*** Notice: For the protection of property rights, this catalog is available for online browsing only. Please drop us a line if you would like to receive a copiable version of this catalog. Thank You!
Drama, Theatre and Performance
World famous theatre practitioner Jerzy Grotowski has had an enormous and positive influence on contemporary theatre. This resource explores his life and work and shows how his ideas and approaches can be used by students and teachers to create powerful and successful performances. Through the use of archive performance footage, workshops, demonstrations, interviews and examples of Grotowski inspired pieces, this double DVD enables students to apply Grotowski's visionary insights to their own devised and scripted work. Includes top-band student performances and ready to use teaching materials.
2 DVDs / 2015 / 135 minutes
[Go top]
>>> Add Cart <<<
This Double DVD provides strategies and ideas for creating comedy for devised and scripted performances. Using interviews, workshops and performance footage from leading international comedy practitioners, this resource will guide students through the entire process, from the initial stages of researching, exploring and testing ideas through to rehearsal and final performance. Specific comedy generating strategies, like games and play, rhythm, timing and surprises, crossed objectives, double acts, major/minor and creating comedy characters are all explained, with performed examples. Includes top-band student performances and ready-to-use teaching materials.
2 DVDs / 2014 / 120 minutes
[Go top]
>>> Add Cart <<<
The study of acting should begin with physical action - a specialized, structured, flexible and adaptable physical action that is enlisted in the direct service of the expression of thought and feeling. I call this integrated physical action an expressive action).-Michael Lugering. A group of actors work through a series of carefully structured exercises and improvisations that unlock the physical, raw materials that make human expression possible. Whether the actor is expressing love, loss, rage or joy, unlocking these universal will provide the building blocks for captivating and dynamic acting.
DVD / 2014 / (Grades 9-Adult) / 70 minutes
[Go top]
>>> Add Cart <<<
A group of actors demonstrate a variety of improvisatory techniques and exercises designed to expand the actors imagination and expressive power. Rooted in impulse, spontaneity, and creativity, the improvisations will lead you to new and unfamiliar methods of expression never thought possible and many of which you have never experienced in your personal life. These basic exercises can easily be modified and adapted for on-going growth and development. All the while, your acting repertoire increases and becomes more nuanced and sophisticated.
DVD / 2014 / (Grades 9-Adult) / 70 minutes
[Go top]
>>> Add Cart <<<
Joan Melton, an internationally recognized actor trainer and author, interviews Master Teacher Michael Lugering in a theoretical discussion of recent discoveries in philosophy, somatic psychology, neuroscience and aesthetics that underpin the integrated voice, movement and acting method presented in this series.
DVD / 2014 / (Grades 9-Adult) / 35 minutes
[Go top]
>>> Add Cart <<<
A group of actors demonstrate a series of voice and body exercises that unite a series of moving, breathing and sounding actions in an integrated full-bodied acting workout. These smart exercises do more than simply build essential skills in alignment, movement, respiration, resonance and range, but simultaneously prepare the actor for the expression of the bodyss richest and most powerful thoughts and feelings. The goal is the development of a flexible and dynamic voice and body that is hard-wired to express thought and feeling.
DVD / 2014 / (Grades 9-Adult) / 70 minutes
[Go top]
>>> Add Cart <<<
This double DVD gives a unique insight into the hilarious inventiveness of internationally acclaimed physical comedy company, Spymonkey. Produced by Spymonkey and using original rehearsal footage and interviews, the resource follows the creative process from the first moments of inception through rehearsal to performance as the company turns Sophocles' most famous tragedy into a Bowie-esque space ballad. The DVD also includes a live recording of Oedipussy with commentary, as well as interviews with the artistic directors as they explore the influences on their work and the creative roles of director, writer and designer.
DISC 1 OEDIPUSSY recorded at Brighton Festival:
ACT 1 66min
ACT 2 45min (with optionalcommentary)
Promo trailer 4'27"
Audience voxpops 2'24"
DISC 2 OEDIPUSSY IN DEVELOPMENT
Starting Points 11'43"
Music & Choreography 9'24"
Creating in Collaboration 7'12"
Writing Tools 15'07"
Killing Your Darlings 14'47"
GLOSSARY 30'00"
REHEARSAL COMMENTARY by director and cast 2'28"
2 DVDs / 2014 / 100 minutes
[Go top]
>>> Add Cart <<<
Drama schools get thousands of applications each year from students wanting to become actors, so how can you make an application stand out? how can students be sure that the course is really the right one for them? What does the audition process involve and how can they prepare for it most effectively? Through interviews with experts at the Royal Central School of Speech an Drama, the Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts and the Institute of the Arts, Barcelona, this double DVD gives candidates the essential information they need to avoid the pitfalls to apply intelligently and to maximize their chances of success in auditions. Includes student accounts of the entire process and mock-auditions with students and drama school tutors.
2 DVDs / 2014 / 100 minutes
[Go top]
>>> Add Cart <<<
Tells the amazing story of the progression of Stanislavsky acting training in the United States and how some of the major Stanislavsky-influenced acting techniques relate to each other and to Stanislavsky from the Outside In.
Teaches: Stanislavsky studying actors; Moscow Art Theater & the Russian Revolution; Stella Adler; Group Theater & the American Great Depression; Lee Strasberg; Sanford Meisner.
DVD / 2011 / (Grades 9-Adult) / 14 minutes
[Go top]
>>> Add Cart <<<
This two-disc DVD set showcases practical approaches to working with Artaud and the Theatre of Cruelty. It provides examples of students' work that scored 100% in their A level practical examinations. These are combined with a wealth of performance footage from professional companies, interviews and practical exercises from leading Artaud practitioners, as well as an overview from Stephen Barber, Artaud's biographer and author of three books on Artaud. A unique resource that will be invaluable for all drama teaching
2 DVDs / 2010 / 120 minutes
[Go top]
>>> Add Cart <<<
Director: Roman Paska
In Rehearsal for a Sicilian Tragedy, actor John Turturro takes audiences on a haunting, intimate journey to his maternal homeland of Sicily. There, while exploring the island's vanishing traditions, he is taken under the wing of one of the puppet theater's few remaining practitioners, Mimmo Cuticchio, who instructs him in the distinctively Sicilian art of puppetry.
Filmed during preparations for the Sicilian Day of the Dead, this evocative, magical-realist documentary was directed by Turturro's longtime collaborator, Roman Paska, himself a world-renowned puppeteer. Both homage to the art of storytelling and a portrait of a Sicily little known to the outside world, Paska's film brings viewers to an otherworldly place, lost in time.
DVD-R (English and Italian with English Subtitles) / 2010 / 85 minutes
[Go top]
>>> Add Cart <<<
A comprehensive instructional course teaching "live sound" made easy. This series is a complete teaching tool and "must have" for students and instructors, theatres, beginner technicians and production houses. Discover some of the best techniques in both concert and theatrical sound. Instructor Dave West teaches how to be creative and enjoy the art of mixing live entertainment. With his instantly applicable techniques, easy to understand analogies and hands-on demonstrations, you'll learn how to solve common sound problems with ease. This series teaches the fundamentals of live sound and highlights the components of a sound system. From microphones to console amplifiers and speakers, this series will give you the best tips and strategies for both concert and theatrical sound.
Subjects Covered Include:
Theatre Sound
System Design
Readable Materials
Farwell
DVD / 2010 / (Grades 9-Adult) / 20 minutes
[Go top]
>>> Add Cart <<<
An inspiring guide to some of the ideas, strategies and methods that can be used in both professional and educational contexts to add physical dimensions to performance.
Disc 1 includes interviews, rehearsal footage, demonstrations and performances from some of the world's best and most physical practitioners. It provides examples of games, strategies and methods used to generate physical action and looks at the relationship between text and movement. It also explores the choreographing and scoring of physical action, including proxemics and sequencing.
Disc 2 contains numerous workshop examples showing ideas and techniques that can be used to encourage students to add physicality to their performance. It also contains examples of student work.
2 DVDs / 2006 / 90 minutes
[Go top]
>>> Add Cart <<<
An invaluable and inspirational two-disc guide to the process of creating an original piece of drama. Ways of getting started are evaluated and professional practitioners introduce the strategies they use to generate ideas, movement and text.
Disc 1 Filmed with companies from three continents, this disc contains a feature film's worth of edited interviews, demonstrations, rehearsal footage and performance outcome clips from some of the world's most creative devisers - Goat Island (US), Forced Entertainment (UK), Ushio Amagatsu/Sankai Juku (Japan). The practitioners explain the ideas that influence and inform their work, how they start a piece - including research strategies and sourcing "raw ingredients"; games and other ways of generating movement and text and how they refine and structure their material.
Disc 2 provides extensive teaching resources including how to manage the conceptual process. It contains almost limitless ideas, strategies and materials to help devisors, including: video examples of student work informed by some of the practitioners on disc 1, specially commissioned copyright free "music to devise by", materials from Goat Island/Forced Entertainment and an introduction to the Great Devisers Great Devising Project - an online collaboration in which students are invited to upload performative and other responses to materials created by leading international practitioners.
2 DVDs / 2006 / 100 minutes
[Go top]
>>> Add Cart <<<
Filmed over a two day workshop, this double DVD set shows a wealth of examples of ideas, games and methods which can be used to engage students, helping them overcome inhibitions, build trust and improve communication. Included are interviews and examples of work from some of the world's leading theatre practitioners. The second disc contains additional teachers' resources including a trouble shooting guide and suggested student activities.
2 DVDs / 2006 / 100 minutes
[Go top]
>>> Add Cart <<<
Directed by XU Xin
In this vivid portrait of China's musical heritage, Sichuan Opera performers strive to keep a centuries-old artform alive.
After thriving for 300 years, Sichuan Opera is an endangered art form. Having survived the Cultural Revolution, state-sponsored opera troupes now face extinction in the era of private enterprise. Opera master Li Baoting began his career at eight, but now performs pop songs with showgirls in cheap bars. His colleague Wang Bin performs in travelling tents, trying to resist the massive cultural changes threatening to wipe out this artform.
In TORCH TROUPES, acclaimed filmmaker Xu Xin (Karamay, Jury Prize, Locarno Film Festival) captures the painstaking preparations of Sichuan Opera performers and bears witness to the difficulties they face: an aging audience, the demolition of traditional teahouse venues, and career pressures to adopt modern dance or karaoke, or abandon the stage altogether. TORCH TROUPES offers an eye-opening overview of popular performance culture in contemporary China, and a poignant reflection of the struggle to preserve a cultural heritage in the face of widespread social transformation.
DVD (Color, Mandarin & Sichuan dialect with English subtitles) / 2006 / 110 minutes
[Go top]
>>> Add Cart <<<
Director: Joshua Waletzky
Set against the backdrop of the magical White Nights Festival in St. Petersburg, Sacred Stage features the best in Russian symphonic music, ballet and opera at Russia's premier theater-the Mariinsky, also known as the Kirov. Sacred Stage explores what the theater has meant to Russian and Soviet culture and how it has somehow maintained its artistic excellence through war, revolution and the collapse of Communism.. It also looks at the life and work of Maestro Valery Gergiev, artistic and theater director at the Mariinsky, and captures the excitement of his world-a world populated with artists, socialites, financiers, politicians and celebrities.
Narrated by Emmy Award-winning actor Richard Thomas, Sacred Stage is illustrated with stunning performances from the opera and ballet, as well as candid interviews with luminaries, scholars and performers.
DVD (Color) / 2005 / 60 minutes
[Go top]
>>> Add Cart <<<
Straight is a hilarious and subversive excursion into the world of conversion therapy, where homosexuals are reputedly made "straight." Join acclaimed writer/performer David Schmader as he plunges into the heart of this dangerous territory. Schmader, a gay man, pulls no punches with either the conversionists or the gay community in this one-man show.
DVD / 2004 / (Grades 9-Adult) / 100 minutes
[Go top]
>>> Add Cart <<<
A masterful example of Southern storytelling. This one-man Southern Gothic ghost story features the "phenomenally talented" Troy Mink (Seattle Weekly) playing 13 different characters - from a ghost-busting sheriff to a chain-smoking lesbian atheist - in the mythical haunted town of Midway, Tennessee.
DVD / 2004 / (Grades 9-Adult) / 60 minutes
[Go top]
>>> Add Cart <<<
By Maryan Khakipour
Siah Bazi theater troupes similar to Commedia dell'arte, traditionally performed at weddings and parties, led by men and women in full harlequin garb, making impromptu skits peppered with subtle commentary on current events and politics.
When Tehran's troupe faces the closing of their 400-year-old theater due to changing cultural shifts, the performers face uncertain futures as truck drivers and tea-servers.
SIAH BAZI: THE JOY MAKERS offers a look at how folkloric entertainment is challenged by modern political and economic changes in Tehran.
DVD (Color) / 2004 / 45 minutes
[Go top]
>>> Add Cart <<<
Chicago's Neo-Futurists, aided by fellow assassins Sigmund Freud and Uncle Miltie, attempt to kill comedy by explaining why it's funny - which only makes it funnier.
DVD / 2003 / (Grades 9-Adult) / 83 minutes
[Go top]
>>> Add Cart <<<
Spend an intimate evening with the twentieth century's most notorious serial killers, including Ted Bundy, Richard Ramirez (the "Night Stalker"), and Aileen Wuornos (America's First Female Serial Killer). A fascinating study of very real and very defective human beings and the social forces that shaped them.
DVD / 2003 / (Grades 9-Adult) / 86 minutes
[Go top]
>>> Add Cart <<<
These outrageous "Fairy tales for Grown-ups" are not for the easily offended! Follow Poona's twisted path to the Kingdom of Do (where no one did) and meet The Man Who Can Sell Anything, Suzy-Suzy Cyber-Assassin, Mr. Beer, space aliens and God (who will answer any question for five bucks). Nothing is sacred in this raucous assault on the power of language.
DVD / 2003 / (Grades 9-Adult) / 120 minutes
[Go top]
>>> Add Cart <<<
By Dirk Szuszies
Civil disobedience! No more war! Resist! That's what The Living Theatre has always done-and is still doing with vigor today.
RESIST chronicles the history and mission behind The Living Theatre, one of the most significant companies in the history of American theatre and the avant garde. Established in 1947 by Julian Beck and Judith Malina as an alternative to commercial theater, the Living Theatre's politically-motivated plays expressed anarchist, pacifist ideals and mobilized the theater as a medium for social change.
For over 50 years, the controversial troupe impacted audiences and theater practice around the world with its visceral, free-form productions, including The Brig, Paradise Now, The Money Tower, Mysteries and Smaller Pieces, and Not in My Name.
Today their collective creations are performed in unconventional venues around the world-from public parks and factories to prisons and detainment camps, opposing economic tyranny and the militarism paralyzing so many countries. But is it still a valid, effective form of social commentary and protest? What weight do their ideas have if the world is so eager to live in violence? Are their utopian ideals a realistic response to the complex problems of contemporary societies? What is the meaning of this fight today?
Interweaving archival footage of past shows with contemporary interviews with Malina, Beck (up until his death in 1985), co-director Hanon Reznikov, and other company members of past and present, RESIST follows the troupe of radical illusionaries on three different journeys as they collaborate with young activists on productions beyond the traditional stage: Ground Zero in New York; the G8 Summit of Genoa in Paris; and the Khiam detention camp in South Lebanon.
RESIST is a poetic and political homage to the Living Theatre which, after nearly six decades is often taken for dead yet always revived; a rejected but tireless nomad, the Living has survived its own success and its opponents' persecution.
DVD (Color) / 2003 / 90 minutes
[Go top]
>>> Add Cart <<<
With David George
This video introduces Asian theater through the roles it plays in the lives of Asian people and its special relationship to young people. David George has interviewed dancers, actors, musicians, shamans, priests, scholars, mask-makers, choreographers and taken detailed pictures of what he has learned.
DVD / 2003 / (Grades 9-Adult) / 44 minutes
[Go top]
>>> Add Cart <<<
Two theater companies, one American, one Vietnamese, collaborate to produce A Midsummer Night's Dream in Hanoi.
Twenty five years after the end of the Vietnam War, Vietnamese and Americans join forces in a unique collaboration. Two theater companies, one American and one Vietnamese, come together to stage the first performance in Vietnam of Shakespeare's play A Midsummer Night's Dream. This spirited tale follows the actors, directors, producers and technicians from both countries as they struggle to surmount the huge obstacles of language, culture, ideology, and a history of war on their journey to opening night at Hanoi's famous Opera House.
The film features Vietnam's renowned theater, the Central Dramatic Company of Vietnam, and actors and staff from the Artists Repertory Theater in Portland, Oregon. Music is performed by artists of Vietnam's National Theater of Music and Dance and the Cheo Theater of Hanoi.
A DREAM IN HANOI is the first American documentary about American/Vietnamese relations that does not focus on the Vietnam war or its legacy of human suffering.
DVD (Color) / 2002 / (Grades 7-12, College, Adult) / 91 minutes
[Go top]
>>> Add Cart <<<
Tim Weske's unique sword system (based on the traditional European fencing system as well as the Spanish circle) has proven to be an effective, exciting and most importantly safe method, producing dramatic and unforgettable results on film and television. With 20 years of experience in stage combat, Tim teaches the art of fencing and fencing techniques in a way to rival the masters.
Subjects covered include: Philosophy & Parts of the Weapon. Footwork & Body Position. Targeting. Perries & Attacking.
DVD / 2002 / (Grades 9-Adult) / 47 minutes
[Go top]
>>> Add Cart <<<
Directed by Shui-Bo Wang
A comprehensive survey of creative life in contemporary Beijing, SWING IN BEIJING captures a remarkable impression of the current state of fine and performing arts in this rapidly changing city. Academy Award nominee Shui-Bo Wang has incorporated interviews with artists, filmmakers, and musicians, along with clips of films, plays and music videos, paintings and other artwork in galleries and studios, and revealing footage of a city in transition.
Although government censorship has been a threat to artists in China for years, many of the artists cite the lack of venues and financial support as the new censorship. Gao Xing, aged 26, is the lead singer of the punk group Underbaby. Gao and his friends say it isn't the government but music producers and MTV-China that demand less controversial lyrics. For painter Wei Dong censorship is a danger that lies within. During the Cultural Revolution his parents were persecuted, and Wei knows his memories must influence him in some way, though he tries to resist the impulse to tone down his work.
The painful transformation of Beijing is a subject many of the artists confront. In response to the destruction of the old quarter, Wei Dong explores artistic methods that embrace modernization but preserve Chinese culture. Filmmaker Jia Khang Ke explores the loss of traditional values and culture as well. Using his small, hometown Penang as the setting, his most recent film is a meditation on the dissolution of the traditional family in China. Zhan Wang is also troubled by the demolition of the old District. In his state-owned studio he creates work that asks, "Where do we come from?" Freed from financial constraints by his work as a commercial artist, Zhan creates conceptual art by photographing the demolished old district, then photographing the same area after his 'renovations.' His work is completed as the new structures go up over the old.
All of these artists, and many others interviewed in SWING IN BEJING, debate the value of Western recognition. While selection for a Western show like the Venice Bi-annual guarantees international fame, the selected pieces are often shown out of context, diluting their power. Western curators, says Wu Mei Chun, tend to pick pieces that shock the Western sensibility, not the best piece. A graduate of the China Institute of Fine Arts she decided to stop practicing art in order to curate. Now 31, she puts on controversial group shows in non-official settings.
Finally, SWING IN BEIJING takes us to the Central Experimental Playhouse for a production of Dario Fo's Death of an Anarchist. Director Men Jeng Hui was a student activist during the Tiananmen uprising, and says the events of 1989 are his formative experiences. Citing Stanislavsky's student Meyerhold as his inspiration, he insists that theater always needs revolution. By raising funds from friends and private corporations (the government has cut funding to the theater), Men Jeng was able to put on a production that is openly challenging to authority. It exemplifies the current state of censorship in Beijing: the government won't stop you from making something, but it won't provide the crucial venue and funding that is necessary to reach the public.
Shui-Bo Wang, whose critically acclaimed film SUNRISE OVER TIANANMEN SQUARE was nominated for an Academy Award, has returned to the cradle of his artistic development, creating an informative and surprising film about the challenges and rewards of the life of an artist in present-day Beijing.
DVD (Color) / 2000 / 73 minutes
[Go top]
>>> Add Cart <<<
***Price on web-site may not be current and is subject to modification by quotation***
