Thursday, July 9, 2009

How to make great theatre:

The director for Rosencrantz & Guildenstern ran across this book at a local second-hand bookstore. subtitled "A handbook for the Backstage worker; a guidebook for the Student of Drama" this book is a joke.


The sample of a "good" promptbook is ridiculous: notes scribbled everywhere & no sense of order to it.

For the actors among us, the book presents the proper way to sit in a chair, the variety of ways one can pose with certain furniture. We've also got the correct & wrong ways to embrace, foot positions & how the first step should be.


One of my favorites is this graph of how a laugh on stage works.


and if you're looking for advice on aging makeup they have that too.

5 comments:

Kate Foy said...

I've got this one somewhere. Check the publication date. Is it 1960s or 70s? I think it's fair to say we've come a loooong way since then.

http://thenextstage.wordpress.com said...

It's '56. I know because I just bought a copy on Amazon for $1.99, SO awesome!

Thanks for the heads up, can't wait for the laughs.

~Simon

Brainwise said...

Knock off one more dollar, and I'd buy a copy!

Phil said...

Pose #17 is immediately going into my regular repertoire.

RebeccaZ said...

An acting teacher I had in college had been a B-Movie actress and was probably in her 70s when she taught us ... she taught us how to take that first step and sit in a chair ... how to rise from the chair after sitting. How to do a stage kiss (and she always pulled the best looking guy in the class to demonstrate with her). She was a hoot.

What a great book!