Consistently praised for being "streamlined" and "clear and student friendly," THEATRE: A WAY OF SEEING offers the beginning theatre student an exciting, full-color introduction to all aspects of theatre. It presents the experience of theatre, who sees, what is seen, where and how it is seen largely from the viewpoint of audiences exposed to a complex, living art that involves people, spaces, plays, designs, staging, forms, language, and productions. The book includes the appropriate coverage of the history, diversity and most critical moments in theatre in a way that encourages students to experience theatre as "a performing art and humanistic event."
This is a great theater appreciation book. I only found about three things in it that were a bit off (i.e. August Wilson lived in Seattle at the end of his life, not Pittsburgh; Literary Managers and Dramaturgs both do New Play Development; Mary Overlie had six viewpoints that Anne Bogart took two of and made nine from those two - I know that's confusing, but anyone who knows Viewpoints knows that...)...and that's pretty good because most books of this nature are always geared toward one style or another and typically the author is only knowledgeable about one or two. I loved that this book covered the typical stuff (Stanislavski/The Greeks) and also plugged in all different cultures, productions aspects including the weird and strange job of the producer. I was also impressed that the author included Karen Finley, my idol Ariane Mnouchkine, and Spalding Grey. Not many books include those with the regular theater history sorts of Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams. This book will be part of my curriculum for Theater Appreciation at the North Campus (Washington State Penitentiary) and I recommend it to anyone else who might be teaching Theater Appreciation somewhere else.