Theatre Brief w/ Enjoy the Play (Theatre (Brief Edition)) [Paperback]

Robert Cohen (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0073199079 | ISBN-13: 978-0073199078 | Publication Date: May 26, 2005 | Edition: 7

This lively introduction to theatre offers equal measures of appreciation of theatrical arts, history of performance, and descriptions of the collaborative theatrical crafts. Robert Cohen's enthusiasm, passion and knowledge of the current theatre, highlighted by contemporary production shots from around the world, put the students in the front row.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

ROBERT COHEN was the founding chair Drama at the University of California at Irvine, where he continues to serve as the department's Claire Trevor Professor of Drama. He has also been a resident acting teacher at the Actors Center in New York, the Shanghai Theatre Academy, the Korean National Arts University, and the national theatre academies of Hungary, Finland, and Estonia. He is an accomplished stage director, scholar, playwright, drama critic, and teacher. A director by training (Doctor of Fine Arts, Yale Drama School), Cohen has staged thirteen professional productions at the Utah and Colorado Shakespeare Festivals, plus well over a hundred productions at Stages Theatre Center (Hollywood), Virginia Museum Theatre (Richmond), Theatre 40 (Beverly Hills), Image Theatre (Boston), Summer Repertory Theatre (Santa Rosa), the Medieval Drama Project (Irvine), the Manhattan Theatre Source, various universities, and several operas, videos and films. In addition to Theatre and Theatre: Brief Edition, he is also the author of many theatre books, including Acting One, Advanced Acting, Acting in Shakespeare, Acting Professionally, Acting Power, More Power to You, Giraudoux: Three Faces of Destiny, Creative Play Direction, and two dramatic anthologies. His essays have appeared in Theatre Journal, Theatre Topics, Theatre Forum, Theatre Survey, Modern Drama, Theater der Zeit, Essays in Theatre, On Stage Studies, The Drama Review, Contemporary Literature, Contemporary Literary Criticism, Slavic and East European Performance, Experiment and Innovation, and Dramatic Theory and Criticism. Cohen's play, The Prince, published by Dramatic Publishing Company, has been professionally produced in Long Beach, Pittsburgh, Budapest, and in staged readings in New York and Los Angeles; his dramatic translations (The Bourgeois Gentleman, The Misanthrope, Clizia, Tibi's Law) and opera translations (The Magic Flute, Carmen) have been both produced and published widely. For the past twenty years, Cohen has been the Southern California drama critic for Plays International, reviewing over two hundred plays. In 1999, he received the national Career Achievement award from ATHE - the Association for Theatre in Higher Education.

Product Details

• Paperback: 448 pages
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages; 7 edition (May 26, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0073199079
• ISBN-13: 978-0073199078
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.3 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #854,812 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The 400+ Page, 280 Photograph Version, September 3, 2005

By 

John Matlock "Gunny" (Winnemucca, NV) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Theatre Brief w/ Enjoy the Play (Theatre (Brief Edition)) (Paperback)

I guess that you'd have to say that this book is an introduction to the Theatre. But that would be cutting it pretty short. This is the shorter, 400+ page version of Mr. Cohen's 600+ page book. It has some 280 photographs (instead of 370). Although this book is the Brief Edition, it is hard to tell in looking them over to see that anything is missing from its bigger brother. It has history of the theater, it has a world tour of theater in other places, it has technical sections on subjects like lighting, costumes, makeup, and sound.

The major theme in the book is a description of what a play is, what it does, how it does it. This is done by an analysis of the general rules of play writing, and an analysis (with extensive excerpts) from seven plays: Prometheus Bound, Odipus Tyrannos, The York Cycle, Romeo and Juliet, The Bourgeois Gentlemen, The Three Sisters, and Happy Days.

This seventh edition is updated to include the most recent offerings, recent trends in the theater, an inside view of several prominent Americna playwrights, reorganization of the chapter on musical and contemporary theater, and finally a short booklet called 'Enjoy the Play' on simply going to a play and enjoying it.