Performance Studies

Robert Altman and the Elaboration of Hollywood Storytelling reveals an Altman barely glimpsed in previous critical accounts of the filmmaker. This re-examination of his seminal work during the "Hollywood Renaissance" or "New Hollywood" period of the early 1970s (including M*A*S*H and Nashville) sheds new light on both the films and the filmmaker, reframing Altman as a complex, pragmatic innovator whose work exceeds, but is also grounded in, the norms of classical Hollywood storytelling rather than someone who rejected those norms in favor of modernist art cinema.

Ever since he became a Christian at the age of 40, it has been Poirot actor David Suchet's dream to make an audio recording of the Bible. In between filming the final episodes of Poirot, David Suchet spent over 200 hours in the recording studio to create the very first full-length audio version of the NIV Bible spoken by a single British actor. This recording is an excerpt of that Bible.

Ever since he became a Christian at the age of forty, it has been Poirot actor David Suchet's dream to make an audio recording of the Bible. In between filming the final episodes of Poirot, David Suchet spent over 200 hours in the recording studio to create the very first full-length audio version of the NIV Bible spoken by a single British actor. This recording is an excerpt of that Bible.

They've traded punches in knockdown brawls, crashed biplanes through barns, and raced to the rescue in fast cars. They add suspense and drama to the story, portraying the swimmer stalked by the menacing shark, the heroine dangling 20 feet below a soaring hot air balloon, or the woman leaping nine feet over a wall to escape a dog attack. Only an expert can make such feats of daring look easy, and stuntwomen with the skills to perform - and survive - great moments of action in movies have been hitting their mark in Hollywood since the beginning of film.

Ever since Johnny Carson first popularized the late-night talk show in 1962 with The Tonight Show, the 11:00 p.m. to 2:00 a.m. comedy time slot on network television has remained an indelible part of our national culture. More than six popular late-night shows air every night of the week, and with recent major shake-ups in the industry, late-night television has never been more relevant to our public consciousness than it is today.

With an in-depth look at the two most empowering years in the life of Marilyn Monroe, The Girl details how The Seven Year Itch created an icon and sent the star on an adventure of self-discovery and transformation from a controlled wife and contract player into a businesswoman and unlikely feminist whose power is still felt today. When Marilyn Monroe stepped over a subway grating as The Girl in The Seven Year Itch and let a gust of wind catch the skirt of her pleated white dress, an icon was born.

Halloween in Isla Vista, an un-sponsored annual street party, attracts an estimated average of 20,000 revelers into a minuscule, 1.5 square mile area each year. Yet it has been consistently dismissed by UCSB administrators, the police, and local press as a dangerous frivolity, unworthy of critical inquiry. Until now, this complex cultural performance has remained buried under three decades’ worth of rumor, assumption, and enforced silence. This book breaks that silence, exploring the event’s history through archival sources and oral histories, providing an in-depth reading of the ...

Ever since he became a Christian at the age of 40, it has been Poirot actor David Suchet's dream to make an audio recording of the Bible. In between filming the final episodes of Poirot, David Suchet spent over 200 hours in the recording studio to create the very first full-length audio version of the NIV Bible spoken by a single British actor. This recording is an excerpt of that Bible.

I wanted to get together as much information as possible in this book. It's a book with answers to many questions that a candidate actor may have. A manual book that enlightens and gives you all the necessary knowledge to prepare and make you fully equipped in order to begin your journey as an actor. All the structure has been made and has been filtered, so you will be able to work on your own and with partners as well.

Forty-eight stories of brave sparrows, wilds winds, and how to live in times of climate change. A prize-winning book by the natural storyteller Georgiana Keable, sharing long experience with children in the forests and snows of Norway. Meet the girl who became a fish, married a bear, and had a tree as her mum and dad. Meet the boy who tried to stop the wind, fetched fire from the center of the earth on the back of a bird, and whose father was the river.

The Boys in the Band's debut was revolutionary for its fictional but frank presentation of a male homosexual subculture in Manhattan. Based on Mart Crowley's hit Off-Broadway play from 1968, the film's two-hour running time approximates real time, unfolding at a birthday party attended by nine men whose language, clothing, and behavior evoke a range of urban gay "types." Although various popular critics, historians, and film scholars over the years have offered cursory acknowledgment of the film's importance, more substantive research and analysis have been woefully lacking. The film's neglect among academics belies a rich and rewarding object of study. The Boys in the Band merits not only the close reading that should accompany such a well-made text but also recognition as a landmark almost ideally situated to orient us amid the highly complex, shifting cultural terrain it occupied upon its release-and has occupied since.

In this fascinating and deeply researched book, Sharon Marcus challenges everything you thought you knew about our obsession with fame. Icons are not merely famous for being famous; the media alone cannot make or break stars; fans are not simply passive dupes. Instead, journalists, the public, and celebrities themselves all compete, passionately and expertly, to shape the stories we tell about celebrities and fans. The result: a high-stakes drama as endless as it is unpredictable.

The pantheon of big-budget, commercially successful films encompasses a range of genres, including biblical films, war films, romances, comic-book adaptations, animated features, and historical epics. In Epics, Spectacles, and Blockbusters: A Hollywood History authors Sheldon Hall and Steve Neale discuss the characteristics, history, and modes of distribution and exhibition that unite big-budget pictures, from their beginnings in the late nineteenth century to the present.

John Tournour, known to his many listeners and fans as JT the Brick, is one of the biggest sports radio personalities in America. Making it as a sports radio host is almost impossible, and JT went about it in a fearless way, leaving a lucrative position as a Merrill Lynch stockbroker to pursue his dream. But Tournour's hardest challenge would come when his best friend and mentor, Andrew Ashwood was diagnosed with cancer.

This is an audio summary of Endure, a book about the physiological and psychological factors that impact our performance.

In How You Get Famous, journalist Nicole Pasulka raucously documents the rebirth of the New York drag scene, following a group of iconoclastic performers with undeniable charisma, talent, and a hell of a lot to prove. In the past decade, drag has become a place where edgy, competitive showoffs can find security in a callous and over priced city, a shot at real money, and a level of recognition queer people rarely achieve. But can drag keep its edge as it travels from the backroom to the main stage?

How to overcome stage fright and performance anxiety and perform at your peak - using NLP and visualization.

Conversations about gender equity in the workplace accelerated in the 2010s, with debates inside Hollywood specifically pointing to broader systemic problems of employment disparities and exploitative labor practices. Compounded by the devastating #MeToo revelations, these problems led to a wide-scale call for change. The Value Gap traces female-driven filmmaking across development, financing, production, film festivals, marketing, and distribution, examining the realities facing women working in the industry during this transformative moment.

Australian Special Forces veteran and corporate psychologist Harry Moffitt has trained and worked with the best in the military, sport and corporate realms. He has seen up close what makes a champion tick, and what makes another squander the gifts they've been given. It comes down to purpose, self-awareness and the quality of our lived experience - it comes down to philosophy. In a world saturated by self-help, we all know the importance of the physical, psychological and social pillars of human performance.

In Buffoon Men: Classic Hollywood Comedians and Queered Masculinity, Scott Balcerzak reads the performances of notable comedians such as W. C. Fields, Eddie Cantor, Jack Benny, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, Bert Wheeler and Robert Woolsey, and Bud Abbott and Lou Costello through humor and queer theory to expose a problematic history of maleness in their personas.