Michael Kustow's Books

Peter Brook

A Biography

By: Michael Kustow

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Peter Brook is one of the world's legendary theater directors. His productions are a byword for imagination, energy, and innovation. From his ground-breaking production of Marat/Sade, to his "white box" A Midsummer Night's Dream, to his monumental staging of The Mahabharata and beyond, Brook has always been the pioneer of what a director and a company of actors can conjure out of an empty stage. In this first authoritative biography, arising out of an association and friendship with Brook over forty years, Michael Kustow tells the fascinating and revealing story of a man whose life has been a never-ending quest. Born into a Russian émigré family in London, Brook has been fascinated by theater and film since childhood. He studied at Oxford, where he made a film of Laurence Sterne's A Sentimental Journey and was almost sent down during his turbulent undergraduate years. As a brilliant young man influenced by the theatrical visionary Gordon Craig, he turned his hand to Shakespeare, opera, new French drama, and mainstream comedy. Following Craig's philosophy, Brook began to search for a simplicity, harmony, and beauty that would incorporate all aspects of the stage production under the control of one person. He also began the lifelong search for authenticity on the stage, a search that led him around the world from London to New York, to his legendary Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord in Paris, to Broadway and the Brooklyn Academy of Music. It was in Paris, in the 1970s, that he attempted to discover a universal language of theater with an international group of actors. This collaboration resulted in a series of visually spectacular and innovative shows including The Ik, The Conference of the Birds, and The Mahabharata. In his long and influential career, he worked with some of the world's greatest actors and writers including Glenda Jackson, Paul Scofield, John Gielgud, Laurence Olivier, Irene Worth, Jeanne Moreau, Peter Weiss, and Truman Capote. His films, such as Lord of the Flies, Moderato Cantabile, King Lear (with Paul Scofield), The Beggar's Opera, and the film of Marat/Sade moved the camera and the screen to borders they had not reached before. His book The Empty Space continues to be one of the classic works on theater and drama in the Western canon and his memoir, Threads of Time, gave us a glimpse into his personal development. In this biography, based on extensive interviews with Peter Brook and many of the actors, writers, producers, and directors he's worked with throughout his life, Michael Kustow goes to the heart of Brook's theater, his self-searching and his unceasing desire to produce work that redefines theater and life.

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425

Publisher

St. Martin's Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1466879750

ISBN 13

9781466879751

Peter Brook

A Biography

By: Michael Kustow

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Peter Brook

A Biography

By: Michael Kustow

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425

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St. Martin's Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1466879750

ISBN 13

9781466879751

Titus Andronicus

By: Michael Friedman

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Titus Andronicus

By: Michael Friedman

Michael D. Friedman’s second edition of this stage history of Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus adds an examination of twelve major theatrical productions and one film that appeared in the years 1989–2009. Friedman identifies four lines of descent in the recent performance history of the play: the stylised, realistic, darkly comic, and political approaches, which culminate in Julie Taymor’s harrowing film Titus (1999). Aspects of Taymor’s eclectic vision of ancient Rome under the grip of modern fascism were copied by several subsequent productions, making Titus the most characteristic, as well as the most influential, contemporary performance of the play. Friedman’s work extends Alan Dessen’s original study to include Taymor’s film, along with chapters devoted to the efforts of international directors including Gregory Doran, Silviu Purcarete, and Yukio Ninagawa. This expanded volume will prove essential to students of Shakespeare’s play, along with scholars interested in the tragedy’s gruesome yet occasionally comical performance history.

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Page Count

260

Publisher

Manchester University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1526101904

ISBN 13

9781526101907

Stage Blood

Five tempestuous years in the early life of the National Theatre

By: Michael Blakemore

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Stage Blood

Five tempestuous years in the early life of the National Theatre

By: Michael Blakemore

In 1971, Michael Blakemore joined the National Theatre as Associate Director under Laurence Olivier. The National, still based at the Old Vic, was at a moment of transition awaiting the move to its vast new home on the South Bank. Relying on generous subsidy, it would need an extensive network of supporters in high places. Olivier, a scrupulous and brilliant autocrat from a previous generation, was not the man to deal with these political ramifications. His tenure began to unravel and, behind his back, Peter Hall was appointed to replace him in 1973. As in other aspects of British life, the ethos of public service, which Olivier espoused, was in retreat. Having staged eight productions for the National, Blakemore found himself increasingly uncomfortable under Hall's regime. Stage Blood is the candid and at times painfully funny story of the events that led to his dramatic exit in 1976. He recalls the theatrical triumphs and flops, his volatile relationship with Olivier including directing him in Long Day's Journey into Night, the extravagant dinners in Hall's Barbican flat with Harold Pinter, Jonathan Miller and the other associates, the opening of the new building, and Blakemore's brave and misrepresented decision to speak out. He would not return to the National for fifteen years.

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Page Count

256

Publisher

Faber & Faber

Published Date

ISBN 10

0571311237

ISBN 13

9780571311231

Thinking Like a Director

A Practical Handbook

By: Michael Bloom

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Thinking Like a Director

A Practical Handbook

By: Michael Bloom

Concise and engaging, Michael Bloom's book is for anyone who has ever uttered the phrase, "But what I really want to do is direct.""--BOOK JACKET.

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254

Publisher

Macmillan

Published Date

ISBN 10

0571199941

ISBN 13

9780571199945

A Strange Eventful History

The Dramatic Lives of Ellen Terry, Henry Irving, and Their Remarkable Families

By: Michael Holroyd

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A Strange Eventful History

The Dramatic Lives of Ellen Terry, Henry Irving, and Their Remarkable Families

By: Michael Holroyd

PLEASE NOTE: THIS EBOOK DOES NOT CONTAIN PHOTOS INCLUDED IN THE PRINT EDITION. Deemed "a prodigy among biographers" by The New York Times Book Review, Michael Holroyd transformed biography into an art. Now he turns his keen observation, humane insight, and epic scope on an ensemble cast, a remarkable dynasty that presided over the golden age of theater. Ellen Terry was an ethereal beauty, the child bride of a Pre-Raphaelite painter who made her the face of the age. George Bernard Shaw was so besotted by her gifts that he could not bear to meet her, lest the spell she cast from the stage be broken. Henry Irving was an ambitious, harsh-voiced merchant's clerk, but once he painted his face and spoke the lines of Shakespeare, his stammer fell away to reveal a magnetic presence. He would become one of the greatest actor-managers in the history of the theater. Together, Terry and Irving created a powerhouse of the arts in London's Lyceum Theatre, with Bram Stoker—who would go on to write Dracula—as manager. Celebrities whose scandalous private lives commanded global attention, they took America by stormin wildly popular national tours. Their all-consuming professional lives left little room for their brilliant but troubled children. Henry's boys followed their father into the theater but could not escape the shadow of his fame. Ellen's feminist daughter, Edy, founded an avant-garde theater and a largely lesbian community at her mother's country home. But it was Edy's son, the revolutionary theatrical designer Edward Gordon Craig, who possessed the most remarkable gifts and the most perplexing inability to realize them. A now forgotten modernist visionary, he collaborated with the Russian director Stanislavski on a production of Hamlet that forever changed the way theater was staged. Maddeningly self-absorbed, he inherited his mother's potent charm and fathered thirteen children by eight women, including a daughter with the dancer Isadora Duncan. An epic story spanning a century of cultural change, A Strange Eventful History finds space for the intimate moments of daily existence as well as the bewitching fantasies played out by its subjects. Bursting with charismatic life, it is an incisive portrait of two families who defied the strictures of their time. It will be swiftly recognized as a classic. Please note: This ebook edition does not contain photos and illustrations that appeared in the print edition.

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Page Count

772

Publisher

Macmillan + ORM

Published Date

ISBN 10

1429939044

ISBN 13

9781429939041

Directions by Indirections

John Barton of the Royal Shakespeare Company

By: Michael L. Greenwald

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Directions by Indirections

John Barton of the Royal Shakespeare Company

By: Michael L. Greenwald

This book traces the evolution of John Barton, one of this century's most important directors, from his days as a Cambridge student and scholar through his career with the prestigious Royal Shakespeare Company. Two lengthy interviews with Barton are included, as well as a number of rare pictures of his Cambridge work and representative pictures from his Royal Shakespeare Company productions.

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Page Count

332

Publisher

University of Delaware Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0874132649

ISBN 13

9780874132649

Film – An International Bibliography

By: Malte Hagener,Michael Töteberg

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Film – An International Bibliography

By: Malte Hagener,Michael Töteberg

Kommentierte Bibliografie. Sie gibt Wissenschaftlern, Studierenden und Journalisten zuverlässig Auskunft über rund 6000 internationale Veröffentlichungen zum Thema Film und Medien. Die vorgestellten Rubriken reichen von Nachschlagewerk über Filmgeschichte bis hin zu Fernsehen, Video, Multimedia.

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Page Count

489

Publisher

Springer

Published Date

ISBN 10

3476036863

ISBN 13

9783476036865

In Search of Jerusalem

By: Michael Kustow

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In Search of Jerusalem

By: Michael Kustow

One of the biographies of our generation - richly layered, funny, argumentative, moving and intellectually admirable. A great achievement" Melvyn Bragg Ranging across the years, In Search of Jerusalem conjures up the spirited encounters of Michael Kustow's many-sided life: a tender evocation of his parents; portraits of actors, stage directors, painters, film-makers; vivid descriptions of post-war and modern Paris, Mumbai, Tel Aviv and the occupied West Bank; the early days of Channel 4 television; and new insights into a moment of challenge and change. A life shaken up is reassembled in Kustow's cavalcade of survival and renewal.

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Page Count

160

Publisher

Oberon Books

Published Date

ISBN 10

1840028726

ISBN 13

9781840028720

Book's by Michael Kustow

Peter Brook

Peter Brook

Peter Brook

Peter Brook

Titus Andronicus

Titus Andronicus

Stage Blood

Stage Blood

Thinking Like a Director

Thinking Like a Director

A Strange Eventful History

A Strange Eventful History

Directions by Indirections

Directions by Indirections

Film – An International Bibliography

Film – An International Bibliography

In Search of Jerusalem

In Search of Jerusalem

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