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Wednesday, March 22, 2017
15 Great Books About The Theater
New York Theater: The 50 best plays and 10 greatest musicals of the last century are all available as books to read, but what are the best books about the theater?
This article leaves me divided. There are points in which I really enjoy books about the process of a theatre production, but there are others in which I am left unimpressed. I think that books explaining motives and processes behind a production can be very helpful and very intriguing. By analyzing directors and designers action we, as young theatre artist, can learn techniques we may want to immolate or avoid. However, in recent years I have seen many books in Barnes and Nobles that appear to be nothing more than money sucking fan fiction. Books like these typically consist mostly photos and are made as forty dollar pits of general information that could have been gained off of Wikipedia. I have seen these sad excuses for a book for anything from Wicked to Hamilton and even Harry Potter. For that reason I have two very distinct opinions on books about theatre. If you are reading the right one you will learn so much, but don't waste your time with a book you should only receive as a gift.
1 comment:
This article leaves me divided. There are points in which I really enjoy books about the process of a theatre production, but there are others in which I am left unimpressed. I think that books explaining motives and processes behind a production can be very helpful and very intriguing. By analyzing directors and designers action we, as young theatre artist, can learn techniques we may want to immolate or avoid. However, in recent years I have seen many books in Barnes and Nobles that appear to be nothing more than money sucking fan fiction. Books like these typically consist mostly photos and are made as forty dollar pits of general information that could have been gained off of Wikipedia. I have seen these sad excuses for a book for anything from Wicked to Hamilton and even Harry Potter. For that reason I have two very distinct opinions on books about theatre. If you are reading the right one you will learn so much, but don't waste your time with a book you should only receive as a gift.
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