Theatre & Film

The Process of Dramaturgy: A Handbook offers a series of workable strategies and practical exercises meant to develop and improve the skills needed during the practice of production dramaturgy. This innovative text was created for students, emerging dramaturges, directors and designers.

"This edition of A Midsummer Night's Dream is wonderfully lucid and thoughtful, offering supporting material that will appeal to readers from high school students to scholars. The introduction is especially thoughtful, offering, in addition to expected discussions of love, magic and imagination, an exploration of the theatrical history. The bibliography and filmography are both detailed and helpful, and the questions guide students to consider the play from many viewpoints without ever forcing an interpretation onto them."
     —Annalisa Castaldo, Widener University

"Laury Magnus' edition of The Taming of the Shrew is much more than a revision of Kittredge. Her splendid introduction and appendices are sensitive to the play’s language and its paradoxical nuances of gender, and she understands that the play is, after all, a love story. Her explanatory notes are excellent, but most impressive and original is her emphasis on film, theater, and television performance."
     —Maurice Charney, Emeritus, Rutgers University

"This is an exciting new edition, with a clear and lively introduction that succinctly captures the play's complexity and challenges. Wells' discussion of the play's relationship with Henry IV, Part One is especially thoughtful, and his attention to performance and film history is extremely valuable. The thorough and clear notes will be extremely helpful to students navigating Shakespeare's language for the first time, as well as for deepening the understanding of those who have some familiarity already. All in all, this is a valuable treatment of an often difficult play."
     —Tanya Pollard, Brooklyn College, CUNY

Prudence Steiner's lively prose translations remain close to the original French, giving us the speech of the characters in a slightly compressed and formalized language that echoes the effect created by Molière's verse. Roger Herzel's thoughtful Introduction discusses Molière's life; Tartuffe, The Misanthrope, and the comic tradition; and the setting, casting, and style of the plays.

This volume offers lively and accurate translations of Chekhov's major plays and one-acts (complete contents listed below) along with a superb Introduction focused on the plays' remarkably enduring power to elicit the most widely divergent of responses, the life of the playwright in its historical and aesthetic contexts, suggestions for reading the plays "under a microscope," and notes designed to bring Chekhov's world into immediate focus—everything needed to examine his drama with fresh eyes and on its own artistic terms. Three Jokes: The Bear, The Proposal, The Anniversary. The Major Plays: The Seagull, Uncle Vanya, Three Sisters, The Cherry Orchard.

"Here is a book that acknowledges that the most difficult aspect of writing in a play is not the lack of a clear formula, but rather the lack of a process that offers structure without impeding inspiration. Michael Wright’s self-proclaimed ‘anti-how-to’ book is a rare and wonderful gem. His etudes offer a practical road map to the intangible heart and soul of the creative impulse; reminding us that writerly muscles must regularly bend, expand and breathe. With this new edition, Mr. Wright truly takes us to the next level, including ‘call-outs’ that invite the writer to actively engage the world-at-large as a part of his/her writing process. This is far more than a book of exercises. It is an invitation to focus on the process of writing, rather than the product."
     —Jeni Mahoney, Artistic Director, Seven Devils Playwrights Conference (id Theater)

"Samuel Crowl's revision and updating of George Lyman Kittredge's edition of I Henry IV makes this useful text even more attractive to a contemporary audience of both general readers and students. Drawing on his extensive knowledge of and sensitivity to Shakespearean performance, Crowl provides a new Introduction,in addition to Kittredge's original, highlighting performance history, together with an essay on "How to Read The First Part of King Henry the Fourth as Performance," which pays particular attention to Orson Welles' Chimes at Midnight and two television productions of the play available on DVD. Crowl has lightly revised and extended Kittredge's annotations, and has added extensive performance notes where appropriate."
     —Michael Anderegg, University of North Dakota

"Once again, Peter Meineck and Paul Woodruff team up (this time with Cecelia Eaton Luschnig) to produce a thoroughly engaging text with lively translations that prove to be of great value to the college classroom. . . . The clarity of the translations, the unburdensome thoroughness of the introduction, and the judicious selection of footnotes, however, combine to allow students both within and outside the pertinent disciplines to appreciate how The Electra Plays speak directly to the world."
—Mitchell M. Harris, Augustana College

A More Perfect Ten is a revision of Gary Garrison's pioneering book on writing and producing the 10-minute play, and it is now the most authoritative book on this emerging play form. The 10-minute play has become a regular feature of theatre companies and festivals from coast to coast, and Garrison has distilled the advice of many of those people who had been instrumental in promoting the ten minute play for the last few years.

"Shakespeare scholars Bernice W. Kliman and James H. Lake have carried out the important task of not only bringing up to date the text of Hamlet as edited in the last century by the celebrated Shakespearean George Lyman Kittredge but also retaining its significant features. The editors' discerning analyses of performances by Mel Gibson, Kenneth Branah, Michael Almereyda, and Simon Russell Beale drive home the point that Hamlet today remains alive but restless and unpredictable. It exemplifies Ben Johnson's Shakespeare, who '. . . was not of an age, but for all time!'"
     —Kenneth Sprague Rothwell, (1921-2010), was Professor Emeritus, University of Vermont

"The new Steiner Tartuffe offers welcome relief from all the rhymed translations that make Molière sound like a third-rate Restoration poet while creating the (false) impression that verbal dexterity and wit trump all other values in the great comic playwright's dramaturgy.  Steiner's crisp, lucid prose—her adroitly balanced sentences are especially effective at conveying the slippery rhetoric of Tartuffe's seductions—unfolds the plot and characters of Molière's play with an unaccustomed clarity, presenting the ideological clashes of the play with a bluntness many other translations attenuate. Roger Herzel's Introduction is well-focused for those encountering Molière for the first time and informed throughout by his own excellent scholarship."
—Jim Carmody, University of California, San Diego

This is an English translation of Sophocles' tragedy of Electra, and the vengeance that she and her brother Orestes take on their mother and step father for the murder of their father. This edition also includes an "afterlife" essay that discusses adaptations of the play, as well as touches on other ways Electra has had influence (Jung's identification of the Electra Complex, O'Neill's Mourning Becomes Electra). Focus Classical Library provides close translations with notes and essays to provide access to understanding Greek culture.

"Overall . . . I find this translation of the Frogs to be entertaining and very readable. Furthermore, Henderson's comprehensive introduction makes this translation quite useful for general readers or students at any level."
—Erin K. Moodie, Bryn Mawr Classical Review

"This is the Medea we have been waiting for.  It offers clarity without banality, eloquence without pretension, meter without doggerel, accuracy without clumsiness.  No English Medea can ever be Euripides', but this is as close as anyone has come so far, and a good deal closer than I thought anyone would ever come.  Arnson-Svarlien has shown herself exceedingly skillful in making Euripides sound Euripidean." —David M. Schaps, Bryn Mawr Classical Review

"Fluid, lively, and accurate!" —Amy Vail, Department of Classics, Baylor University

"Ken Rothwell does a splendid updating of Kittredge's Merchant of Venice with considerations of the play in performance. His essay on the play's stage history is lucid, his additions to Kittredge's notes are indicative of performance choices, and, as one would expect of the preeminent scholar of Shakespeare on film, his discussion of cinematic adaptations of Merchant is richly informative. This edition should prove useful to all levels of undergraduates."
     —James Bulman, Allegheny College

"This splendid edition furnishes readers, students, and theater people alike with a marvelous set of tools for appreciating the many facets of Shakespeare's play: a freshly edited text from the authoritative 1599 quarto, trenchant explanatory notes, and–best of all–insightful performance notes detailing the various ways in which individual passages have been interpreted in important films and stage productions."
     —Eric Rasmussen, University of Nevada, Reno and co-editor of the RSC Shakespeare edition

Meineck and Woodruff's new annotated translations of Sophocles' Ajax, Women of Trachis, Electra, and Philoctetes combine the same standards of accuracy, concision, clarity, and powerful speech that have so often made their Theban Plays a source of epiphany in the classroom and of understanding in the theatre.  Woodruff's Introduction offers a brisk and stimulating discussion of central themes in Sophoclean drama, the life of the playwright, staging issues, and each of the four featured plays.

This new volume of three of Euripides' most celebrated plays offers graceful, economical, metrical translations that convey the wide range of effects of the playwright's verse, from the idiomatic speech of its dialogue to the high formality of its choral odes.

"Many scholars translate the works of Euripides as they should be, but Diane Arnson Svarlien translates them as they are. . . . Arnson Svarlien shows admirable modesty and restraint in avoiding . . . pitfalls, and makes choices that reveal the meaning of the text she is translating with the least imposition of her own personality.  The ambiguity of Euripides is transmitted to us but not imposed on us by [her] translation. . . . The translations are both readable and playable." —Edmond Chibeau, New England Theatre Journal 

"Seventy years after their publication, George Lyman Kittredge's editions of Shakespeare remain exceptional for the combination of learning, acuity, wit, and clarity he brings to his notes on the plays. Annalisa Castaldo makes Kittredge's Macbeth even more useful for modern readers by skillfully streamlining Kittredge's annotations and adding helpful analyses of the play and its film productions. There is no better edition of Shakespeare for students, beginning or advanced."
     —Dr. James Wells

"The New Kittredge Series is both a delight and a steal. Kittredge's textual authority, updated by eminent scholars sensitive to classroom needs and alert to staging choices, is once again available in these slim, elegant, inexpensive, user-friendly volumes. With lucid notes and incisive introductions geared especially to popular film versions, the series also offers an overview of both stage and film performances of each play. A must for any Shakespeare class."
     —Laury Magnus

"The New Kittredge Series is both a delight and a steal. Kittredge's textual authority, updated by eminent scholars sensitive to classroom needs and alert to staging choices, is once again available in these slim, elegant, inexpensive, user-friendly volumes. With lucid notes and incisive introductions geared especially to popular film versions, the series also offers an overview of both stage and film performances of each play. A must for any Shakespeare class."
     —Laury Magnus

"The New Kittredge Series is both a delight and a steal. Kittredge's textual authority, updated by eminent scholars sensitive to classroom needs and alert to staging choices, is once again available in these slim, elegant, inexpensive, user-friendly volumes. With lucid notes and incisive introductions geared especially to popular film versions, the series also offers an overview of both stage and film performances of each play. A must for any Shakespeare class."
     —Dr. Laury Magnus

French Cinema: A Student's Book is an introduction to French cinema, in English. This text includes the history of the origins of French film, an explanation of how to analyze a film, a lexicon of French cinema terms, and an analysis of 17 major masterpieces of French filmmaking. A parallel French version of this text, Apprentissage du cinema francais, is also available, so the same course can be taught to students of French culture as well as students of French language.

Additional Resources: French Cinema companion website.

Euripides Hecuba is one of the few tragedies that evoke a sense of utter desolation and destruction in the audience. The drama focuses on the status of women, those who are out of power and at the margins of society, by enacting the sufferings of Hecuba. With the city of Troy fallen, Hecuba and Polyxena, her daughter, are enslaved to Agamemnon. Hecuba is despondent with the news that Polyxena is chosen to be sacrificed at the tomb of Achilles. After the sacrifice, the body of her son Polydorus, already a ghost at the start of the drama, is discovered. Polymestor, a king in Thrace who Hecuba sent Polydorus to for safety reasons, murdered Polydorus for his gold. With the tacit complicity of Agamemnon, Hecuba plots her revenge against Polymestor. What transpires next has lasting implications for all involved, including a dramatic trial scene and Hecubas ultimate metamorphosis.

English translation, with introduction, notes and appendices. The Trojan Women is a play on the consequences of war and the fate of those defeated in war and their victors. 

Federico García Lorca's 1945 drama is set in a small Spanish village, where the five daughters of a tyrannical mother struggle against her strict control. The play explores themes of repression, passion, and conformity, and the effects of love upon men upon women. This edition is designed to help students approach the original Spanish text through an introductory essay, vocabulary and cultural notes, and study questions. All material is in Spanish, and complete in one volume, appropriate as an introductory text for Spanish language courses in literature and culture.

An annotated version of Doctor Faustus, with modernized spelling and punctuation, of the 1616 B-text. James H. Lake's Introduction discusses the play’s historical and dramatic contexts, but focuses on its performance history from the Elizabethan era to our own, including film productions. Textual notes discuss variations between the A and B texts. Interviews with Ralph Alan Cohen of Shenandoah Shakespeare and Andreas Teuber (Mephistopheles in the Richard Burton production) as well as illustrations from theatre and film performances included.

"Seth Schein's new translation of the Philoctetes will serve as a useful text for upper-year classical literature courses in translation. As is typical of the Focus Classical Library series, Schein's translation aims to give a faithful rendering of the Greek that is at the same time readable, if not poetic. It also situates the work in its historical context and generally provides the supplementary material required for readers new to Attic tragedy. . . . Given that it provides more contextual information and interpretive detail than the average translation, and that the translation itself strives for greater fidelity to the original, Schein's work will be most welcome in upper-year translation courses, where it will encourage students to develop a more detailed and subtle understanding of the play."
      —Brad Levett, Carleton University

This volume offers the fruits of Peter Meineck and Paul Woodruff's dynamic collaboration on the plays of Sophocles' Theban cycle, presenting the translators' Oedipus Tyrannus (2000) along with Woodruff's Antigone (2001) and a muscular new Oedipus at Colonus by Meineck. Grippingly readable, all three translations combine fidelity to the Greek with concision, clarity, and powerful, hard-edged speech. Each play features foot-of-the-page notes, stage directions, and line numbers to the Greek. Woodruff's Introduction discusses the playwright, Athenian theatre and performance, the composition of the plays, and the plots and characters of each; it also offers thoughtful reflections on major critical interpretations of these plays.

"Presents a readable, clear translation with the assistance students will need to understand this play and the society that produced it. . . . A worthy addition to Hackett's growing series of translations of classical literature in accessible editions."
     —Anne Mahoney, New England Classical Journal

Drawn from four titles in the Focus Classical Library, this anthology includes four outstanding translations of plays by Euripides as well as a general introduction, extensive footnotes, and two interpretive essays. Included are Anthony J. Podecki’s translation of Medea, Michael R. Halleran's translation of Hippolytus and Heracles and Stephen Esposito’s translation of Bacchae.

This is an English translation of Sophocles' famous tragedy of Oedipus and the fate he so much tries to avoid. Focus Classical Library provides close translations with notes and essays to provide access to understanding Greek culture.

This anthology includes English translations of three plays of Sophocles' Oidipous Cycle: Antigone, King Oidipous, and Oidipous at Colonus. The trilogy includes an introductory essay on Sophocles life, ancient theatre, and the mythic and religious background of the plays. Each of these plays is available from Focus in a single play edition. Focus Classical Library provides close translations with notes and essays to provide access to understanding Greek culture.

"A lucid, well-paced translation, natural enough sounding in the dialogue to make a good acting version, and remarkably successful in making the choruses clear, lyrical, and yet part of the dramatic movement. Woodruff’s rendering of the choruses especially impresses me by the way he manages to render complex syntax and imagery of the original—often tangled and occasionally obscure in its allusiveness—into clear and genuinely poetic English."
—Joseph Russo, Haverford College

No play of Euripides is more admired than Hippolytus. The tale of a married woman stirred to passion for a younger man was traditional, but Euripides modified this story and blended it with one of divine vengeance to create a masterpiece of tension, pathos, and dramatic power. In this play, Phaedra fights nobly but unsuccessfully against her desire for her stepson Hippolytus, while the young man risks his life to keep her passion secret. Both of them, constrained by the overwhelming force of divine power and human ignorance, choose to die in order to maintain their virtue and their good names.

"Since the appearance of Sommerstein’s very successful literal translation less than twenty years ago, there have been at least five further new published attempts at rendering the play into English. It is certainly a bold enterprise to introduce yet one more translation onto the scene, but Peter Meineck has risen well to the challenge. The translation is straightforward and idiomatic, as well as well-paced and funny. . . Ian Storey’s Introduction is perfect for undergraduates.” —Max Nelson, Bryn Mawr Classical Review

"A clear, vigorous, spare, actable translation, and with it, excellent apparatus (Intro., notes, bibliography); all in a slim and affordable volume. I will use when I next teach Oedipus. Hackett is an invaluable resource!” —Rachel Hadas, Rutgers University

"I have enjoyed all of the recent Hackett editions of translations of Greek literature and "Oedipus Tyrannus” is certainly no exception. Meineck and Woodruff got things just right, from employing "Tyrannus” instead of "Rex” in the title (as has become traditional, though it lends an erroneous sense to the play from the outset) to Woodruff’s very fine and accessible Introduction to the suspenseful, poetic and powerful rendering of the play itself. Meineck’s theatrical sensibility and knowledge are evident, yet the text never becomes too "stagey” nor wanders far from the Greek. I will definitely use this text along with other terrific Hackett editions in my courses." —Lisa Rengs George, Arizona State University

"This is a book worthy of high praise. . . . All versions are exceedingly witty and versatile, in verse that ripples from one’s lips, pulling all the punches of Plautus, the knockabout king of farce, and proving that the more polished Terence can be just as funny. Accuracy to the original has been thoroughly respected, but look at the humour in rendering Diphilius’ play called Synapothnescontes as Three’s a Shroud. . . . Students in schools and colleges will benefit from short introductions to each play, to Roman stage conventions, to different types of Greek and Roman comedy, and there is a note on staging, with a diagram illustrating a typical Roman stage and further diagrams of the basic set for each play. The translators have paid more attention to stage directions than is usually given in translations, because they aim to show how these plays worked. This is a book to be used and enjoyed.”
     —Raymond J. Clark, The Classical Outlook

Jeffrey Henderson's translation of Aristophanes' The Birds includes essays on Old Comedy and the Theater of Dionysus, suggestions for further reading, notes on production, and a general bibliography.

"[Woodruff’s translation] is clear, fluent, and vigorous, well thought out, readable and forceful. The rhythms are right, ever-present but not too insistent or obvious. It can be spoken instead of read and so is viable as an acting version; and it keeps the lines of the plot well focused. The Introduction offers a good survey of critical approaches. The notes at the foot of the page are suitably brief and nonintrusive and give basic information for the non-specialist."
     —Charles Segal, Harvard University

“Peter Meineck’s new rendition of the Oresteia is that rare and wonderful thing: a text accessible to the Greekless audience while still preserving the vocabulary of Aeschylus. Those of us who have seen Peter Meineck's performances have long marveled at his ability to turn Greek into clear English, how he does not do ‘versions’ of the plays, how he does not rewrite the ancients into modern jargon (even his comedies maintain more Aristophanic text than is usual). Here lines that students have always needed explicated stand clear. . . . Helene Foley has provided a fine introduction for this translation. Introduction and translation together provide an exciting text, one that should be widely read, widely used.” —Karelisa Hartigan, University of Florida, in The Classical Outlook

Originally adapted for the stage, Peter Meineck’s revised translations achieve a level of fidelity appropriate for classroom use while managing to preserve the wit and energy that led The New Yorker to judge his Clouds “The best Greek drama we’ve ever seen anywhere,” and The Times Literary Supplement to describe his Wasps as “Hugely enjoyable and very, very funny.” A general Introduction, introductions to the plays, and detailed notes on staging, history, religious practice and myth combine to make this a remarkably useful teaching text.

English translation, with introductory material, notes, glossary and essay by Stephen Esposito, of Euripides' tragedy based on the mythological story of King Pentheus of Thebes.

This is an English translation of Terence's Roman comedy that deals with questions of perennial interest: "How best to raise children?" and "How to give self-disinterested moral advice?"

"In her new translation of Antigone, Ruby Blondell demonstrates an unswerving sense of what the general reader needs to know in order not only to understand Sophocles, but to relish him as well… My own students have found that this edition not only makes the Antigone accessible, but also helps them understand why it continues to fascinate, to disturb, and to grip its readers century by century." —John T. Kirby, Comparative Literature, Purdue University

Jeffrey Henderson, noted Greek scholar, has translated into English one of Aristophanes' greatest comedies. Offered with detailed notes and an enlightening introduction, this modern translation brings to life the wit and elegance of the language while putting the text in historical and cultural context.

English translation. Includes essays on the play's mythical background and the work of Euripides, an introduction to Greek drama and the dramatic tradition, plot summaries and suggestions for further reading. For both students and the general reader.

Henderson's English translation of Lysistrata, the most popular of Aristophanes' plays, appeals to the modern reader because of its lively and imaginative plot, strong and memorable heroine, good jokes, and appeal for peace and tolerance between nations and between the sexes. Jeffery Henderson, noted Greek scholar, puts the work in historical and cultural context in his comprehensive introduction. Suggestions for further reading, notes, and map are also included.