Exit Through the Fireplace [Hardcover]

Kate Dunn (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1999

Local rep has been the training ground for many of the best-known actors and directors, and in this book Kate Dunn draws on theatre people's first-hand experiences to trace the rise and fall of this great British institution.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Actors have capacious memories and love to tell stories about themselves and others in their profession. This oral history of the repertory theater system in Great Britain is told by an impressive number of well-known stage and screen figures who rose through repertory theaters. Dunn, author of Always and Always and a veteran of rep, interviewed 180 theater people and got them to reveal their personal experiences. She then organized this mass of material into one topic per chapter: stage managers, directors, rehearsals, acting, training, the audience, and so forth. Dunn provides the thematic and narrative glue but lets her interviewees tell the stories, get us to laugh, voice opinions, reminisce, and create the ambiance and the experience for the reader. Although the methodology calls for each chapter to have the same structure, which is somewhat static, this is a masterly assemblage. She ends with a thoughtful and telling chapter on the decline of rep. Recommended for public and academic libraries.AThomas E. Luddy, Salem State Coll., MA
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 305 pages
• Publisher: John Murray Publishers, Ltd. (February 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0719554756
• ISBN-13: 978-0719554759
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,481,872 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)