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History & Criticism eBooks

If you like History & Criticism eBooks, then you'll love these top picks.
Showing 1 - 24 of 2502 Results
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  • Saturday Night: A Backstage History of Saturday Night Live

    Saturday Night is the intimate history of the original Saturday Night Live, from its beginnings as an outlaw program produced by an unruly band of renegades from the comedy underground to a TV institution that made stars of John Belushi, Bill Murray, Chevy Chase, Gilda Radner, Jane Curtin, Laraine Newman, Garrett Morris, Joe Piscopo and Eddie Murphy. This is the book that revealed to the world ... Read more

    $6.99 USD or Free with Kobo Plus

  • Notes on a Cowardly Lion

    The Biography of Bert Lahr

    by John Lahr ...
    John Lahr’s stunning and complex biography of his father, the legendary actor and comedian Bert LahrNotes on a Cowardly Lion is John Lahr’s masterwork: an all-encompassing biography of his father, the comedian and performer Bert Lahr. Best known as the Cowardly Lion in MGM’s classic The Wizard of Oz, Lahr was a consummate artist whose career spanned burlesque, vaudeville, Broadway, and Hollywood. ... Read more

    $2.99 USD or Free with Kobo Plus

  • The Method

    How the Twentieth Century Learned to Act

    by Isaac Butler ...
    National Book Critics Circle Award Winner, Nonfiction**NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF 2022 BY THE NEW YORKER, TIME MAGAZINE, SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE, VOX, SALON, LIT HUB, AND VANITY FAIR“Entertaining and illuminating.”--The New Yorker * “Compulsively readable.”--New York Times * “Delicious, humane, probing.”--Vulture * “The best and most important book about acting I've ever re... ... Read more

    $13.99 USD

  • Oscar Wilde's Last Stand

    Decadence, Conspiracy, and the Most Outrageous Trial of the Century

    by Philip Hoare ...
    A New York Times Notable Book of the Year that Sir Ian McKellen called a shocking tale of heroes and villains-illuminating and upsetting in equal measure.”The first production of Oscar Wilde’s Salomé in 1918, with American exotic dancer Maud Allan dancing lead, ignited a firestorm in London spearheaded by Noel Pemberton Billing, a member of Parliament and self-appointed guardian of family values. ... Read more

    $11.99 USD

  • Ernie:

    The Autobiography

    We wept at his Oscar-winning role in Marty. . .we gasped when he took on Frank Sinatra in From Here to Eternity. . .we were riveted by his compelling performances in The Dirty Dozen, Bad Day at Black Rock, and Ice Station Zebra. . .and we laughed at his television sitcom McHale's Navy. We loved all of Ernest Borgnine's many portrayals, but what did we know about the man behind the famous roles? ... Read more

    $11.99 USD

  • Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

    Series series The Fourth Wall
    Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? shocked audiences and critics alike with its assault on decorum. At base though, the play is simply a love story: an examination of a long-wedded life, filled with the hopes, dreams, disappointments, and pain that accompany the passing of many years together.While the ethos of the play is tragicomic, it is the anachronistic, melodramatic secret object ... Read more

    $12.99 USD

  • Look Back in Anger

    by John Osborne ...
    In 1956 John Osborne's Look Back in Anger changed the course of English theatre.' Look Back in Anger presents post-war youth as it really is. To have done this at all would be a significant achievement; to have done it in a first play is a minor miracle. All the qualities are there, qualities one had despaired of ever seeing on stage - the drift towards anarchy, the instinctive leftishness, the ... Read more

    $12.99 USD

  • This Was Burlesque

    A rollicking, colorfully illustrated history of burlesque as seen through the eyes of its first lady, Ann Corio. ... Read more

    $12.99 USD $2.99 USD or Free with Kobo Plus

  • Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh

    by John Lahr ...
    **National Book Critics Circle Award Winner: Biography CategoryNational Book Award Finalist2015 Winner of the Sheridan Morley Prize for Theatre BiographyAmerican Academy of Arts and Letters’ Harold D. Vursell Memorial AwardA Chicago Tribune 'Best Books of 2014'USA Today: 10 Books We Loved ReadingWashington Post, 10 Best Books of 2014The definitive biography of America's greatest playwright from ... Read more

    $14.99 USD

  • The Magical Life of Long Tack Sam

    A full-color graphic memoir inspired by the award-winning documentary-and the life and mystery of China's greatest magician.Who was Long Tack Sam?He was born in 1885. He ran away from Shangdung Province to join the circus. He was an acrobat. A magician. A comic. An impresario. A restaurateur. A theater owner. A world traveler. An East-West ambassador. A mentor to Orson Welles. He was considered ... Read more

    $9.99 USD

  • The Great White Way

    Race and the Broadway Musical

    Broadway musicals are one of America’s most beloved art forms and play to millions of people each year. But what do these shows, which are often thought to be just frothy entertainment, really have to say about our country and who we are as a nation?Now in a new second edition, The Great White Way is the first book to reveal the racial politics, content, and subtexts that have haunted musicals for ... Read more

    $21.99 USD

  • The World Only Spins Forward

    The Ascent of Angels in America

    "Marvelous . . . A vital book about how to make political art that offers lasting solace in times of great trouble, and wisdom to audiences in the years that follow."- Washington PostNAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY NPRA STONEWALL BOOK AWARDS HONOR BOOKThe oral history of Angels in America, as told by the artists who created it and the audiences forever changed by it--a moving acco... ... Read more

    $13.99 USD

  • Invitation to the Party

    Building Bridges to the Arts, Culture and Community

    Presented workshops or space at following venues: Arts and Business Council; Professional Women’s Exchange of NY; League of American Theatres and Producers; National Guild of Community Schools for the Arts; National Endowment for the Arts; Walker Arts Center; Boys and Girls Club of America; Yale School of Drama; Columbia Graduate School of Journalism; and American Express National Arts Marketing ... Read more

    $14.99 USD

  • Theatre of the Unimpressed

    In Search of Vital Drama

    Series series Exploded Views
    How dull plays are killing theatre and what we can do about it.Had I become disenchanted with the form I had once fallen so madly in love with as a pubescent, pimple-faced suburban homo with braces? Maybe theatre was like an all-consuming high school infatuation that now, ten years later, I saw as the closeted balding guy with a beer gut he’d become. There were of course those rare moments of ... Read more

    $8.99 USD

  • Not Since Carrie

    Forty Years of Broadway Musical Flops

    Not Since Carrie is Ken Mandelbaum's brilliant survey of Broadway's biggest flops. This highly readable and entertaining book highlights almost 200 musicals created between 1950 and 1990, framed around the notorious musical adaptation of Carrie, and examines the reasons for their failure. "Essential and hilarious," raves The New Yorker, and The New York Times calls the book "A must-read." ... Read more

    $11.99 USD

  • Groucho And Me

    by Groucho Marx ...
    "An important contribution to the history of show business and to the saga of American comedy and comedians, comics and comicality."--James ThurberWith impeccable timing, outrageous humor, irreverent wit, and a superb sense of the ridiculous, Groucho tells the saga of the Marx Brothers: the poverty of their childhood in New York's Upper East Side; the crooked world of small-time vaudeville (where ... Read more

    $11.99 USD

  • 100 Essays I Don't Have Time to Write

    On Umbrellas and Sword Fights, Parades and Dogs, Fire Alarms, Children, and Theater

    by Sarah Ruhl ...
    100 Essays I Don't Have Time to Write is an incisive, idiosyncratic collection on life and theater from major American playwright Sarah Ruhl.This is a book in which chimpanzees, Chekhov, and child care are equally at home. A vibrant, provocative examination of the possibilities of the theater, it is also a map to a very particular artistic sensibility, and an unexpected guide for anyone who has ... Read more

    $11.99 USD

  • The Theater of War

    What Ancient Greek Tragedies Can Teach Us Today

    For years theater director Bryan Doerries has been producing ancient Greek tragedies for a wide range of at-risk people in society. His is the personal and deeply passionate story of a life devoted to reclaiming the timeless power of an ancient artistic tradition to comfort the afflicted.Doerries leads an innovative public health project—Theater of War—that produces ancient dramas for current and ... Read more

    $13.99 USD

  • Hamlet, Globe to Globe

    Two Years, 190,000 Miles, 197 Countries, One Play

    Translated by Michael Gallagher ...
    A New York Times Notable Book: “A loving testament to the enduring ability of Shakespeare’s play to connect in myriad ways across countries and cultures” (Pop Matters).For the 450th anniversary of Shakespeare’s birth, the Globe Theatre undertook an unparalleled journey: to take Hamlet to every country on the planet, to share this beloved play with the entire world. The tour was the brainchild of ... Read more

    $12.99 USD or Free with Kobo Plus

  • A Mad Love

    An Introduction to Opera

    A lively introduction to opera, from the Renaissance to the twenty-first centuryThere are few art forms as visceral and emotional as opera -- and few that are as daunting for newcomers. A Mad Love offers a spirited and indispensable tour of opera's eclectic past and present, beginning with Monteverdi's L'Orfeo in 1607, generally considered the first successful opera, through classics like Carmen ... Read more

    $16.99 USD

  • The Importance of Being Earnest (Illustrated + FREE audiobook link + Active TOC)

    by Oscar Wilde ...
    FEATURES:• Includes beautiful artworks and illustrations• A link of a FREE audio book to download at the end of the book• Active Table of Contents for an easy navigation within the book• Manually coded and crafted by professionals for highest formatting quality and standardsCheck out ngims Publishing's other illustrated literary classics. The vast majority of our books have original illustrations, ... Read more

    $0.99 USD

  • The Theatre of the Absurd

    by Martin Esslin ...
    In 1953, Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot premiered at a tiny avant-garde theatre in Paris; within five years, it had been translated into more than twenty languages and seen by more than a million spectators. Its startling popularity marked the emergence of a new type of theatre whose proponents—Beckett, Ionesco, Genet, Pinter, and others—shattered dramatic conventions and paid scant attention ... Read more

    $11.99 USD $9.99 USD

  • The Viewpoints Book

    A Practical Guide to Viewpoints and Composition

    The Viewpoints is a technique of improvisation that grew out of the postmodern dance world. It was first articulated by choreographer Mary Overlie, who broke down the two dominant issues performers deal with—space and time—into six categories. Since that time, directors Anne Bogart and Tina Landau have expanded her notions and adapted them for actors to function together spontaneously and ... Read more

    $14.99 USD

  • Revolutionary Acts

    Amateur Theater and the Soviet State, 1917-1938

    by Lynn Mally ...
    During the Russian Revolution and Civil War, amateur theater groups sprang up in cities across the country. Workers, peasants, students, soldiers, and sailors provided entertainment ranging from improvisations to gymnastics and from propaganda sketches to the plays of Chekhov. In Revolutionary Acts, Lynn Mally reconstructs the history of the amateur stage in Soviet Russia from 1917 to the height ... Read more

    Free