English Theater

Margaret Thursday was named after the day she was found on the church steps as a baby. But she isn’t really an orphan – each year a bag of gold coins is left at the church for her keep. When the money suddenly stops, her guardians have no choice but to send her away to an orphanage. The orphanage is worse than they could have imagined. Vowing to protect her new friends, Peter and Horatio, Margaret plans their daring escape...but she’ll have to outwit Matron at every turn.

From The Lion King to Mean Girls, the world of Broadway has been transformed by the cinematic magic of film-to-stage adaptations. But how do beloved movies make the leap from the screen to the stage? In Reel to Real, discover the intricate and thrilling process of adapting iconic films into groundbreaking stage musicals. This book delves into the art, challenges, and successes of bringing films like Frozen, Hairspray, Legally Blonde, and The Producers to life in the theater. With in-depth analysis, you’ll explore key topics such as: • The Business of Adaptation: The financial realities,...

Distinguished theater critic John Lahr brings unique perspective to the life of Arthur Miller, the playwright who almost single-handedly propelled twentieth-century American theater into a new level of cultural sophistication. Organized around the fault lines of Miller’s life—his family, the Great Depression, the rise of fascism, Elia Kazan and the House Committee on Un-American Activities, Marilyn Monroe, Vietnam, and the rise and fall of Miller’s role as a public intellectual—this book demonstrates the synergy between Arthur Miller’s psychology and his plays.

In this program, listeners will find glamour and gaffes on and off the stage, clarifying snippets of queer theory, terrifyingly selfish bosses, sex, quick sex, KFC binges, group sex, the kind of honesty that banishes shame, glimmers of hope, blazes of ambition, tender sex, mad dashes in last night's heels plus a full face of make-up, and a rom-com love story for the ages. This is where the unspeakable becomes the celebrated. This is the diary of a drag queen - one dazzling, hilarious, true performance of a real, flawed, extraordinary life.

Like many teenagers, there's a lot about Daniel Meadows' life that's out of his control. For example, having to start in a new school district for his freshman year of high school thanks to his dad's new job. Inside the realm of his control, however, is the decision to try a brand-new sport purely to impress a girl. But the day of tennis tryouts proves far more fateful than Dan ever could have imagined, when a failed attempt by Truck-kun and the powers that be to kill him and transport his consciousness to a fantasy realm leaves him on Earth with miraculous abilities instead.

What was it like to work at a small-town Texas movie theater in the summer of 1980? For seventeen-year-old Neil, it meant his first job, his first love, and the release of the most anticipated movie of his lifetime, THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK. He never counted on meeting the girl of his dreams or that she would become his boss. But if he was ever going to have a shot at an older woman, he would need a car, some spending cash, and the respect of the guys in the projection booth of the Lone Star Six.

Flying granny-panties, dog-poop-shoes, and baptizing a potential boyfriend with spaghetti – such is the life of Lottie Lambert, queen of the klutzes, and ruler of all misspoken thoughts. That is until the day her crazy great aunt loans her a magic pink eraser, giving Lottie the power to reverse time. Do-Overs is the story of Lottie’s escapades as she starts over at a new college to recuperate from an abusive relationship. With the help of her enchanted eraser, Lottie redoes both silly moments and life-changing events. Could it be love at first sight, or second, or fifth as Lottie’s ...

Jackson Ghasnavi is a lot of things—a techie, a smoothie afficionado, a totally not obsessive list-maker—but one thing he’s not is a romantic. And why would he be? He’s already had a front row seat to his parents’ divorce and picked up the pieces of his sister Jasmine’s broken heart one too many times.

In 1926, the American version of the film classic Metropolis was cut in half, now for the first time in seventy years you can experience the whole story. A very important book in the development of the audiobook industry. The music and sound effects are piped through differant speakers so the listener gets the surround sound or 3-D effect. The futuristic music alone (and the listener's imagination) tells part of the story without any words describing the action.

George Webber, a first-time author, writes a book that makes frequent references to his home town of Libya Hill. The book is a success, except in Libya Hill, where the residents believe that it paints an extremely distorted portrait of their town. They send Webber menacing letters, including death threats.

Divorced and working as a security guard in Portland, 73-year-old Carl is attacked by an unknown creature before he is able to taser it to death. After being released from the hospital, he discovers that he is unwittingly acquiring DNA samples from other people he touches. He discovers a number of shocking facts about himself when a blue box appears in his right eye. His health is nowhere near what he assumed it would be. Can he reverse the negative aspects of his health using these blue boxes? And can he reverse his poor financial situation after his wife took half his pension?

A Scottish meteorologist locks horns with his American counterpart as both men try to convince General Dwight D. Eisenhower that they can accurately predict the atmospheric conditions needed to launch the greatest amphibious assault in the history of mankind - the D-Day invasion.

Blending a behind-the-scenes history of New York City’s Public Theater with an affecting remembrance of her husband, Public Theater founder Joe Papp, Public/Private is Gail Merrifield Papp’s enthralling and heartfelt memoir of a legendary theatrical institution.

I was a just normal guy until the night the cherry blossoms bloomed, the night that Grace appeared on my doorstep. A failed sci-fi writer, a gamer, but a normal guy nonetheless. Grace was everything I was not - a psychic shifter, beautiful beyond my wildest imagination, a government conspiracy waiting to be unraveled. And that was before the second superpowered woman showed up to kill us both.

After 'The Fox Fay', Jobe and Paracleus were apart, but now they're back together again and in love. The curse placed upon Paracleus has been broken and he remembers that he's a Fay, an elfin shapeshifter with plant magic. He recalls everything about his past, including his mother Pelua, who was banished by the Fay when she fell in love with a human warrior. After an epic battle between the new Knights of Arria and Doomba, Paracleus and Jobe fled through a portal. Now they're on a tropical island with their old friends Velmella and Liana, miles away from where they once were. On the other ...

Dickens was one of the first true celebrity authors. Thousands of fans in Britain and America eagerly awaited each new installment of his stories, and flocked to see him on his legendary speaking tours. Not only did he create an incredible cast of characters on the page, but he was also a dazzling mimic and storyteller, and he wrote, stage-managed, and acted in plays for the public. Throughout his life, from his childhood performances to his legendarily powerful reading tours, Dickens was fanatical about the stage.

On the afternoon of December 30, 1903, during a sold-out matinee performance, a fire broke out in Chicago's Iroquois Theatre. In the short span of twenty minutes, more than six hundred people were asphyxiated, burned, or trampled to death in a panicked mob's failed attempt to escape. In Chicago Death Trap: The Iroquois Theatre Fire of 1903, Nat Brandt provides a detailed chronicle of this horrific event to assess not only the titanic tragedy of the fire itself but also the municipal corruption and greed that kindled the flames beforehand and the political cover-ups hidden in the smoke and ash afterwards.

Mirele Efros, also known as "The Yiddish Queen Lear", is a sophisticated version of Ukrainian-born Jacob Gordin's work about honesty, decency and devotion towards family and community. Mirele, a wealthy and pious widow, whose devotion to her children even goes as far as hand-picking her eldest son's wife, makes a tragic mistake in evaluating her future daughter-in-law as giving and pious. Conflict ensnares the two in short order and a lesson about the value of piety is conveyed in the cautionary tale. Adapted in English by David Serero.

The Battle of Iwo Jima, a major event in the Pacific Theater of World War II - and one of the bloodiest in United States history - began on February 19, 1945. But what happened two days earlier has largely been a footnote - until now.... On February 17, Landing Craft Infantry 449 was among a dozen gunboats helping to prepare the area for their invasion two days later. US military leaders thought that they had weakened Japanese forces in the area.

Although Erik Patko is still coming to terms with a heartbreaking tragedy, he begins his sophomore year of college with high hopes. He earns a headlining role in the drama club production of Curtain Drop, but while the musical is a comedy, the drama backstage is no joke. Scenery is tampered with, students are blackmailed, and four influential families are accused of bribing the dean. While his confidence is shattered and he struggles with his conflicting feelings for his roommate’s sister Priscilla, Erik must discover who’s behind the scandal before his Broadway dreams are derailed ...