Fifty Key Improv Performers

Fifty Key Improv Performers
Author: Matt Fotis
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 184
Release: 2024-09-12
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 1040113982

Fifty Key Improv Performers highlights the history, development, and impact of improvisational theatre by highlighting not just key performers, but institutions, training centers, and movements to demonstrate the ways improv has shaped contemporary performance both onstage and onscreen. The book features the luminaries of improv, like Viola Spolin, Keith Johnstone, and Mick Napier, while also featuring many of the less well‐known figures in improvisation who have fundamentally changed the way we make and view comedy – people like Susan Messing, Jonathan Pitts, Robert Gravel, and Yvon Leduc. Due to improv’s highly collaborative nature, the book features many of the art form’s most important theatres and groups, such as The Second City, TJ & Dave, and Oui Be Negroes. While the book focuses on the development of improvisation in the United States, it features several entries about the development of improv around the globe. Students of Improvisational Theatre, History of Comedy, and Performance Studies, as well as practitioners of comedy, will benefit from the wide expanse of performers, groups, and institutions throughout the book.

Fifty Key Scholars in Black Social Thought

Fifty Key Scholars in Black Social Thought
Author: Marie-Claude Jipguep-Akhtar
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 292
Release: 2024-10-15
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1040125174

Fifty Key Scholars in Black Social Thought is a collaborative volume that uplifts and explores the intellectual activism and scholarly contributions of Black social thinkers. It implores readers to integrate the research of Black scholars into their teaching and research, and fundamentally, to rethink the dominant epistemological claims and philosophical underpinnings of the Western social sciences. The volume features 50 chapters, written by 55 scholars who explore the diverse contributions of notable Black thinkers, both historical and contemporary. Four thematic areas organize this work—Black epistemology, Black geopolitics, Black oppression and resistance, and Black families and communities. Through a close analysis of the fifty thinkers presented here, the chapters explore these themes while dismantling the whitewashed disciplinary histories, methodologies, and content that obscure and/or subjugate the significance of Black social thought. In addition to offering insightful and timely analysis, each chapter offers suggested readings for readers who would like to dive deeper into the work of Black social thinkers. This volume offers an accessible starting point for exploring the work of Black scholars past and present and their contributions to sociology and the social sciences more broadly. It is useful to students, academics, practitioners, and the lay public who are curious about Black social thought.

Applied Theatre

Applied Theatre
Author: Kay Hepplewhite
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 130
Release: 2024-10-24
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 1040129986

This accessible book outlines the key ideas that define the global phenomenon of applied theatre, not only its theoretical underpinning, its origins and practice, but also providing eight real-life examples drawn from a diversity of forms and settings. The clearly arranged topic sections entitled When, What, Who, Why and Where emphasise the responsive nature of applied theatre, its social context and the importance of a beneficial outcome for participants, which can connect fields as disparate as health, criminal justice, education and migration. Labels and terms are explained, along with applied theatre’s core values, motivations and objectives, allowing the reader to build a coherent understanding of its distinguishing features. Applied Theatre: The Key Concepts is aimed at students, academics, artists and practitioners of applied theatre as well as those with an interest in this vital blend of social and creative practice.

Music Business

Music Business
Author: Richard Strasser
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 172
Release: 2024-10-01
Genre: Music
ISBN: 1040130917

Music Business: The Key Concepts, second edition, is a comprehensive guide to the terminology commonly used in the music business today. This updated second edition responds to the music industry's increasingly digital and ever-evolving environment, with definitions from a number of relevant fields, including: general business marketing e-commerce intellectual property law economics entrepreneurship In an accessible A-Z format and fully cross-referenced throughout, this book is essential reading for music business students as well as those interested in the music industry.

Fifty Key Figures in LatinX and Latin American Theatre

Fifty Key Figures in LatinX and Latin American Theatre
Author: Paola S. Hernández
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 232
Release: 2022-02-25
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 1000522490

Fifty Key Figures in Latinx and Latin American Theatre is a critical introduction to the most influential and innovative theatre practitioners in the Americas, all of whom have been pioneers in changing the field. The chosen artists work through political, racial, gender, class, and geographical divides to expand our understanding of Latin American and Latinx theatre while at the same time offering a space to discuss contested nationalities and histories. Each entry considers the artist’s or collective’s body of work in its historical, cultural, and political context and provides a brief biography and suggestions for further reading. The volume covers artists from the present day to the 1960s—the emergence of a modern theatre that was concerned with Latinx and Latin American themes distancing themselves from an European approach. A deep and enriching resource for the classroom and individual study, this is the first book that any student of Latinx and Latin American theatre should read.

Long Form Improvisation and American Comedy

Long Form Improvisation and American Comedy
Author: M. Fotis
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 194
Release: 2014-02-11
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 1137376589

Long form scenic improv began with the Harold. The comic philosophy of this form started an era of comedy marked by support, trust, and collaboration. This book tells of the Harold, beginning with the development of improv theatre, through the tensions and evolutions that led to its creation at iO, and to its use in contemporary filmmaking.

The Improv Handbook

The Improv Handbook
Author: Tom Salinsky
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 521
Release: 2017-10-19
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 1350026174

The Improv Handbook is the most comprehensive, smart, helpful and inspiring guide to improv available today. Applicable to comedians, actors, public speakers and anyone who needs to think on their toes, it features a range of games, interviews, descriptions and exercises that illuminate and illustrate the exciting world of improvised performance. First published in 2008, this second edition features a new foreword by comedian Mike McShane, as well as new exercises on endings, managing blind offers and master-servant games, plus new and expanded interviews with Keith Johnstone, Neil Mullarkey, Jeffrey Sweet and Paul Rogan. The Improv Handbook is a one-stop guide to the exciting world of improvisation. Whether you're a beginner, an expert, or would just love to try it if you weren't too scared, The Improv Handbook will guide you every step of the way.

Fifty Contemporary Choreographers

Fifty Contemporary Choreographers
Author: Martha Bremser
Publisher: Psychology Press
Total Pages: 242
Release: 1999
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9780415103633

Covering today's most important modern, ballet, contemporary and post-modern choreographers in Europe and North America, this unique guide is a valuable quick reference for students and critics, dancers and general readers in love with dance. Each entry includes a biographical section, a chronological list of works, a detailed bibliography and a critical essay. In entries on choreographers such as Richard Alston, Pina Bausch, Laurie Booth, Christopher Bruce, Jonathan Burrows, Michael Clarke, Merce Cunningham, Anna Theresa De Keersmaeker, Eiko and Koma, William Forsythe,Jiri Kylain, Mark Morris, Twyla Tharp and other leading figures, readers can easily locate each choreographer's style and influence within the development of contemporary theatre dance, and swiftly discern the essential facts in his or her career.

Truth in Comedy

Truth in Comedy
Author: Charna Halpern
Publisher: Meriwether Publishing
Total Pages: 164
Release: 1994
Genre: Improvisation (Acting)
ISBN: 9781566080033

The 'Harold', an innovative improvisational tool, helped many actors on the road to TV and film stardom, including George Wendt (Norm on Cheers). Now it is described fully in this new book for would-be actors and comics. The 'Harold' is a form of competitive improv involving 6 or 7 players. They take a theme suggestion from the audience and 'free associate' on the theme into a series of rapid-fire one-liners that build into totally unpredictable skits with hilarious results. The 'Harold' is a fun way to 'loosen up' and learn to think quickly, build continuity, develop characterisations and sharpen humour.

Yes, And

Yes, And
Author: Kelly Leonard
Publisher: Harper Collins
Total Pages: 174
Release: 2015-02-03
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0062248553

Executives from The Second City—the world’s premier comedy theater and school of improvisation—reveal improvisational techniques that can help any organization develop innovators, encourage adaptable leaders, and build transformational businesses. For more than fifty years, The Second City comedy theater in Chicago has been a training ground for some of the best comic minds in the industry—including John Belushi, Bill Murray, Gilda Radner, Mike Myers, Steve Carell, Stephen Colbert, and Tina Fey. But it also provides one-of-a-kind leadership training to cutting-edge companies, nonprofits, and public sector organizations—all aimed at increasing creativity, collaboration, and teamwork. The rules for leadership and teamwork have changed, and the skills that got professionals ahead a generation ago don’t work anymore. Now The Second City provides a new toolkit individuals and organizations can use to thrive in a world increasingly shaped by speed, social communication, and decentralization. Based on eight principles of improvisation, Yes, And helps to develop these skills and foster them in high-potential leaders and their teams, including: Mastering the ability to co-create in an ensemble Fostering a “yes, and” approach to work Embracing failure to accelerate high performance Leading by listening and by learning to follow Innovating by making something out of nothing Yes, And is a must-read for professionals and organizations, helping to develop the invaluable leadership skills needed to succeed today.