Reddit mentions: The best drama & plays anthologies

Cheers! Well, thanks to everyone, but I won't reply just to say thank you. Y'all know I appreciate your helpfulness.

This Norton anthology of yours; well, I found a few on Amazon (which is undoubtedly where I'm going to get it), and there is a "regular" edition and an "International Student Edition". However I am unable to discern any difference between the two as the latter lacks a description. Would any of these two be the one you own? Either one sounds brilliant, but there is quite a price difference.

Is Tarantino a "great writer of dialogue?" Personally, I don't think so. I think that he is a very talented director who has mastered the understanding of the "bomb under the table" technique of building suspense.

For example, Inglorious Basterds opens with a scene of Col. Hans Landa sitting down for a smoke and a chat with a dairy farmer. There's nothing particularly interesting about this dialogue. Nothing at all. It's very ordinary.

What makes the scene compelling, though, is the fact that the audience is aware that the dairy farmer is hiding a Jewish family and that Landa is a Nazi. Additionally, Landa explicitly tells the farmer of his "Jew Hunter" nickname.

As per Hitchcock, we have two men having a conversation for five minutes while sitting at the kitchen table. A Jewish family is literally under the table. One of the men is hiding that family and the other man is hunting that family. They could talk about anything at all. Milk. Tobacco. Baseball. It doesn't matter what. The audience will be in suspense for the duration of that scene because we know that something is going to happen at the end of it.

The scene isn't memorable because of any specific lines of dialogue that the characters speak. It's memorable because the situation is dramatic.

Credit to Tarantino, of course, for writing this scene in a dramatic way. A lesser writer might have had the Nazis storm into the cabin and interrogate the farmer. Instead, Tarantino has created a character in Landa who is unsettlingly civil with a penchant for pageantry. And yes, the dialogue reveals Lando's character and raises the stakes of the plot, so it certainly is "good" in that it does what dialogue is supposed to do.

What's great about this scene, though, is that it builds tension in other scenes throughout the movie.

Later in the film, Landa sits down at a cafe with Shoshanna, the lone survivor of the previous scene. Tarantino has firmly established that Landa knows where Jews are hiding. And Tarantino has firmly established that Landa prefers to indulge in a bit of theater and pomp before unleashing his violence.

So when he sits down at the table with Shoshanna, the audience feels as though there is a bomb under the table once again, and we're confident -- if not certain -- that this scene will end the same as the earlier scene. So it's excruciating to watch Landa order pie and engage in small talk because of the suspense the film has earned by showing us nearly the exact same scene.

Of course, this time the scene ends differently. Landa really just wanted some pie and has no idea that Shoshanna is Jewish. This comes as a pretty big surprise to the audience. It also furthers to build suspense throughout the rest of the film because now we can't be sure if any conversation is going to end in an explosion of violence or a polite parting.

The dialogue in these scenes, though, is only ancillary. Anybody could have written the dialogue in these scenes and the scenes still would have played out with the same sense of suspense and urgency thanks to Tarantino's excellent direction and Christolph Waltz's fantastic characterization.

Before I sat down to right this mini-essay, I simply thought, "Tarantino isn't a great writer of dialogue." Writing this analysis, though, forced me to think about what Tarantino does as a writer and why it works within the context of his scripts ... and these insights will help me in my writing in the future.

So I suppose that this is ultimately a rather long-winded way of saying that I think it's more important to analyze why we enjoy and remember the dialogue of our favorite films than it is to simply list our favorites.

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tl;dr ... David Mamet, David Ives, Billy Wilder, Tom Stoppard, William Goldman and John Hughes

> It's never too old to start with acting.

Reading this made me feel a lot better. Even though I've been acting since high school and just graduated with a BA in theatre performance, I still sometimes feel like I'm way behind in the game because I wasn't into youth theatre or haven't gotten an agent yet. Great inclusion!


Also, if you wanted to add a book that's a great starting point for reading plays, the Norton Anthology of Drama (Shorter Edition) is a great collection of classics leading up to more contemporary plays. It was basically a staple all 4 years at my university. (Kind of expensive, but if you can find a library where you can check it out, it's definitely worth the read! There's also the full sized Norton Anthology of Drama that comes with two volumes and quite a few great plays.)

You'll be hard-pressed to find general medieval British literature anthologies that don't include Beowulf and Chaucer. But here are a few ideas to get your started.

Norton is obviously standard and plentiful previous editions can be found for cheap.

Broadview publishes an anthology that I think is closer to what you are looking for. The major stuff is still included, but you also have more "obscure" stuff that isn't standard survey fare--like Gower and Hoccleve.

Wiley publishes an anthology similar to Broadview, so you may want to compare the table of contents to see which you are most interested in.

Pearson has an anthology of Old English, Old Icelandic, and Anglo-Norman literature, which, though obviously not restricted to "England," provides interesting northern European context to early English literature.

There are also many, many anthologies that focus on a specific type of medieval literature (which can also include more than just English literature)--like love debate poetry, medieval drama, lyrical poetry, and women's visionary literature.

There are also a lot of online resources available for medieval literature. The University of Rochester, together with the Medieval Institute at Western Michigan University, publishes a series of Middle English texts (TEAMS). You can buy bound copies or read them free online. They also have the Camelot Project, which is a compilation of both edited medieval Arthurian literature and later adaptations of the Arthurian tales (like Tennyson).

Halloween? Look into Slasher - a comedy about making a low budget horror picture. It can allow for some interesting usage of video tech.

Look Research I did: http://www.pwcenter.org/fellows_voices.php?uid=472&

Read in this collection (check your library!): http://www.amazon.com/Humana-Festival-2009-Adrien-Alice-Hansel/dp/0981909930/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1321857560&sr=8-1

Also consider - "The Baltimore Waltz" by Vogel and "Art" by Reza. Both plays are small cast, low set and tech intense, and are far more interesting than 'Almost, Maine'. However, 'Almost' is a crowd pleaser for sure and is fairly easy to direct due the playwright not trust directors and writing stage directions for every damn line. Always consider your audience and why a play needs to be done for that particular audience. If it is just to entertain, you might as well screen a good pop-corn movie and call it day.

If you looking for a place to buy plays, Abebooks.com or the amazon used section. Check around your city for the local half-price or discount book store. Call to ask if they have a drama section.

I have a book of plays by Christopher Durang that I'm working through, but before this I had just reread these three plays by Rajiv Joseph. Gruesome Playground Injuries is one of my favorite plays that features only two people and I love how the two characters seem real no matter at what age they're shown (which is from 8-38). I highly recommend Gruesome for someone looking to get into reading plays.

It is generally believed that the plot of Othello, devoid racial issues, was derived from Giovanbatitista Giraldi Cinthio's De glib hecatommithi ("Hundred Tales," third decade, seventh story, 1565), also known as Un Capitano Moro ("A Moorish Captain").

The racial tension present in the play is thought to be drawn primarily from the 1600 translation of A Geographical Historie of Africa written by Leo Africanus, a Moroccan Muslim captured by Christian pirates and brought to Rome, where he converted to Catholicism.

His constructions of Venetian-Turkish affairs is thought to have been taken from Richard Knolle's General History of the Turkes (1603).

Since you are doing a presentation you probability looking for sources. I would recommend The Norton Shakespeare it has a great overview of the history of Shakespeare and his influences. It is quite common and should be found in most libraries, although it might be in the reference section.

If you are looking for something a little more substantive I would recommend:

• Understanding Othello: A Student Casebook to Issues, Sources, and Historical Documents
  by Faith Nostbakken
  
• Othello: Critical Essays edited by Philip Kolin
  
• Critical Essays on Shakespeare's Othello edited by Anthony Barthelemy
  
  Good Luck!
  

This is a sitting room in Singapore in 1986, designed by the Memphis Group. They are the group responsible for the designs and styles many of us now associate with the 1980s. They didn't actually make very many pieces, but what they did make influenced everybody else.


I believe the image above is featured in this book.


Just doing a Google Image Search for "The International Collection of Interior Design" will bring up some great room layouts from the era, some with the obvious inspiration of the Memphis Group and others that look more "country" or "80's mall."

David Ive's one acts are generally a simple set. Most of them might be too short for what you're wanting though. They are utterly hilarious though and a lot of fun to do in my opinion. You can get a collection of 14 of his one acts pretty cheap in his "All in the Timing" collection.

Here are all the local Amazon links I could find:


amazon.co.uk

amazon.ca

amazon.com.au

amazon.in

amazon.com.mx

amazon.de

amazon.it

amazon.es

amazon.com.br

amazon.nl

amazon.co.jp

amazon.fr

Beep bloop. I'm a bot to convert Amazon ebook links to local Amazon sites.
I currently look here: amazon.com, amazon.co.uk, amazon.ca, amazon.com.au, amazon.in, amazon.com.mx, amazon.de, amazon.it, amazon.es, amazon.com.br, amazon.nl, amazon.co.jp, amazon.fr, if you would like your local version of Amazon adding please contact my creator.

I saw the complete works of Willm Shaxberd in an edition I didn't have, which would have intriguing supplementary material, but I DIDN'T buy it for complex, brain-fart reasons.

It was a five-dollar-to-fill-a-bag library sale. Early on I found a book I KIND OF wanted, and quickly realized that was all I wanted. I became biased against filling my bag at all and just walking out. Well into doing this, I saw The Wonton Chronicles of One Willm Shaxberd, 3rd Ed. I decided NOT to get it for two reasons: 1) mainly, the bias established by the situation, and 2) I already had the third edition, and didn't realize how much I'd like to have the second as well. I could have bought that one book for fifty cents, but my brain didn't fully digest that option.

The decision was mainly situational and brain-fart related. Now I totally regret it.

If you're buying it, and you want to try and hit as wide a shot as possible with your buck, look into anthologies. If you're just starting out, Stages of Drama has been read by every single person with a degree in theatre and is a great "short list" of plays to know. Also, if you end up attending college, you WILL read from this book.

Very good stuff here. A few add-on articles and what not for those interested:

• 1970 Koza Riot
  
  
  
• 1995 Rape incident
  
  
• Robert Eldridge, the USMC official who branded the anti-base demonstrations 'hate speech' as described in the link from the first section was later dismissed from his position for leaking security footage from US bases to neo-nationalist groups.
  
  
• Three Okinawan writers I would recommend who tackle these issues if a variety of ways are Oshiro Tatsuhiro ('Cocktail Party' is his most famous work and very explicitly explores the frustration many Okinawans felt during the occupation concerning their inability to protect themselves from American violence), Eiki Matayoshi ("The Wild Boar That George Gunned Down" is a very rich short story that portrays and incredibly dark and violent Okinawa bar town situated near a US base) and Shun Medoruma (whose "Hope" is perhaps one of the most explicit and shocking pieces of literature I have ever read but at the same time gives voice to some of the deepest frustrations felt by those on the island). It is also worth noting that Medoruma was recently arrested by the US military for protesting the constructing the base in Henoko Bay. Let me know if you are interested in reading any of these works and I can try and help you out. Unfortunately they are not always so easy to find, though I must recommend a couple of anthologies that have come out in recent years that are excellent, mainly Southern Exposure and Islands of Protest.
  
  
• I would STRONGLY recommend taking a look at this Jan. 2016 US gov't issued report about the base situation, it gives some very clear numbers and provides maps and the like to help get the facts straight.
  
  
• Concerning Agent Orange and Okinawa: FOIA Documents Reveal Agent Orange Dioxin, Toxic Dumps, Fish Kills on Okinawa Base. Two Veterans Win Compensation, Many More Denied
  
  
• The most recent chemical leak incident:
  > In one incident last May, described by base officials as “vandalism,” a drunk U.S. Marine activated a firefighting system. It filled a hangar with more than 1,500 liters of JET-X 2.75 percent — a foam classified by the U.S. government as hazardous. It contains chemicals known to cause cancer, and neurological and reproductive disorders. Although the agent flowed off the base into nearby waterways and the ocean, military officials decided not to report the accident to Japanese authorities or local residents.
  
  I too, could go on. Lived on one of Okinawa's smaller islands for three years and have since then have pivoted my entire career towards studying it. Anyways, really glad this post is getting the positive attention it has.
  
  EDIT: Changed the linked article concerning Agent Orange to a more reputable source.
  

Smith and Kraus publishes collections of ten minute plays every year. You can really find some good ones in there.

https://www.amazon.com/Best-Ten-Minute-Plays-2015-Minute/dp/1575258986/

Chinese Intelligence Operations

Terrorist Recognition Handbook: A Practitioner's Manual for Predicting and Identifying Terrorist Activities

Ghost Plane

State of War

U.S. Army Counterintelligence Handbook

The Psychology of intelligence Analysis

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Ken Campbell's solo shows are published in book format:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Bald-Trilogy-Recollections-Happiness/dp/0413690806/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1333890914&sr=8-2

Um, you're too late:

http://www.amazon.com/As-Time-Goes-Michael-Walsh/dp/0446607452