Performance

Widely acclaimed for its breadth and scope, The Cambridge Guide to Theatre Second Edition remains the most comprehensive single-volume guide to the history and current practice of worldwide theater available today. The Guide contains a wealth of information on all aspects of theater past and present: major playwrights, works, important traditions, theories, companies, practitioners, venues and events; the origins of popular theater tradition, including folk drama, street theater and mummers plays; the work of actors, directors and designers, including lighting and sound, technical theater, theater architecture and theater design. In this revision, all entries have been reviewed and updated to incorporate political changes and reflect the rise and fall of individual reputations. There are newly commissioned articles on Canada, Spain, New Zealand, Germany, the Caribbean and French-speaking Africa. Special attention has been paid to costumery and gay, lesbian, and feminist theater. A particularly strong feature of the new edition is the weight given to Asian theater and Asian influences on Western drama. By providing information and entertainment, the Guide will prove an indispensable reference tool both for scholars of theater and general theater lovers alike.

Patrice Pavis is one of France's most brilliant academics and a leading expert internationally in the theory of theatre. Dictionary of the Theatre is an English translation of Pavis's acclaimed Dictionnaire du théâtre, now in its second printing in France. This encyclopedic dictionary includes theoretical, technical, and semiotic terms and concepts. Alphabetical entries range from 'absurd' to 'word scenery' and treat the reader to a vast panoply of theatre and theory. The extended discussions are supported by useful examples drawn from the international repertoire of plays and playwrights, both classic and contemporary. The Foreword is by Marvin Carlson. This dictionary is remarkably well integrated, partly because of its excellent system of cross-referencing, but also because it represents the vision and scholarship of a single, recognized authority. There is no other source like it available and it will be warmly welcomed by the English-language theatre world.

The Grove Dictionary of Art, the award-winning 34-volume set that was launched to critical acclaim in 1996, represents the knowledge of more than 6,800 of the world's leading scholars. It is now the preeminent reference resource for the visual arts. The new GroveART series makes this comprehensive and authoritative art scholarship accessible and affordable to all audiences for the first time. Complete with a multipage color plate section as well as extensive black and white images throughout, each volume in the series will focus on one particularly popular area or period of art history. Broad enough to appeal to the general reader, but thorough enough for the art historian, each book will reflect the depth and excellence of coverage that brought such acclaim to The Grove Dictionary of Art. This century has witnessed an explosion in the number of art movements and schools that have emerged and contemporary artists breaking traditional boundaries. In more than 350 essays, the most popular movements -- Surrealism, Expressionism, and Pop Art -- are discussed alongside recent experiments in new media like video art and environmental art.

The International Dictionary of Theatre is a three-volume work, international and historical in scope, covering the theatre from the festivals of ancient Greece to the productions, plays, players, directors and designers of the modern stage. The 3 volumes comprise 1500 entries, selected by an international advisory board.

Theatre has provided many words and meanings which we use--ignorant of their origins--in everyday writing and speech. This is the first book to explore 2,000 theatre terms in depth, in some cases tracing their history over two and a half millenia, in others exploring expressions less than a decade old. Terms are defined, shown in use and cross-referenced in ways which will fascinate theatre- goers, and encourage those actively engaged in the theatre to examine the familiar from new angles.