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.

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A handbook, complete with graded exercises, for teachers and students wanting a practical introduction to Laban’s famous system of movement.

Rudolf Laban is to movement what Stanislavski is to acting. He devised the first wholly successful system for recording human movement, a system which is increasingly influential in the training of actors and dancers.

‘Required reading for every young student of the theatre – and a lot of the older ones would reap enormous benefit from it’ Murray Melvin

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The Complete Stanislavsky Toolkit collects together for the first time the terms and ideas developed by Stanislavsky throughout his career.

It is organised into three sections: Actor-Training, Rehearsal Processes and Performance Practices. Key terms are explained and defined as they naturally occur in this process. They are illustrated with examples from both his own work and that of other practitioners.

Each stage of the process is explored with sequences of practical exercises designed to help today’s actors and students become thoroughly familiar with the tools in Stanislavsky’s toolkit.

‘Bella Merlin magically converts her extensive knowledge into real-world practice and on-the-floor technique. This new edition is a necessary and lively resource for any theatre practitioner.’ David Chambers, Professor of Directing, Yale School of Drama

‘One of the essential books about acting for both professionals and students… brings new clarity to unlocking what Stanislavsky means for actors today.’ Michael Earley, Principal, Rose Bruford College of Theatre and Performance

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