Musical theatre is often perceived as either a Broadway based art form, or as having separate histories in London and New York. Musical Theatre Histories: Expanding the Narrative, however, depicts the musical as neither American nor British, but both and more, having grown out of frequent and substantial interactions between both centres (and beyond). Through multiple thematic 'histories', Millie Taylor and Adam Rush take readers on a series of journeys that inclu...

This original analysis of contemporary British pantomime addresses the question of how pantomime creates a unique interactive relationship with, and potentially transformative experience for, its audiences.British This is an accessible and valuable text that encourages readers to review their assumptions about pantomime and reconsider its importance as a popular theatre form. Pantomime draws audiences into the story, an engagement with the hero, and an empathetic attachment to the success ...

This critical introduction to British musical theatre since 1950 is the first book to discuss its post-war developments from the perspective of British – as opposed to American – popular culture. The genre is situated within the historical context of post-war British society in order to explore the range of forms through which significant sociocultural moments are represented.Introductory chapters analyse the way British musicals have responded to social change, the forms of popula...

What is it about musical theatre that audiences find entertaining? What are the features that lead to its ability to stimulate emotional attachment, to move and to give pleasure? Beginning from the passion musical theatre performances arouse and their ubiquity in London's West End and on Broadway this book explores the ways in which musical theatre reaches out to and involves its audiences. It investigates how pleasure is stimulated by vocal, musical and spectacular performances. Early dis...

Gestures of Music Theater: The Performativity of Song and Dance offers new, cutting-edge essays focusing on song and dance as performative gestures that not only entertain but also act on audiences and performers. The chapters range across musical theater, opera, theater, and other artistic practices, from Glee to Gardzienice, Beckett to Disney, Broadway to Turner-Prize-winning sound installation. The chapters draw together these diverse examples of vocality and physicali...

This book discusses an exciting laboratory that has been developing the practice of theatre music composition and sound design since 1961: the Royal Shakespeare Company. Musical practices have evolved as composers and musical directors inherited from the past and innovated with new technology; different interpretations of single plays in multiple iterations have provided a picture of developing styles, genres, working practices, technologies and contexts; actor musicianship has been practi...

Improvisation is a tool for many things: performance training, rehearsal practice, playwriting, therapeutic interaction and somatic discovery. This book opens up the significance of improvisation across cultures, histories and ways of performing our life, offering key insights into the what, the how and the why of performance.It traces the origins of improvisation and its influences, both as a social and political phenomenon and its position in performance training. Including histor...

Glenn Gould, one of the world’s most renowned classical musicians of the twentieth century, was also known as an eccentric genius—solitary, headstrong, a hypochondriac virtuoso. Abandoning stage performances in 1964, Gould concentrated instead on mastering the various media: recordings, radio, television, and print. His sudden death at age fifty stunned the world, but his music and legacy continue to inspire. Philosopher and critic Mark Kingwell regards Gould as a philosopher of music whos...

A Theory of Adaptation explores the continuous development of creative adaptation, and argues that the practice of adapting is central to the story-telling imagination. Linda Hutcheon develops a theory of adaptation through a range of media, from film and opera, to video games, pop music and theme parks, analysing the breadth, scope and creative possibilities within each.This new edition is supplemented by a new preface from the author, discussing both new adaptive forms/p...

In Two Minds is the first comprehensive biography of Jonathan Miller – the story of one of post-war Britain's most intriguing polymaths. Descended from immigrants who fled Tsarist anti-Semitism to become shopkeepers in Ireland and London's East End, Miller was born into an intellectual milieu, between Bloomsbury and Harley Street – the son of a novelist and a leading child psychiatrist. Miller trained as adoctor but then forged a career as a stellar comedian and as a world-renowned theatre...

An alternative autobiography of the well-loved actor and man of the theatre, winner of the Sheridan Morley Prize for Theatre Biography.In My Life in Pieces Simon Callow retraces his life through the multifarious performers, writers, productions and events which have left their indelible mark on him.The story begins with Peter Pan – his first ever visit to the theatre – before transporting us to southern Africa and South London, where Callow spent much of h...

Archaeologies of Presence is a brilliant exploration of how the performance of presence can be understood through the relationships between performance theory and archaeological thinking. Drawing together carefully commissioned contributions by leading international scholars and artists, this radical new work poses a number of essential questions:What are the principle signifiers of theatrical presence?How is presence achieved through th...