The Creation Of The World And Other Business

A master dramatist’s humorous retelling of the biblical creation story as a parable for our time Breathing new life into timeless biblical tales, Arthur Miller charmingly reimagines the Book of Genesis from the temptation of Adam and Eve to the fraternal tragedy of Cain and Abel. In the beginning, God, generally satisfied with his creation, is nonetheless perplexed by Adam and Eve—why won’t they multiply? It takes wily Lucifer to interest them in anything more than playing handball in the Garden of Eden, but their new knowledge comes at a price. The first family is exiled from paradise—just as Lucifer is banned from heaven—and a fallen, morally ambiguous state becomes the destiny of humankind. Though The Creation of the World and Other Business was Arthur Miller’s first Broadway comedy, it is full of the searching insight and sparkling dialogue that distinguish his best dramas.

(Applause Books). For six decades, Harold Clurman illuminated our artistic, social, and political awareness in thousands of reviews, essays, and lectures. His work appeared indefatigably in The Nation, The New Republic, The London Observer, The New York Times, Harper's, Esquire, New York Magazine , and more. The Collected Works of Harold Clurman captures over six hundred of Clurman's encounters with the most significant events in American theatre as well as his regular passionate embraces of dance, music, art and film. This chronological epic offers the most comprehensive view of American theatre seen through the eyes of our most extraordinary critic. 1102 pages, hardcover.

Arthur Miller, best known for his works The Crucible and Death of a Salesman, is one of America's most important dramatists.

A comprehensive reader's companion to the works of one of America's greatest playwrights.

During his lifetime, US playwright Arthur Miller was affronted in numerous ways by what he experienced, either personally, or vicariously through the experiences of others. For example: By the way his immigrant family had come to financial grief in the Great Depression (1929 to the late 1930s), through no fault of their own. By the anti-Semitism that existed in the USA and elsewhere in the 1930s, culminating in the Nazi Holocaust in which so many people of his own ethnic group, the Jews, together with millions of other innocents, perished. By the way he and others, including many connected with the arts, were persecuted for alleged communist sympathies in the McCarthy ‘witch-hunts’ of the late 1940s and 1950s in the USA. By the way that atheism, to which he himself subscribed, was considered to be subversive and unpatriotic. By the way that the ‘American Dream’ was generally portrayed as something to which everybody could aspire: and yet, by embracing the concept of the American Dream, most people were generally setting themselves up to fail. Despite his disillusionment with life, Miller strove to illuminate a path to a better way and in doing so, offered hope to the inhabitants of the flawed and troubled world in which he found himself, not just in the USA but also elsewhere.

A fascinating look at how the Bible has inspired Broadway plays and musicals, from Ben-Hur to Jesus Christ Superstar

This collection of contemporary scenes provides the student actor, as well as professional and untrained performers, with material from some of the best plays ever written. Each selection contains critical information on characters, setting, and background to give a clear sense of what the play is about. Contemporary Scenes for Student Actors accommodates a wide variety of acting styles, from naturalistic to poetic to highly stylized, spanning a range of ages and a variety of locales, and incorporating excerpts of various lengths. Includes scenes from plays by · Woody Allen · Maxwell Anderson · Jean Anouilh · Simon Gray · John Guare · Lillian Hellman · Albert Innaurato · David Mamet · Mark Medoff · Arthur Miller · Miguel Pinero · David Rabe · Sam Shepard · Tennessee Williams · And many more!

Originally published: New York: Collier Books, 1972.