Theatre Craft: A Director's Practical Companion From A-Z Download Free (EPUB, PDF)
Theatre Craft is an all-encompassing practical guide for anyone working in the theatre, from the enthusiastic amateur to the committed professional. With entries arranged alphabetically, Theatre Craft offers advice on all areas of directing, from Acting, Adaptation, and Accent to Sound Effects, Superstition, Trap Doors, and Wardrobe.Enlightening and entertaining by turns, the celebrated director John Caird, honorary associate director for the Royal Shakespeare Company, shares his profound knowledge and wealth of international experience to provide an invaluable companion for anyone creating any size of play, musical, or opera―from the back room of a bar to a full-scale production on Broadway. This is required reading for the modern theatre practitioner.
Paperback: 816 pages
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux; Main edition (March 30, 2010)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0571237371
ISBN-13: 978-0571237371
Product Dimensions: 6 x 1.8 x 9 inches
Shipping Weight: 3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
Best Sellers Rank: #184,771 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #44 in Books > Arts & Photography > Performing Arts > Reference #47 in Books > Arts & Photography > Performing Arts > Theater > Direction & Production #90 in Books > Arts & Photography > Performing Arts > Theater > Stagecraft
What a pleasure it was to read this book. I learned more about being a director and performer from this, than from the thousands of dollars spent taking class in NY. As I am not a fan of the dry read, I opened this with a little trepidation, and was so pleasantly surprised. Mr. Caird writes with humor and intelligence and keeps you engaged from beginning to end. I immediately recommended it to other performer/directors that I know, and feel it should be required text in every college theater program. The wonderful thing is that this is a book I will go back to time and again with each different project I am attached to, whether it be as a performer or director. It is a MUST HAVE.
I was lucky to have been directed by this man once, and maybe even luckier to have purchased his book! It's informative, enlightening, affirming, ever-encouraging, often very funny and a necessary bit of reading for not only any director, but also for actors, producers, stage managers, musicians, technical directors, designers, etc., and anyone who is even remotely interested in how theatre works. This book will sit on my table next to my script in the rehearsal room! I will be giving this book to friends of mine who've been directing a lot longer than I.
I'm finding this an invaluable resource for my work. Covers just about everything. Judy Dench approves of it and so do I.
Although this book was written for directors, every producer, indeed, everyone involved in theater could benefit from reading it. In my limited theatrical experience, I know that the smartest thing a producer can do, after obtaining the rights to a given show, is to get the right director. But what I didn't know was just how comprehensive his job is. The constant refrain you will read is how important each job is and how critical it is to make friends with all your support staff and to let them shine in their own right. Good advice for most professions.The bottom line that John rightly focuses on is: What must be done to deliver the best possible experience for all audiences when seeing a given show. And that involves every decision that is made from what projects to accept, to which theater to rent, to which actors to cast, the sound system, lighting, sight lines, etc.Theatre Craft is written authoritatively with intelligence and humor, even in it's title. For it actually is A Practical Companion from A to W, not Z.
I really like this book - its no nonsense, non-anecdotal approach to the subject of directing is refreshing to me, since my library is mired in ego-heavy "Back when I directed my seminal production of ...." type literature. There is certainly a place for such books, but this guide is something different. It is aimed at directors, but I think would be helpful reading for anyone involved in the theatre, and can be read at almost any stage of development. Someone experienced in the field will find Caird's astute observations strangely reassuring and a beginner will gain lots of new information in small, approachable bites.As with most single volume books in an A-Z type format, the entries just brush the surface of some subjects. But I love that you can find entries on subjects as diverse as Trap doors, Second-Nightishness, Nudity onstage and Child Actors. Definitely not in that order.I bought this book at $20 and thought it was a tremendous bargain for the content -it's an even better purchase at the current price.
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