8 new plays including important classics such as Molière’s Tartuffe and Samuel Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape, along with innovative and award-winning contemporary plays some never before anthologized such as Caryl Churchill’s Far Away, Conor McPherson’s Shining City, and Sarah Ruhl’s The Clean House.
2 new casebooks include one on American Melodrama that explores this popular nineteenth-century genre, offering excerpts and performance images from three plays along with supporting critical commentaries that contextualize the works. A second new casebook examines production in Death of a Salesman, focusing on multiple dramatic elements of the play: acting, staging, design, casting, and directing of the original 1949 production, and the cultural and racial issues involved in staging international and multicultural productions of the play.
A greater emphasis on theater design, staging, and performance style
- 8 of 33 commentaries are new and provide a variety of ways for a student to think about a play from the perspective of a reviewer, an actor, a director, a set designer, and a playwright.
- New illustrated sections on "The Actor" explore the development of acting styles, methods, and techniques in every major period of drama.
- Expanded and richly illustrated sections on staging and theater design include detailed diagrams of period theaters along with a discussion of the major technical innovations in staging.
- New marginal quotations by actors, directors, or other playwrights, accompany each biographical introduction and illuminate a particular playwright or work.
- New performance photographs and stage diagrams help students visualize the plays in performance.
A completely revised and updated book companion site at bedfordstmartins.com/jacobus helps students succeed in the course with: study and discussion questions, writing assignments, Web assignments, annotated research links, and links to the best drama resources online. For instructors there is a selected bibliography, a list of audiovisual resources, and assignment ideas.