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Title: Backwards and Forwards: A Technical Manual for Reading Plays by David Ball ISBN: 0-8093-1110-0 Publisher: Southern Illinois Univ Pr (Trd) Pub. Date: September, 1998 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 5 (7 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: A great book to teach the art of reading and writing a play
Comment: I have used this book as the basis of several theatre and playwriting classes that I have taught. Ball's language is simple, though the words he creates to explain his theories, such as "trigger" and "heap" (a trigger is the moment when people's motivations are exposed, while a heap is the result of that action) make it it easy for any non-theatre person to grasp the clever concepts.
By having a person read a play backwards, Ball shows how to grasp the playwright's intentions, and the character's movements. It's a basic theatrical literary theatre that is surprisingly effective, especially in trying to teach young writers how to create a play.
I highly recommend this book to the theatre neophyte as well as the theatre professional.
Rating: 5
Summary: A Must-Have, Especially For Directors
Comment: David Ball's Backwards and Forwards is a concise, to-the-point handbook useful to anyone involved in theatre. He, step-by-step, gives methods of analyzing a play, using Hamlet as an example. This is a very useful technique, whereas some books of lesser quality will give information with no examples of application.
As an aspiring director I found the content very helpful, rudimentary, and although at times basic, always insightful. A must-have.
Rating: 5
Summary: Demystifying the Playwriting Process
Comment: David Ball's book is a must-have for all students and professors of theatre. It demystifies the playwriting process and presents a simple, down-to-earth explanation of why a playscript works the way it does. In a word, it explains how scripts work. I find the deceptively simple explanations help the novices in my Introduction to Theatre classes understand how playscripts are put together and make a fun game of script analysis for these students--a concept that is often hard to communicate to Intro students. At the same time, it make so much sense that it becomes the cornerstone for Beginning Directing, Playwriting, and Script Analysis students. Students whom I teach using Ball's ideas always come through the semester with a lot of self-esteem because having such a solid cornerstone allows their creativity to take off in unexpected directions.
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Title: Sense of Direction: Some Observations on the Art of Directing by William Ball ISBN: 0896760820 Publisher: Drama Publishers Pub. Date: October, 1984 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: Alcestis by Euripedes, Ted Hughes ISBN: 0374527261 Publisher: Farrar Straus & Giroux Pub. Date: 04 September, 2000 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: The Other Shore by Gao Xingjian, Gilbert C. F. Fong ISBN: 9622018629 Publisher: The Chinese University Press Pub. Date: 15 June, 1999 List Price(USD): $18.00 |
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Title: Timberlake Wertenbaker: Plays 2: The Break of Day, After Darwin, Credible Witness, The Ash Girl, Dianeira by Timberlake Wertenbaker ISBN: 0571212530 Publisher: Faber & Faber Pub. Date: 13 June, 2002 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: Bacchae (Hackett Publishing) by Euripides, Paul Woodruff, Paul Woodriff ISBN: 0872203921 Publisher: Hackett Pub Co Pub. Date: January, 1999 List Price(USD): $5.95 |
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