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THE STORY: In Martin McDonagh's first American-set play, Carmichael has been searching for his missing left hand for almost half a century. Enter two bickering lovebirds with a hand to sell, and a hotel clerk with an aversion to gunfire, and we're
A stirring and powerful memoir from black cultural critic Rebecca Carroll recounting her painful struggle to overcome a completely white childhood in order to forge her identity as a black woman in America. Rebecca Carroll grew up the only black person in her rural New Hampshire town. Adopted at birth by artistic parents who believed in peace, love, and zero population growth, her early childhood was loving and idyllic—and yet she couldn’t articulate the deep sense of isolation she increasingly felt as she grew older. Everything changed when she met her birth mother, a young white woman, who consistently undermined Carroll’s sense of her blackness and self-esteem. Carroll’s childhood became harrowing, and her memoir explores the tension between the aching desire for her birth mother’s acceptance, the loyalty she feels toward her adoptive parents, and the search for her racial identity. As an adult, Carroll forged a path from city to city, struggling along the way with difficult boyfriends, depression, eating disorders, and excessive drinking. Ultimately, through the support of her chosen black family, she was able to heal. Intimate and illuminating, Surviving the White Gaze is a timely examination of racism and racial identity in America today, and an extraordinarily moving portrait of resilience.
After months pass without a culprit in her daughter's murder case, Mildred Hayes pays for three signs challenging the authority of William Willoughby, the town's revered chief of police. When his second-in-command, Officer Dixon, a mother's boy with a penchant for violence, gets involved, the battle between Mildred and Ebbing's law enforcement threatens to engulf the town.Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri is a darkly comedic drama from Martin McDonagh.The film won Best Motion Picture - Drama and Best Screenplay at the Golden Globes 2018, and Best Film and Best Original Screenplay at 2018 BAFTAs.
The Oxford Handbook of Modern Irish Theatre provides the single most comprehensive survey of the field to be found in a single volume. Drawing on more than forty contributors from around the world, the book addresses a full range of topics relating to modern Irish theatre from the late nineteenth-century to the most recent works of postdramatic devised theatre. Ireland has long had an importance in the world of theatre out of all proportion to the size of the country, and has been home to four Nobel Laureates (Yeats, Shaw, and Beckett; Seamus Heaney, while primarily a poet, also wrote for the stage). This collection begins with the influence of melodrama, and looks at arguably the first modern Irish playwright, Oscar Wilde, before moving into a series of considerations of the Abbey Theatre, and Irish modernism. Arranged chronologically, it explores areas such as women in theatre, Irish-language theatre, and alternative theatres, before reaching the major writers of more recent Irish theatre, including Brian Friel and Tom Murphy, and their successors. There are also individual chapters focusing on Beckett and Shaw, as well as a series of chapters looking at design, acting, and theatre architecture. The book concludes with an extended survey of the critical literature on the field. In each chapter, the author does not simply rehearse accepted wisdom; all of the contributors push the boundaries of their respective fields, so that each chapter is a significant contribution to scholarship in its own right.
Martin McDonagh is one of the world's most popular dramatists. This is a highly readable and illuminating analysis of his career to date that will appeal to the legions of fans of his stage plays and the films Six Shooter and In Bruges. As a resource for students and practitioners it is unrivalled, providing an authoritative and enquiring approach to his work that moves beyond the tired discussions of national identity to offer a comprehensive critical exploration. Patrick Lonergan provides a detailed analysis of each of his plays and films, their original staging, critical reception, and the connections within and between the Leenane Trilogy, the Aran Islands plays and more recent work. It includes an interview with Garry Hynes, artistic director of Druid Theatre Company, and offers four critical essays on key features of McDonagh's work by leading international scholars: Joan Dean, Eamonn Jordan, Jose Lanters and Karen O'Brien. A series of further resources including a chronology, glossary, notes on McDonagh's use of language and a list of further reading makes this the perfect companion to one of the most exciting dramatists writing today.
New Playwriting Strategies has become a canonical text in the study and teaching of playwriting, offering a fresh and dynamic insight into the subject. This thoroughly revised and expanded second edition explores and highlights the wide spread of new techniques that form contemporary theatre writing, as well as their influence on other dramatic forms. Paul Castagno builds on the innovative plays of Len Jenkin, Mac Wellman, and the theories of Mikhail Bakhtin to investigate groundbreaking new techniques from a broad range of contemporary dramatists, including Sarah Ruhl, Suzan Lori-Parks and Young Jean Lee. New features in this edition include an in-depth study of the adaptation of classical texts in contemporary playwright and the utilizing new technologies, such as YouTube, Wikipedia and blogs to create alternative dramatic forms. The author’s step-by-step approach offers the reader new models for: narrative dialogue character monologue hybrid plays This is a working text for playwrights, presenting a range of illuminating new exercises suitable for everyone from the workshop student to the established writer. New Playwriting Strategies is an essential resource for anyone studying and writing drama today.
Now in its Third Edition, Scenic Art for the Theatre: History, Tools and Techniques continues to be the most trusted source for both student and professional scenic artists. With new information on scenic design using Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro and other digital imaging softwares this test expands to offer the developing artist more step-by-step instuction and more practical techniques for work in the field. It goes beyond detailing job functions and discussing techniques to serve as a trouble-shooting guide for the scenic artist, providing practical advice for everyday solutions.
When Kendrick Lamar won the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for his album "DAMN," critics announced that the award represented a belated acknowledgement of the cultural importance of hip-hop as a genre. The articles in this volume, ranging from music reviews to profiles, show the lives and careers of prominent hip-hop artists, including the controversies of Kanye West and the successes of Drake. The impact of these artists can be felt in the spheres of fashion, art, literature, and politics as well as in every sphere of music.
This comprehensive, accessible introduction to one of Britain’s leading contemporary playwrights and filmmakers outlines Martin McDonagh’s body of work, the key critical contexts for understanding and exploring his career, analysis of productions, and includes an exclusive interview with the director of his most recent stage work. Analysis of McDonagh’s writing is broken down into three periods – his early Irish plays, his screenplays, and his later plays that move away from and outside of Ireland. Works are discussed thematically, giving a dynamic reading of the scripts and the ideas around which they circle. The book’s final section then delves in more detail into selected seminal productions of McDonagh’s writing, outlining key phases and transitions in his career. Part of the Routledge Modern and Contemporary Dramatists series, Martin McDonagh is an essential guide for scholars and students who are setting out to understand the life and work of one of the most popular and acclaimed British dramatists and filmmakers of the twenty-first century.
This Student Edition of Martin McDonagh's The Beauty Queen of Leenane features expert and helpful annotation, including a scene-by-scene summary, a detailed commentary on the dramatic, social and political context, and on the themes, characters, language and structure of the play, as well a list of suggested reading and questions for further study and a review of performance history. Set in the mountains of Connemara, County Galway, The Beauty Queen of Leenane tells the darkly comic tale of Maureen Folan, a plain and lonely spinster in her early forties, and Mag her devilishly manipulative ageing mother whose interference in Maureen's first and potentially last loving relationship sets in motion a train of events that is as gothically funny as it is horrific. Maureen might long for the romance that will spirit her away, but if she goes, who will stir the lumps out of Mag's Complan? The Beauty Queen of Leenane was first presented as a Druid Theatre/Royal Court Theatre co-production in January 1996. An instant classic from its first performance, The Beauty Queen of Leenane established Martin McDonagh as the natural successor to Oscar Wilde and Joe Orton. The Oscar and Bafta-winning writer's other films and plays include In Bruges and The Pillowman.
