Staging Shakespeare: Helpful Books
Monday, April 14th by Jen
After writing my last post, it occurred to me that I have a wealth of knowledge to share with people who are interested in staging Shakespeare…but 99% of it is on my bookshelves! I only learned as much as I did last year from the great books that I managed to find, usually from Amazon.com. So this post will simply be a list of the best books I found - ones that I would recommend you invest in for your drama department:
Teaching Shakespeare, Rex Gibson
**Shakespeare’s Words, David Crystal & Ben Crystal
Instant Shakespeare, Louis Fantasia
A Shakespearean Actor Prepares, Adrian Brine & Michael York
Teaching Shakespeare, Peter Reynolds
**The DK Essential Shakespeare Handbook, Leslie Dunton-Downer & Alan Riding
Secrets of Acting Shakespeare: The Original Approach, Patrick Tucker
Mastering Shakespeare: An Acting Class in Seven Scenes, Scott Kaiser
**The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Amateur Theatricals, John Kenrick
Stage Costume: Step-By-Step, Mary T. Kidd
**Costume Construction, Katherine Evans-Strand
Discovering Shakespeare’s Meaning: An Introduction to the Study of Shakespeare, Leah Scragg
Playing Shakespeare: An Actor’s Guide, John Barton
**Will Power: How to Act Shakespeare in 21 Days, John Basil
Freeing Shakespeare’s Voice: The Actor’s Guide to Talking the Text, Kristin Linklater
**Play Director’s Survival Kit, James and Wanda Rodgers
**Clues to Acting Shakespeare, Wesley Van Tassel
If I could only choose certain ones from the list, I would definitely make sure I had the ones marked with **. These have been positively indispensable in figuring out how to direct Shakespeare, and a couple of them (especially those by Rodgers and Kenrick) are great resources for any drama department to have on hand.
April 14th, 2008 at 5:04 pm
Great suggestions. I have a couple to add myself. The first three are for the teacher/director.
“Playgoing in Shakespeare’s London,” by Andrew Gurr.
“Endeavors in Art: A Study in the Form of Elizabethan Drama” by Madeline Doran.
“Shakespeare’s Professional Career,” by Peter Thomson
For Students and Teachers: Great texts that have meaningful insights: “Solioquy! The Shakespeare Monologues.”
Anybody out there to second our suggestions?
April 15th, 2008 at 12:08 am
“Shakespeare A to Z” Charles Boyce
“Thinking Shakespeare” Barry Edelstein
“Speaking Shakespeare” Patsy Rodenberg
“Shakespeare Lexicon and Quotation Dictionary” Volumes 1 (A-M) and 2 (N-Z), Alexander Schmidt
They each should get infinite asterisks. Some of your choices I really like. Shakespeare’s Words is amazing. So is the Essential Shakespeare Handbook. There are a lot of books out there that are great and I can’t really pick just a few. The best thing to do is to make your way through as many books as you can. There’s always more to learn. That’s why my bookshelf is overflowing with books of, on, and about Shakespeare.
April 15th, 2008 at 7:18 am
I’ve been eyeballing the “Shakespeare Lexicon” by Schmidt, but hadn’t yet given in to the temptation of adding “just one more Shakespeare book”…I may be visiting amazon today!
April 16th, 2008 at 9:06 am
Just got another one in the mail - “Theater Games for Rehearsal: A Director’s Handbook,” by Viola Spolin. This is really a neat little book because in addition to the games and activity ideas, it also goes into getting started with a theatrical production. Lots of great ideas and information!