Theater Biographies

Isy Suttie wakes up one day in her late 20s to discover that the deal she'd struck with her friends, to put off growing up for as long as possible, had been entirely in her head. Everyone around her is suddenly into mortgages, farmers' markets, and going off the pill rather than running naked into the sea or getting hammered in a country pub with 80-year-old men. After a particularly crushing breakup precipitated by Isy's gifting of a human-size papier-mâché penguin to her boyfriend, her dearest friend advises Isy not to worry: the next guy she meets will be The Actual One.

Dick Powell made a career of reinventing himself. Born in Arkansas, the young tenor played horn and banjo, and sang with various dance bands and orchestras in Pittsburgh and elsewhere before he was brought to Hollywood, where he sang opposite Ruby Keeler and others in such classic Busby Berkeley musicals as 42nd Street, Footlight Parade, Gold Diggers of 1935, and the Al Jolson film, Wonder Bar.

Michael B. Druxman’s Rathbone joins the actor near the end of his life while, because of his troubled financial condition, he is working on still another less than memorable film. The play delves into Rathbone’s dark side, exploring his relationships with his first wife, the son he virtually abandoned, and Ouida, the divisive woman to whom he was married for over 40 years, yet perhaps never really knew.

Clifton Webb was one of those rare motion picture actors who became a major box-office star when he was in his mid-50s. Indeed, his first sound movie was Laura (1944), and his role as Waldo Lydecker in that classic film noir earned him the first of three Oscar nominations. Four years later, Clifton Webb became a household name when he played Lynn Belvedere and poured a bowl of mush onto a baby's head in Sitting Pretty.

The Hazel theme music plays to an applauding audience as 64-year-old Shirley Booth steps up to the stage for her second Emmy Award. As the character Hazel, her superb comedic and dramatic skills resulted from arduous years of perfecting her minimalist approach to acting. More than 50 years earlier, Shirley first stepped onto the stage against the wishes of her father. How could Shirley Booth achieve so much success as an actress, winning every major acting award possible without formal dramatic training?

All his life, journalist Walter Shapiro assumed that the outlandish stories about his great-uncle Freeman were exaggerated family lore; some cockamamie Jewish revenge fantasies dreamt up to entertain the kids and venerate their larger-than-life relative. Only when he started researching Freeman Bernstein's life did he realize that his family was actually holding back.

The definitive memoir of David Williamson, author of iconic dramas such as The Removalists, The Club, Don's Party, Emerald City and Travelling North, as well as more than fifty other plays, explores the life of the writer and the true stories and real lives that inspired his works. A powerful force in theatre since the 1970s, Williamson's plays have uniquely explored the pulse of our Australianness.

Abe Vigoda worked as an actor for all of his adult life. He did theatre...He did television...But it wasn’t until he was 50-years-old that he got a role where the public even noticed him. He played Tessio in The Godfather. Michael B. Druxman’s humorous one-person play, Abe Vigoda, finds the actor with a major problem. The press has, erroneously, announced that he is dead, and his agent’s phone has stopped ringing. Now, Abe has to convince the entertainment industry that he is still with us.

New Hope Daze, Including Star Daze, Bar Daze and Final Daze is a memoir in the form of memory sketches from the author's time working the the artist's town of New Hope, Pennsylvania in the 1970s and 1980s. The first section, Star Daze, recalls brushing shoulders at the Bucks County Playhouse with such luminaries of stage, screen and television as John Carradine, Tom Poston, Tony Danza, Yvonne De Carlo, Brian Dennehy, Dana Andrews and others. The second section, Bar Daze, conjures up the author's time working as a bartender and writer in New Hope, where he befriends artists like Tony ...

¿Cuáles son las cualidades de un superhéroe? Con esta divertida historia musical te darás cuenta de que no hace falta volar para ayudar a la gente y hacer un mundo de paz. ¡Todos podemos ser mucho más!

Erinnerungen eines legendären Theatermachers. Erstmals erzählt Tom Pauls von dem Moment, der ihn für die Bühne begeisterte, von Selbstzweifeln während seines Schauspielstudiums, den Widersprüchen vor 1989 sowie dem Neuanfang nach 1990. Noch nie sprach er so persönlich von den Höhen und Tiefen seiner Karriere, über die Rolle des Theaters in der DDR, die Ostalgie sowie gegenwärtige Katastrophen wie Elbe-Hochwasser und Corona-Pandemie. Ohne Herausforderungen ging es bei ihm nie. Aber mit Possen bringt er unverdrossen sein Publikum zum Lachen und macht immer weiter Theater.

Sheridan Morley writes: "When my father died at eighty-four on the morning of Derby Day 1992 (one of the few he ever missed), he and I had been together for just over fifty years. In the immediate aftermath of his sudden death, I knew two things; how much I would always miss the sheer joy of his company, and how much I wanted to write about him, if only to explain to myself and my children the life and career of the last great Boulevardier of his or any other time."

Em 1886 a atriz francesa Sarah Bernhard, já então um mito no mundo inteiro, visitou São Paulo, à frente de sua companhia de teatro, apresentando peças de Shakespeare, Racine, Alexandre Dumas, entre outros. Os dias e noites que ela passou na capital paulista, onde foi testemunha das grandes mudanças que a cidade atravessava, são imaginados nesta peça, um recorte na longa, brava e ousada vida íntima e profissional daquela que foi chamada de "Nossa Senhora do Teatro".

Offen, ehrlich und persönlich: Schauspieler und Musiker Volker Lechtenbrink erzählt in seiner Biografie die Geschichte eines bewegten Lebens. Das künstlerische Multitalent Lechtenbrink berichtet von seinen Anfängen am Hamburger Theater und prägenden Begegnungen mit Größen der Schauspiel- und Musikszene. Berufliche Erfolge, private Höhen und Tiefen und vieles mehr - Lechtenbrink gewährt seinen Lesern mit einem Augenzwinkern brandneue Einblicke in seinen Werdegang zu einem der bekanntesten Schauspieler Deutschlands.

Die Mauer ist gerade erst gefallen. Im mecklenburgischen Neustrelitz verlässt der 19-jährige Charly Hübner sein Elternhaus im Streit. Er findet Zuflucht am Theater und in der Literatur, liest wie besessen und landet nahezu unumgänglich bei den Jahrestagen von Uwe Johnson. Ein dicker Wälzer, der trotz der manchmal sperrigen Sprache und verwinkelten Erzählweise einen so noch nie erlebten Sog auf den damaligen Teenager ausübte. Aus dem Teenager von damals ist heute einer der beliebtesten deutschen Schauspieler geworden – während Johnson mehr und mehr in Vergessenheit geraten ist.

Entra en escena con Lin-Manuel Miranda en esta adición a la serie número uno en ventas del New York Times que explica cómo la leyenda de Broadway comenzó antes de Hamilton y Encanto. ¡Ahora en español! Lin-Manuel Miranda, nacido en Nueva York de padres puertorriqueños, fue un apasionado de las artes y la creatividad desde muy temprana edad. Se involucró en el teatro desde niño y escribió su primer musical de Broadway, In the Heights, mientras estaba aún en la universidad.

A daughter longs to guide her mother through the hardest of journeys of memory loss, paving a way with her own remembrance; for memory is an actor’s most powerful tool. Before the settling and subsidence of life, Hayley prepares to perform a show to honour her mother, Joan.

Ted Swartz and his Ted & Company TheaterWorks team are known for blending Bible stories with comedy and poignancy, and pushing the envelope on issues of faith and social justice. But who is Ted Swartz? Follow along in this engaging memoir as Swartz finds his way as a middle child in an eastern Pennsylvania traditional Mennonite home to his early work in the family butcher shop. Journey with Ted through the decision of uprooting his young family to attend seminary and then embracing life as a writer and actor.

Insightful, incisive and enlightening, the first volume of Simon Callow's comprehensive biography of Orson Welles. Now in abridged audio, Callow's vastly entertaining chronicle of Welles's first 26 years seems even finer than it did in 1995. The author's ability to skewer his subject's evasions and lies while retaining critical affection for him is perhaps explained by the fact that Callow, an actor himself, understands the need to mythologise. Welles's innovative theatrical work in the 1930s has never been better described or analysed.

The definitive memoir of David Williamson, author of iconic dramas such as The Removalists, The Club, Don's Party, Emerald City and Travelling North, as well as more than fifty other plays, explores the life of the writer and the true stories and real lives that inspired his works. A powerful force in theatre since the 1970s, Williamson's plays have uniquely explored the pulse of our Australianness.