of the scenery with which the plays of Shakspeare were performed by looking at Ben Jonson's Hymenwal Masque indeed the note is too curious and too apposite to be omitted. 'here the upper part of the scene, which was all of clouds, and artificially to swell and ride like the rack, began to Open, and the air clearing, in the top thereof was discovered Juno Sitting on a throne, supported by two beautiful peacocks; her attire rich, and like a queen; a white diadem on her head, from whence descended a veil, and that bound by a fascia of several coloured silks, set with all sorts Of jewels, and raised on the top with lilies and roses; in her right hand she held a Sceptre, in the other a timbrel; at her golden feet the hide Of a lion was placed; round about her the Spirits of the air in several colours making music; above her the region of. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Excerpt from House of Play: Verses-Rhymes-Stories for Young Folks Far over the water comes down the night, Fading and fading the silvery light, While storks on their nests stand white and tall, And over the tree-tops the shadows fall. While slowly the windmills go whirling around Go whirling around - go whirling around. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

"From the University of Florida College of Fine Arts, Charlie Mitchell and distinguished colleagues form across America present an introductory text for theatre and theoretical production. This book seeks to give insight into the people and processes that create theater. It does not strip away the feeling of magic but to add wonder for the artistry that make a production work well." -- Open Textbook Library.

Shows how contemporary adaptations, on the stage and on the page, can breathe new life into Greek tragedy.

Probes English society in the age of Shakespeare

Renaissance Fun is about the technology of Renaissance entertainments in stage machinery and theatrical special effects; in gardens and fountains; and in the automata and self-playing musical instruments that were installed in garden grottoes. How did the machines behind these shows work? How exactly were chariots filled with singers let down onto the stage? How were flaming dragons made to fly across the sky? How were seas created on stage? How did mechanical birds imitate real birdsong? What was ‘artificial music’, three centuries before Edison and the phonograph? How could pipe organs be driven and made to play themselves by waterpower alone? And who were the architects, engineers, and craftsmen who created these wonders? All these questions are answered. At the end of the book we visit the lost ‘garden of marvels’ at Pratolino with its many grottoes, automata and water jokes; and we attend the performance of Mercury and Mars in Parma in 1628, with its spectacular stage effects and its music by Claudio Monteverdi – one of the places where opera was born. Renaissance Fun is offered as an entertainment in itself. But behind the show is a more serious scholarly argument, centred on the enormous influence of two ancient writers on these subjects, Vitruvius and Hero. Vitruvius’s Ten Books on Architecture were widely studied by Renaissance theatre designers. Hero of Alexandria wrote the Pneumatics, a collection of designs for surprising and entertaining devices that were the models for sixteenth and seventeenth century automata. A second book by Hero On Automata-Making – much less well known, then and now – describes two miniature theatres that presented plays without human intervention. One of these, it is argued, provided the model for the type of proscenium theatre introduced from the mid-sixteenth century, the generic design which is still built today. As the influence of Vitruvius waned, the influence of Hero grew.