The classic book on acting, in an attractive updated edition

Since its original publication in 1973, Uta Hagen’s Respect for Acting has remained a durable classic and a must-read for all students of acting. As an acting instructor at the Herbert Berghof Studio, Hagen helped to develop the talents of world-class actors like Robert DeNiro, Matthew Broderick, Gene Wilder, Amanda Peet, Austin Pendleton, Whoopi Goldberg, and more. In this book, Hagen offers an indispensable account of the techniques that professionals use to elevate their acting to an art form. This updated edition illuminates Hagen’s original text with a new foreword written by Katie Finneran, retaining the David Hyde Pierce foreword, along with added background on HB Studio―one of the original New York performing arts training and practice spaces―and an excerpt from Hagen’s autobiography SOURCES.

In working through this book, actors will learn physical, verbal, and emotional practice that empower them to connect their own self-concept to the characters they play. Specific, detailed exercises help actors learn to address a range of problems actors face, like maintaining immediacy and relevance, and developing the dimensions of a role over a long performance run. Respect for Acting is a book for actors and audiences who understand the need for truth in the creative process.

• Discover the acting book that has shaped professional theater performances for decades
• Learn the history and background of Herbert Berghof Studio, one of New York’s foremost acting schools
• Practice the craft of acting with concrete exercises and instruction on technique
• Delve into the deep questions that arise when actors truly inhabit the lives of their characters

Actors at all levels of their craft will love this stunning updated version of the essential Respect for Acting.

Read more

Players, playwrights, prompters, producers―they all feature. The Oxford Book of Theatrical Anecdotes provides a comprehensive, revealing, and hugely entertaining portrait of the world of theatre across four hundred years.

Many of the anecdotes are humorous: all have something pertinent and illuminating to say about an aspect of theatrical life―whether it is the art of playwriting, the craft of covering up missed cues, the drama of the First Night, the nightmare of touring, or the secret ingredients of star quality.

Edmund Kean, Henry Irving, John Gielgud, Laurence Olivier, Ellen Terry, Edith Evans, Maggie Smith, Helen Mirren―the great ‘names’ are all here, of course, but there are tales of the unexpected, too―and the unknown. This is a book―presented in five acts, with a suitably anecdotal and personal prologue from Gyles Brandreth―where, once in a while, the understudy takes centre-stage and Gyles Brandreth treats triumph and disaster just the same, including stories from the tattiest touring companies as well as from Broadway, the West End and theatres, large and small, in Australia, India, and across Europe.

Read more