Performing Arts

Bela Lugosi won immediate fame for his portrayal of the immortal count in the 1931 film Dracula. After a decade of trying vainly to broaden his range and secure parts to challenge his acting abilities, Lugosi resigned himself to a career as the world's...

Often typecast as a menacing figure, Peter Lorre achieved Hollywood fame first as a featured player and later as a character actor, trademarking his screen performances with a delicately strung balance between good and evil. His portrayal of the child murderer in Fritz Lang's...

"An insightful read from one of the ballet world's most beloved married couples "--Melinda Roy, former principal dancer, New York City Ballet "Wonderfully complete and instructive, written by two artists who have lived what they write about and are sharing their life experience from...

"What a superb and inspiring book this is It is a celebration of the art of teaching ballet and it will delight anyone who is interested in classical dancing. . . . It is by a dancer, for dancers, about dancing, and we should...

The dramatic concluding months of The Wars of the Roses provide the setting for Shakespeare's incomparable saga of power and intrigue. Under the editorial supervision of Jonathan Bate and Eric Rasmussen, two of today's most accomplished Shakespearean scholars, this Modern Library series incorporates definitive...

Twenty-one philosophers investigate the implications of the Jurassic Park franchise for our lives, our values, and our future. Human beings live and thrive by modifying nature, but when do the risks of changing nature outweigh the likely benefits? If it's true that "Life will...

Informed, controversial, ranging from a melancholy study of rock and roll's descent into show business to a hilarious look at the spectacle that is the Jerry Lewis Telethon, these twenty essays offer an unusual and (ironically) entertaining study of American media by one of...

In this newly revised second edition, veteran stage designers and technical directors Dennis Dorn and Mark Shanda introduce industry-standard drafting and designing practices with step-by-step discussions, illustrations, worksheets, and problems to help students develop and refine drafting and other related skills needed for entertainment...

An only child, a mama's boy--Elvis was a shy kid who struggled to make friends and found comfort singing in church and learning guitar. While in high school, he continued his music but was often ridiculed by students. On a whim, he recorded a...

The legendary Hollywood star blazes a fiery trail in this enthralling portrait of a brilliant actress and the movies her talent elevated to greatness In Dark Victory, noted film critic and biographer Ed Sikov paints the most detailed picture ever delivered of Bette Davis,...

For anyone with a beloved pet, this delightful and heartwarming story set at the circus shows that quiet qualities like friendship, kindness, and loyalty are important and worthy. Jane is an ordinary dog in an extraordinary circus. She isn't strong, graceful, or brave like...

Welcome to the spiritual neighborhood of Fred Rogers"I like you as you are Exactly and precisely I think you turned out nicely And I like you as you are."Fred Rogers fiercely believed that all people deserve love. This conviction wasn't simply sentimental: it came...

Thirty-Nine Years of Short-term Memory Loss is a seriously funny and irreverent memoir that gives an insider's view of the birth and rise of Saturday Night Live, and features laugh-out-loud stories about some of its greatest personalities--Al Franken, Lorne Michaels, Dan Aykroyd, John Belushi,...

Holly Hughes is one of the most popular and controversial out-there-and-in-your-face writer-performers around, and in this collection of some of her greatest hits she describes her career as an "escape" artist: how she escaped her conservative upbringing in a part of the country "where...

In his astute and deeply informed film reviews and essays, Jonathan Rosenbaum regularly provides new and brilliant insights into the cinema as art, entertainment, and commerce. Guided by a personal canon of great films, Rosenbaum sees, in the ongoing hostility toward the idea of...

The Anarchy of the Imagination colects the most important interviews, essays, and working notes of Rainer Werner Fassbinder, one of the most influential cultural figures to emerge from postwar Germany. Whether reflecting on his won work oir writing about other directors, whether describing his...

A fascinating collection of revealing and entertaining interviews by the award-winning host of National Public Radio's premier interview program Fresh Air. Over the last twenty years, Terry Gross has interviewed many of our most celebrated writers, actors, musicians, comics, and visual artists. Her show,...

Part pop culture trope, part hypothetical cataclysm, the zombie apocalypse is rooted in modern literature, film and mythology. This collection of new essays considers the implications of this scientifically impossible (but perhaps imminent) event, examining real-world responses to pandemic contagion and civic chaos, as...

During the 1960s, a bushel of B-movies were produced and aimed at the predominantly teenage drive-in movie audience. At first teens couldn't get enough of the bikini-clad beauties dancing on the beach or being wooed by Elvis Presley, but by 1966 young audiences became...

From cops who are paragons of virtue, to cops who are as bad as the bad guys...from surly loners, to upbeat partners...from detectives who pursue painstaking investigation, to loose cannons who just want to kick down the door, the heroes and anti-heroes of TV...