Performing Arts

Acclaimed actor and rap artist Will Smith has achieved a level of Hollywood fame rarely attained by a Black celebrity. Early in his career, Smith aspired to be the world's most famous movie star and being named the world's top film attraction in 2008,...

Contingent Encounters offers a sustained comparative study of improvisation as it appears between music and everyday life. Drawing on work in musicology, cultural studies, and critical improvisation studies, as well as his own performing experience, Dan DiPiero argues that comparing improvisation across domains calls...

The first comprehensive history in English of film at the Bauhaus, exploring practices that experimented with film as an adaptable, elastic "polymedium." With Design in Motion, Laura Frahm proposes an alternate history of the Bauhaus--one in which visual media, and film in particular, are...

On the evening of her father's funeral, while his family recites suras from the Koran, Noun interrupts the ceremony. Faithful to the memory of her father, a writer and journalist, a freedom fighter, she decides to put an end to this memorial and to...

Through an examination of a range of performance works ranging from Jean Cocteau's ballet The Eiffel Tower Wedding Party (1921) to Julie Taymor's monumental production of Spider-Man: Turn off the Dark (2010) and Mexican playwright Isaac Gomez's La Ruta(2018), Staging Technologyasks what becomes visible...

Balancing historical and film theory in her assessment of the roles of mise-en-scène, characterization, narrative complexity, and sound in the production of effective historical dramas, Weeks' evaluation acts as an ode to the most recent Golden Ageof TV, as well as a critical look...

When IRL YouTube star Mia Fizz gets involved in a school play, the drama doesn't stay onstage...YouTube sensation Mia Fizz loves three things: her family, the Miacorns (her fans!), and her BFF, Briony. When Briony is chosen to direct a play for her after-school...

Can Randi find a way to make it all work out? Randi wants to be an actress and is excited about practicing her craft in drama class. So she is devastated to learn the program has been cut. When her friends put together a...

Most horror film fans are familiar with the movie classics, from the early Universal archetypes to the Hammer landmarks--all of which have been celebrated in countless books and magazines. But what about the parallel universe of television horror? The series, made-for-TV-movies and specials? With...

Despite the rise of the Hollywood system and hostility to Asian migrant communities in the early twentieth-century United States, Japanese Americans created a thriving cinema culture that produced films and established theaters and exhibition companies to facilitate their circulation between Japan and the United...

Native Perry Countians are a proud bunch, who had the privilege of growing up in a peaceful rural county in central Pennsylvania. Today, we still strive to preserve our special way of life. Part of the preservation effort is to share our stories, and...

She would appear in more than thirty films and be named after a Road Atlas by Cecil B. DeMille. A football play would be named after her. She would appear on To Tell the Truth. She would be arrested six times in one day...

In this TV Milestone, author Joanne Morreale highlights the differences of The Outer Limits (ABC 1963-65) from typical programs on the air in the 1960s. Morreale argues that the show provides insight into changes in the television industry as writers turned to genre fiction-in...

Tesla jolts and flows between the extraordinary life of the inventor Nikola Tesla, the making of a feature film about him by the celebrated director Michael Almereyda, and episodes from the filmmaker's own restless, quixotic career. In these pages, we encounter Tesla's colleagues and...

The Storytelling Almanac is a tool that will improve your skills as a story creator. Regardless of the industry you work in, the mediums you employ, or the audience you create for, this book will help you begin to understand the underlying psychology beneath...

"Will make a theater lover of any young reader." --Booklist​​ Perfect for fans of The Wednesday Wars, this raucous and delightful middle grade mystery from Edgar Award-nominated author Martha Freeman is filled with backstage fun, relatable family drama, and maybe even a ghost. Break...

An illustrated history of Campari's hands-on patronage of the film industryThis volume examines the longstanding and fruitful relationship between Campari and the film industry. Tracing Campari's long history as an enthusiastic and involved patron of cinema, the book details how the company's support has...

Jia Zhangke on Jia Zhangke is an extended dialogue between film scholar Michael Berry and the internationally acclaimed Chinese filmmaker. Drawing from extensive interviews and public talks, this volume offers a portrait of Jia's life, art, and approach to filmmaking. Jia and Berry's conversations...

Teenage drama student tired of playing middle-aged grownups? Find stage pieces tailored to the real-world in this amazing new collection.Monologues for Teens II is the latest installment in The Young Actor Series and the long-awaited follow-up to the award-winning Monologues for Teens. Full voting...

'This book is a fascinating cri de coeur and made me question everything I think about musicals.' Alan CummingPeople rarely say they hate books, or television, or films. But they often say they hate musicals. Moreover everyone seems to have a fixed idea of...