The RCBC Library has many course textbooks on reserve. These books can be reserved for two hours at a time.
You can view which textbooks are available by subject on this guide:
This updated fourth edition of Theatre Histories offers a critical overview of global theatre, drama, and performance, spanning a broad wealth of world cultures and periods, integrating them chronologically or thematically, and showing how they have often interacted. Bringing together a group of scholars from a diverse range of backgrounds and approaches to the history of global theater, this introduction to theatre history places theatre into its larger historical contexts and attends to communication's role in shaping theatre. Its case studies provide deeper knowledge of selected topics in theater and drama, and its "Thinking Through Theatre Histories" boxes discuss important concepts and approaches used in the book. Features of the fully updated fourth edition include: Deeper coverage of East Asian and Latin American theater. Richer treatment of popular culture. More illustrations, photographs, and information about online resources. New case studies, include several written by authoritative scholars on the topic. Pronunciation guidance, both in the text and as audio files online. Timelines. An introduction on historiography. A website with additional case studies, a glossary, recordings of the pronunciation of important non-English terms, and instructor resources. A case studies library listing, including both those in print and online, for greater instructor choice and flexibility. This is an essential textbook for undergraduate courses in theatre history, world theatre and introduction to theatre, and anyone looking for a full and diverse account of the emergence, development, and continuing relevance of theatre to cultures and societies across the world.
Nō drama, which integrates speech, song, dance, music, mask, and costume into a distinctive art form, is among Japan's most revered cultural traditions. It gained popularity in the fourteenth century, when the actor and playwright Zeami (1363-1443) drew the favor of the shogun with his theatrical innovations. Nō's intricacies and highly stylized conventions continue to attract Japanese and Western appreciation, and a repertoire of some 250 plays is performed today. Joy, Despair, Illusion, Dreams presents a selection of Nō plays, magnificently rendered in English by Royall Tyler, an eminent scholar and translator of classical Japanese literature. It includes both canonical and lesser-known works of Zeami's, as well as anonymous works. Several are outside the established repertoire, offering glimpses of Nō before the tradition was codified in the Edo period, and have not previously been translated into English. An introduction describes the structure, formal features, and performance conventions of Nō plays, and brief essays precede each work. Through Tyler's authoritative scholarship and keen ear for the subtlety and beauty of the language, Joy, Despair, Illusion, Dreams gives Anglophone readers access to the complex art of Nō.
The Big House Anthology is a celebration of the last decade of work and plays by a unique theatre company, featuring five original plays that offer a chance for stories with diverse casts to contribute to the canon of theatre's literature. As a UK-based theatre company, The Big House empowers care leavers and other disadvantaged young people through performance and long-term support. Their plays are born from the hearts and minds of the young people they engage, with this anthology offering five very different plays: a runner struck down by MS; a rapper who spits and snarls and tries to find it in herself to forgive; a teenager who fights for wealth, status and respect in the underworld of county lines; a cackling cowboy they call Corona; and a dog that has been tracked, murdered and stuck in a stew. This anthology celebrates the explosive creativity that comes from mobilising and platforming diverse voices, and its importance in generating social change. Framed and introduced by directors and writers discussing their practice, along with an introduction by Jez Butterworth, this is a book for students, educators, artists, theatre-practitioners, social workers and storytellers to tell stories that are rarely told, let alone with such fierce authenticity.
The Lanford Wilson New American Play Festival identifies and supports new plays that feature robust roles for college-aged actors, while providing a laboratory to train students in the skills and ethics inherent to collaborating with living playwrights on new works. This collection features the ten short plays that were Official Selections of the 2022 Lanford Wilson New American Play Festival - chosen from hundreds of submissions from around the United States. From the story of a pair of high school seniors debating whether to destroy an unopened package from the admissions office of a top-tier college, to a young woman tracking down her ex after seeing an alarming fowl-related post on Facebook, to a college student helping her sorority sister plot revenge on the Tinder date who ghosted her, the plays are funny, smart, and full of humanity. They can be performed individually or combined into a dynamic evening of theater, all with robust and challenging roles for actors in their late-teens and twenties.
Why the Theatre is a collection of 26 personal essays by college teachers, actors, directors, and playwrights about the magnetic pull of the theatre and its changing place in society. The book is divided into four parts, examining the creative role of the audience, the life of the actor, director, and playwright in performance, ways the theatre moves beyond the playhouse and into the real world, and theories and thoughts on what the theatre can do when given form onstage. Based on concrete, highly personal examples, experiences, and memories, this collection offers unique perspectives on the meaning of the theatre and the beauty of weaving the world of the play into the fabric of our lives. Covering a range of practices and plays, from the Greeks to Japanese Butoh theatre, from Shakespeare to modern experiments, this book is written by and for the theatre instructor and theatre appreciation student.
This text is a welcome and helpful resource whether you are a major looking forward to a career in the theatre, or a nonmajor interested in an overview to help you better appreciate theatre as an audience member. Written by highly respected theatre historians, THE ESSENTIAL THEATRE has established a reputation as one of the most comprehensive, authoritative surveys of the theatre in colleges nationwide. Its vibrant treatment of theatre practice-past and present-range from the origins of theatre to postmodernism and performance art. Chapter after chapter, this book will encourage you and get you excited about becoming an active theatergoer, while providing the insight and understanding that will enrich your theatre experience throughout your life.
Alexander Dumas * Christopher Durang * Beth Henley * Kenneth Lonergan * Donald Margulies * Steve Martin * Nicky Silver * Bernard Shaw * Alfred Uhry * Paula Vogel A collection of the greatest scenes and monologues ever written-ranging from Elizabethan to Tony Award-winning plays-this comprehensive anthology spans over five hundred years of theatre.Play the Scene: The Ultimate Collection of Contemporary and Classic Scenes and Monologues by coauthors Michael Schulman and Eva Mekler includes scenes and monologues from classic plays by such notable authors as Edith Wharton as well as the best in contemporary theatre, such as Margaret Edson's Wit. * Blight Spirit * Camille * The Chosen * The Graduate * How I Learned to Drive * The Last Night of Ballyhoo * The Lisbon Traviata * This Is Our Youth * Vincent in Brixton * And many more!
A collection of classic and contemporary monologues drawn from fiction, essays and poetry that provides new audition material for actors.
The Musical, Second Edition, introduces students and general readers to the entire scope of the history of musical theater, from eighteenth-century ballad operas to nineteenth-century operettas, to the Golden Age of Broadway to today. In this comprehensive history, master theater historian Kurt Gänzl draws on his vast knowledge of the productions, the actors, the music and dance, and the reception of the central repertory of the musical theater. Focus boxes on key shows are included in every chapter, along with a chronology of the major musical productions described in the text. Production photographs from around the world enhance the descriptions of the costumes and staging. This book is an ideal introduction for college-level courses on the History of Musical Theater and will also appeal to the general theatergoer who wants to learn more about how today's musical developed from its earliest roots.
Print books are arranged on the shelf in Library of Congress Call Number order. Each call number begins with an alphanumeric base (e.g., "BF109.J8") that is followed by a cutter and a date of publication (e.g., "A25 1993"). See a librarian if you need assistance.
Call Number Range (where to look on the bookshelves)
The Complete Greek Tragedies
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In nine paperback volumes, the Grene and Lattimore editions offer the most comprehensive selection of the Greek tragedies available in English. Over the years these authoritative, critically acclaimed editions have been the preferred choice of over three million readers for personal libraries and individual study as well as for classroom use.
The Oedipus Plays of Sophocles
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A collection that includes the complete texts of Sophocles' Oedipus the King, Oedipus at Colonus, and Antigone--translated by Paul Roche. Revising and updating his classic 1958 translation, Paul Roche captures the dramatic power and intensity, the subtleties of meaning, and the explosive emotions of Sophocles' great Theban trilogy. In vivid, poetic language, he presents the timeless story of a noble family moving toward catastrophe, dragged down from wealth and power by pride, cursed with incest, suicide, and murder. William Carlos Williams called the Roche translation of Antigone "brilliantly successful...as spirited and powerful as the original must have been." Roche's versions of the Oedipus plays are both stunning and sympathetic, awe-inspiring and intimate, and bring the elemental myths of ancient Greece to life for modern readers. Included in this edition are a glossary of classical names, notes on pronunciation and meter, suggestions for production and acting, and historical material, which offer the reader a greater appreciation of Sophocles' dramatic genius.
Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot
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-- Presents the most important 20th-century criticism on major works from The Odyssey through modern literature -- The critical essays reflect a variety of schools of criticism -- Contains critical biographies, notes on the contributing critics, a chronology of the author's life, and an index
No exit, and three other plays.
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No exit (Huit clos) & The flies (Les mouches) translated from the French by S. Gilbert.--Dirty hands (Les mains sales) & The respectful prostitute (La putain respectueuse) translated from the French by L. Abel.
Othello
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"Sources and Contexts" reprints the sixteenth-century story by Giraldi Cinthio that Shakespeare used for the plot of Othello and for many of its details. Edward Pechter's essay provides context for readers through its discussion of the play's central topics--Moors, Turks, Venetians, marriage and domesticity, fathers and daughters, and female sexuality.Seventeen wide-ranging interpretive essays are reprinted. Contributors include Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt, T. S. Eliot, Kenneth Burke, Lynda E. Boose, Mark Rose, and Patricia Parker.An annotated Selected Bibliography is also included.
Shakespeare, Feminism and Gender
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Over the last quarter-century, feminist criticism of Shakespeare has greatly expanded and enriched the range of interpretations of the Shakespearean texts, their original historical location, and subsequent reinterpretation. Characteristically it weaves between past and present, driven by a commitment both to intervene in contemporary cultural politics and to recover a fuller sense of the sexual politics of the literary heritage. Collecting together essays which offer detailed accounts of particular plays with others that take a broader overview of the field, this Casebook showcases the range of critical strategies used by feminist criticism, and illustrates how vital attention to the politics of gender and sexuality is to a full understanding and appreciation of Shakespearean drama.
Equus and Shrivings
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The Odyssey
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With its inspired counterpointing of Homeric and Caribbean themes, Derek Walcott's play The Odyssey, commissioned by Britain's Royal Shakespeare Company, springs from the same imaginative sources as his epic poem Omeros. "[The Odyssey features Walcott's] voluptuous metaphor making and severe truth telling."--Time Episodes of the story of Odysseus' protracted wanderings from fallen Troy to his island home of Ithaca are pungently interspersed with a commentary by the blind singer Billy Blue. Proteus, the Old Man of the Sea, the giant Cyclops, Circe and her revelers, ghosts, and mermaids are among the cast. With its vast sweep and richly figurative language, The Odyssey confirms that Derek Walcott is as compelling a playwright as he is a poet.
Our Town
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"[Our Town] leaves us with a sense of blessing, and the unspoken but palpable command to achieve gratitude in what remains of our days on earth." -- The New Yorker Thornton Wilder's Pulitzer Prize-winning drama of life in the mythical village of Grover's Corners, New Hampshire--an allegorical representation of all life--is an American classic. It is the simple story of a love affair that asks timeless questions about the meaning of love, life, and death. Our Town explores the relationship between two young neighbors, George Gibbs and Emily Webb, whose childhood friendship blossoms into romance, and then culminates in marriage. When Emily loses her life during childbirth, the circle of life portrayed in each of the three acts--childhood, adulthood, and death--is fully realized. Widely considered one of the greatest American plays of all time, Our Town debuted on Broadway in 1938 and continues to be performed daily on stages around the world. This special edition includes an afterword by Wilder's nephew, Tappan Wilder, with illuminating documentary material about the playwright and his most famous drama.
Christopher Durang
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Desdemona
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The story of Desdemona from Shakespeare's Othello is re-imagined by Nobel Prize laureate Toni Morrison, Malian singer and songwriter Rokia Traoré, and acclaimed stage director Peter Sellars. Morrison's response to Othello is an intimate dialogue of words and music between Desdemona and her African nurse Barbary. Morrison gives voice and depth to the female characters, letting them speak and sing in the fullness of their hearts. Desdemona is an extraordinary narrative of words, music and song about Shakespeares doomed heroine, who speaks from the grave about the traumas of race, class, gender, war and the transformative power of love. Toni Morrison transports one of the most iconic, central, and disturbing treatments of race in Western culture into the new realities and potential outcomes facing a rising generation of the 21st century.
If you're interested in finding ebooks only, head to eBook Collection. To log in, use the barcode located on the back of your student ID and your pin number. You have the option to download ebooks to a device, but we strongly recommend reading them online to take advantage of the full suite of available tools. Create a personal account using your Library barcode and PIN to manage and organize your ebook reading and research.
Life Behind the Mask
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"You had to decide to let yourself be turned upside down, you had to accept to see the idea you had forged about yourself progressively shatter." In the summer of 1969, at 19 years old, Didier Mouturat gave up on college, shattering his parents' hopes that he follow a safe and conventional course. Fresh from the wild Parisian student revolt of 1968, with its street battles and slogans, he set out to find a life that would be truly alive, deciding to be a classical actor. When he met Cyrille Dives, however, the universe of masks quietly turned his world upside down. This book describes Mouturat's apprenticeship to a unique theater artist. In the 1970s and early '80s, Dives created a theater of masks, a Western parallel to Japanese Noh. Dives was a true bohemian artist, a sculptor of masks, a painter and theatrical director. Cyrille Dives was also a spiritual master. Mouturat's apprenticeship encompassed everything from walking in a way that brings a mask to life to cultivating a beginner's mind. Slowly and subtly, the theater apprenticeship became an encounter with the deeper truth of his own being. "I am speaking of an intimate, progressive discovery that we are not masters of our own being - that it is only the result of a system of reactions that tyrannize us." Mouturat becomes Dives's right-hand man, helping establish a theater and a school of masks. That work is evident here in enchanting illustrations, as well as words. Yet as translated by the scholar and author Roger Lipsey, Mouturat also offers a pithy chronicle of a search for meaning and inner being.
Act
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One of the world's foremost acting teachers - who taught such actors as Rachel McAdams, Tatiana Maslany, Scott Speedman, and Sarah Gadon to name but a few - shares 30-plus years of insight into the art of acting.
RCBC Library is part of the Burlington County Library Sysytem (BCLS)!
Your RCBC Library barcode allows you to check out physical material at other BCLS branches! (separate BCLS Library card needed to be able to access their online resources)
If another branch has a book that you are looking for, either call them to have it placed on hold for you, or we will be happy to call them to have them place a book on hold for you. Note: a book that shows up as being in another branch may be currently in use by another patron or otherwise not on the shelf, so save yourself a trip and call to double check the book's availability.
If another branch has a book that you want and you are not able to visit that branch, we can order it to be delivered to the RCBC Library for you! Note: this method may take 2 weeks or longer for the book to arrive at RCBC.
Inter-library Loans
If a book that you want is not available in the RCBC Library or BCLS, we can attempt to order the book from an outside library to be delivered to the RCBC Library. Note: this method may take 2 weeks or longer for the book to arrive at RCBC.
To order a book via inter-library loan, please either fill out a blank form from JerseyCat or contact Debbie Kolodziej at dkolodzie@rcbc.edu.
Faculty Book Requests
Please fill out this form. For more information, please contact Rachel Pieters at rpieters@rcbc.edu or ext. 1269.
Research assistance - help finding sources, evaluating sources
Online workshops for citing and plagiarism are held throughout the semester. To request a citing workshop, please email library@rcbc.edu
