2011 Reading List

2011 Reading List

If you are looking for something to read, check out the list below.  If you want to discuss a work below, just add a comment.

Plays

1. Kreitzer, Carson. Freakshow in Funny, Strange, Provocative. Seven Plays from Clubbed Thumb. New York, NY, Playscripts, Inc, 2007.  I’m still not sure how I feel about this play, which takes us into the lives of a group of carnival performers, hence the title.  The play’s aim seems to be showing that these people are more than mere objects of public scrutiny and titillation, that they have hearts and minds and lives of their own.  I’d like to see the play staged, given the potential challenges it poses, from Amalia, the woman with no arms or legs, to Aquaboy, the human salamander who spends the entire show submerged in a tank of water from what I can gather.
2. Congdon, Constance. Losing Father’s Body in Tales of the Lost Formicans and Other Plays. New York, TCG: 2000.  I found this play just humorous enough. It takes place in the hours leading up to the viewing and funeral of the Anderson family’s deceased patriarch. Given my work with hospice and plays on death and dying, I’m glad to have discovered this play.

Texts on Directing 

1. Brook, Peter. The Empty Space.
2. Brook Peter. Forgetting Shakespeare.
3. Bogart, Anne. A Director Prepares.
4. Mitchell, Katie. The Director’s Craft.