5 comments about The Q Guide to Broadway (Pop Culture Out There Q Guide).

1. Seth is amazingly funny and witty. His writing style is not comparable to anyone.
   He really goes deep in the subject (no pun intented) and is acurate everytime!
   
   love, love, love it!



2. Great little guide to all the hot spots for any Broadway obsessed person - Q or otherwise. If you are a Broadway fiend be sure to read this before your next trip. Also gives great website recommendations for those like me -- too poor to travel. Every time I listen to Seth Rudetsky on Sirius Broadway, I think "I have a friend in the Broadway business."



3. Seth's humor and passion for Broadway are a gift to all who love The Great White Way. Thank you Seth!!!



4. I consider myself a begining Broadway buff, and this book was the perfect book to push me on the path of Broadway knowledge. First of all, it's hilarious; and I mean every page has something to make you laugh. Secondly, all of the inside info and web links made me feel like I was living in New York and was a louse for not having tickets to see the hotest show in town tonight. But this book you will not be sorry. I have a lot of current event/ history books about Broadway and this book was awesome.



5. This is a great little guide to broadway!
   Lots of great basic information for newcomers peppered with insider tidbits to keep it entertaining for those who already speak the language.
   Gay, straight, newbie, long time broadway fan, there's plenty in here for everyone!
   A quick fun read that begs to be read aloud to the people around you (a better idea if you are at your home as opposed to on the subway).

5 comments about The Gospel at Colonus.

1. I saw the play on PBS and was amazed at the production. It was one of the best plays that I have ever seen. I have been in search of the video version of the play for years and have yet to find it. I have the cd version of the Philadelphia cast of The Gospel at Colonus, but I would be ecstatic if I can own the video/dvd version of the play. If anyone knows where I can get a video version of the play, please share the information with the rest of us.



2. I want the tape as well! Saw it on PBS and like the rest of the reviewers can't find it any where. HELP!



3. This play has been one that will not be easily forgotten. A really good play for all to see. I am searching really hard to find the video/disc. The soundtrack to it is great but seeing would put me there with the orginial cast especially the narrator and performers. Please email me and tell me how to acquire one. Great and wonderful play.



4. Yes, this video performance must be re-released! How important is this production to me: 1987 -saw this live seven times! 1997- took 15 people to see the 10th Anniversary show! Have the soundtrack on vinyl, cassette and DVD. A good friend GAVE me a copy of the PBS performance (still in excellent condition).
   
   Here's a production that is more than just creative staging. It's a life lesson about forgiveness and redemption.



5. The Gospel of Colonus "Greatest Performances" on video IS the BEST performances I have ever seen. I have searched HI and LOW for the video and still no luck. It has to be away to get this video!!! All I have is the PBS version (shown in 1985)and you can imagine how it is now. (sad face) But I recommend that EVERYONE see this performance. The story of Oedipus transformed into a gospel play that will send shivers up your spine! As you look at the video, you will forget where you are at the moment and think that you are there. I am sure the book is great, but the PLAY is AWESOME!!! I believe the play is MUCH better than the book because you can live it an feel what each character is feeling. THEY NEED TO PRINT THE MOVIE!!! WE NEED BACK BY POPULAR DEMAND!!!

2 comments about Brilliant Traces..

1. A thought-provoking, deep, intellectual and emotional play. Brilliant pyschology, truly. This play is amazing. The depth of exploration of the human mind, and the intricate connections between parents and children, and the reality of this play are genuinely stunning. He's a recluse living in Alaska, she's a runaway bride who can't understand why she left, or where she's going. She stumbles into his life,and together they tread through each other's pasts, trying to find out how to remain stable, grounded, and able to be called alive. I kid you not- read this play.



2. Fantastic play about two people thrust together in a snow storm in Alaska. A deep look at relationships, inner self and living who you truly are. Truly fascinating and inspiring characters.

1 comments about The Oxford Illustrated History of Theatre (Oxford Illustrated Histories).

1. This recopilation of 13 essays by 16 different writters is one of the most outstanding pieces ever written regarding this subject. It covers thetrical history from Egyptiand to present day with insightful remarks and comprehensive easy to follow writting style. Definitly a must have for theater lovers everywhere

No comments about Dance: The Art of Production: A Guide to Auditions, Music, Costuming, Lighting, Makeup, Programming, Management, Marketing, Fundraising.

No comments about Public Speaking Guidebook.

4 comments about God's Ear: A Play.

1. Jenny Schwartz's play should be read as well as seen to appreciate her intricate and intense use of language. Sh plays with depicting strong and frightening emotions while filtering them through stylized language and funny and absurd situations. Her work is amazingly intricate and utterly entertaining.



2. I'm teaching an undergrad course in Absurdism, and wanted something besides Pinter, Beckett, Stoppard. This play is current, being done right now, so students will be feeling "in the moment" with it.



3. This play has attained somewhat of a cult following since it's premiere Off Off Broadway two seasons ago, and it's revival this year at Off Broadway's esteemed Vineyard Theatre. Basically, it is about how a couple deals, or rather avoids dealing, with the loss of a child, their inability to express their feelings. Paralyzed by grief, the only words that come out of their mouths seem to be cliches, some of which hit the nail on the head, others which hilariously trivialize the situation. If you think this might get real old real fast, read the play. In the hands of brilliant new playwright, Jenny Schwartz, it becomes not only gut wrenching, but gut busting. To further dispel any fears that all this might get a bit too heavy, may I offer: The dramatist personae also includes: The Tooth Fairy, a transvestite stewardess, a live action figure and a delightfully dipso nymphomaniac.



4. This is a gorgeous play that must be read as Ms. Schwartz's text wraps around you like a poem written in water. The way she uses language is so unique and consuming, it will simply blow you away.
   Ms. Schwartz is an incredibly talented voice for the American Theatre that needs to be heard and seen.

5 comments about A Moon for the Misbegotten.

1. O'Neill's "last" play, written and revised several times concurrently with his other four late plays, never made it to Broadway during his lifetime. After a lukewarmly received tour through the Midwest, O'Neill became dissatisfied with the production, in part because he was increasingly in poor health and also because he was never happy with the play to begin with. He finally gave up on the work, and published it with a curt, apologetic prefatory note, saying "I cannot presently give it the attention required for appropriate presentation."
   
   In spite of its inauspicious beginnings, many consider it his greatest work. I reserve that laurel for "Long Day's Journey," but of all O'Neill's works, this one reads as well on the page as it looks on the stage. Its lead character, James Tyrone, is a thinly disguised version of O'Neill's brother, who drank himself to death in a sanatorium the year after their mother died. O'Neill resurrects his brother for the theater and throws him drunkenly into the arms of an impossible match: Josie Hogan, the daughter of a tenant living on land he inherited. She is, perhaps, O'Neill's most fully fleshed female lead--literally and figuratively. Strong-willed and strong-armed, she simultaneously flaunts and scorns her reputation as a "terrible wanton woman" (an image that is more invented than real), but it is immediately obvious that her true love is Tyrone himself.
   
   The plot of the play rests on a swindle planned by Josie and her father, who mistakenly believe that Tyrone plans to sell their land to an insufferably pampered blueblood from the neighborhood. Their attempt at conning Tyrone with alcohol and blackmail, which resembles a tawdry version of every outrageous scheme concocted by Lucy Ricardo, quickly misfires as a half-comic caper that brings to all concerned a melancholy (but not exactly tragic) sense of loss and wistfulness.
   
   You can see O'Neill struggling to redeem the brother he loved but never quite understood or forgave. But it is Josie who ultimately wins the audience's affections and sympathy.



2. I saw the play on Broadway back in May 2000. If Eugene O'Neill's ghost were walking the aisles of the theater that night he would be proud of the performance that night. The play is timeless as it is cherished as the best love story created. The actors were superb in their portrayal of O'Neill's character. Gabriel Byrne was excellent in his role as James Tyrone the sometimes actor, full time drunken landlord of Phil Hogan (played by Roy Dotrice) and Josie Hogan (played by Cherry Jones). Cherry Jones' character Josie brought out a beautiful heart of a hulking frame of a woman with a reputation of being ornery like her father, who longs for the man she loves, James Tyrone. Every moment is the ebb tide of emotion stirring in the hearts of the two misbegotten crossed lovers. Even to the very end, of the misfortunate disappointment it will stop your heart and make you take a deeper breath again.



3. I loved this play the first second i saw it on broadway. it gave me vibrations all over my body every time Cherry Jones said a line. It was an amazing story of true love and to give yourself over to someyone. And talking to Hope Davis made me cry after, because she said to me "I've never seen love so strong." I do hope you give Eugene O'Neill a chance and buy this amazing play. And try to see any production of his work being broadway or smaller productions. Thank you!



4. Sometimes plays are rediscovered after what seems to be utter failure, a valuable insight for all, I think. O'Neill's A Moon for the Misbegotten was rejected by pre-Broadway audiences in Michigan and Ohio in the 1940s, effectively preventing the play from having a New York premiere during the author's lifetime. In each of the following two decades, attempts at New York productions failed. It took Jason Robards and Colleen Dewhurst to ignite the play for New York in the 1970s, under the direction of the legendary Jose Quintero.

   O'Neill's playwriting career is oddly similar to that of Sam Shepard: He had an early series of realistic short plays, followed by a period of experiment, when he explored a variety of artistic impulses and writing styles. Eventually, he wrote a handful of plays, rooted in realism, sometimes autobiographical, which revealed, nevertheless, what he'd learned through experiment. In the best of these, The Iceman Cometh, Long Day's Journey into Night, and A Moon for the Misbegotten, O'Neill built vehicles of immense emotional power with psychologically rich characters and fairly organic plots.

   MOON revolves around the Irish-American earth mother, Josie Hogan, a tall, rough-hewn woman, who promotes a course image of herself to cover a fragile and vulnerable interior. The other two "imposters" of the play are her father, Phil Hogan, and the landlord of their tired Connecticut farm, James Tyrone (based on O'Neill's brother), a third-rate Broadway actor, who has drunk his life away, chasing loose women and acting a fool. Nevertheless, Josie secretly harbors feelings for him. The play hinges on what happens when her father, through a clever, inebriated deception, convinces her to blackmail Tyrone into selling them the farm rather than selling it to their rich, obnoxious neighbor (for a much higher price). The subterfuge leads to one of the most poignant love scenes in American dramatic literature, as Josie and Jim Tyrone discover that they know and understand the person beneath the mask better than they each thought, and it's still not enough to unite them.

   O'Neill's original title for the play was The Moon Bore Twins. We can be grateful for the change, though the original title does carry a measure of insight with it, for Josie and Tyrone are, if not identical twins psychologically, at least inversions of the same chord-doomed to occupy separate, mutually exclusive worlds.

   The play contains an amazing shift of tone from the first half to the last half. In act one and two we are treated to a rather comic display of Irish inflected patter between Josie, her father, and the rest of the five characters. In the last two acts, the tone becomes more serious and bittersweet, which may explain why it took so long for audiences to catch up with it. The play definitely catches the viewer or reader off guard ... wishing that these two ne'er-do-wells could save each other from the future they have each envisioned. O'Neill's revised title says a lot about the play, for Moon is not as dark as Long Day's Journey, nor as demanding as Iceman, but it is O'Neill deploying all his gifts as a dramatist, writing fully realized roles containing emotional power, wit, humor, and pathos. His language reflects people who are driven to speak to stay alive. No one is writing like this today, except perhaps August Wilson.




5. Eugene O'Neill is definitely one of the greatest playwrights of all time. I saw Long Days Journey Into Night a few years ago and was just struck by the true dysfunctional family that hearkens to society of today.

   Moon takes a character from that great play, James Tyrone, Jr, (who incidentally is O'Neill's brother -- the entire play is autobiographical in nature) and draws readers into the tragic world of the Hogans, and Tyrone. The raw emotions of the characters become apparent with the read -- a difficult thing to do for readers if they have not seen the play -- and also is startling honest about how jealousy, fear and desperation all meld into one.

   Definitely a must read, if you want to consider yourself in the know of American literature, but Moon does at times seem trying, with blatant symbolism(the moon is quite noticeable throughout the play) scratching at the reader.

5 comments about Capoeira Conditioning: How to Build Strength, Agility, and Cardiovascular Fitness Using Capoeira Movements.

1. i just started capoeira. this book certainly has some real info and the workouts will show their effect in no time. very encouraging and easy to follow.



2. esto es un libro para acondicionarse para la práctica del capoeira, encontraras movimientos básicos, algo de historia, es un libro para principiantes y para personas que esten interesadas en este excelente deporte.



3. The title says it all. A very good book for anyone who is into physical conditioning using only body weight exercises!



4. A very good book to learn the basics of capoira movements. It is great for general fitness for anyone of any age and fitness levels.
   Something different to the usual jogging, weights, cycling, etc.



5. Capoeira conditioning in a basic stretching and capoeira exercise book.
   If you don't have experience in martial arts or any time of organized exercise classes, this book may be appropriate for you. As more of a beginners' book I would recommend this book. However, if you are more advanced you want to look further into your search.

5 comments about The Joy of Music Leonard Bernstein.

1. I myself am a commentator on Classical Music on Television, and Leonard Bernstein, thanks to this book and to his "The Infinite Variety of Music",
   has been always my inspiration, model and idol.- Inspite of the years, these talks have not lost any of their charme and intelligence and continue to be valid.- Highly recommended to every music-lover.-



2. I've had this book for a couple of decades in the original hardback version. It's a reminder to me of what I watched, live on television back in the fifties, when television had "culture." His Omnibus lectures were thrilling to behold and I wish dearly they were on dvd. His description of how perfect the Fifth was defies description; you had to have seen him use musicians as notes and move them around to show what happened if one note had changed. Or how a little discussion around a table with a man and a woman becomes something else again when sung (La Boheme) or explaining about a piece concerning a little nightengale when introducing Stravinsky.
   
   The man was pure genious and millions of Americans became interested in classical music through this man. This teenaged girl did.



3. This is Leonard Bernsteain at his best. It's a fun book, an engaging and fascinating book. All the Bernstein wit and wisdom is here. It's a book for both musicians and those wanting to learn about music in a fun way.
   
   You won't regret spending time or money on this gem.



4. Leonard Bernstein excelled at everything he tried--he was a fantastic conductor, composer, and writer. From popular music from West Side Story to jazz to "serious art music" like Chichester Psalms and his Mass, Bernstein was never constrained by any seeming limitations. This book is a compilation Bernstein's writings. The first section consists of dialogues between Bernstein and several imaginary characters regarding society's philosophy of music. These discussions are quite intellectual and thought-provoking. The second section contains seven television transcripts about subjects ranging from Musical Theater to J.S. Bach. This half is much more accessible and a breeze to read. If you can't read music, you would enjoy getting CDs of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, Brahms' First Symphony, and Bach's St. Matthew Passion before curling up with this book. It will enhance your enjoyment of Bernstein's exciting descriptions, and will make them come to life.



5. This is a complete, lucid, approachable and vibrant book. The dialogues at the beginning reveal the many facets of Bernstein's character and of his startling brilliance, and the section on modern music should not be missed. Of course, for the sections taken from his Omnibus television programs, the textual medium can only inform the reader what would be happening on screen, and those descriptions probably lack the power of audio-visual aids. It is, however, a work that any student of music, or any lover of music, would be able to take for granted in a Perfect World.