LibGuides: Drama and Performance Studies Guide: Books

Drama shelf

Books can be found on the shelves at the following broad numbers: 790.02 General arts, 791 Public performances, 792 Stage presentation, 812 American drama in English. To find the location of a specific book, use the iLink catalogue.

The Library's catalogue indicates what books are available at UKZN and in which library and section of a library, as well as the current status of a book eg is it in Academic Reserves, out on loan, on order etc.

Training sessions on how to use the catalogue are offered at the beginning of each semester and whenever there is a need, or, see your subject librarian.

Inter Library Loans

The Library offers an inter-campus library loan as well as an inter-library loan service for items not available at UKZN. Please give your request to the Circulation desk at any of the libraries. Books take time to be posted from other libraries in the country so please plan for at least a two week delay before a print item arrives. Journal articles are usually scanned and emailed. There is sometimes a cost involved (staff will notify you of the exact amount payable). Please consult the library inter library loans link for further information.

eBooks

Print Books

Prescribed and recommended books: Academic Reserves

Prescribed and recommended books are usually kept in the Academic Reserves sections of the libraries. Academic Reserves materials may not be taken out of the library during the day but may be borrowed for an evening and over weekends. Academic Reserves material may be used in the library for two hours only. Photocopying services are available in the library.

Guide to catalogue

eBooks (online books)

An eBook is "an electronic version" of a printed book. Sometimes it exists without a print equivalent.

Drama Stage and Audience
This book shows how a play 'works' in the theatre: how it generates life, meaning and excitement on the stage for the audience. It is self evident that a play must communicate or it is not a play at all. Professor Styan argues that, while communication in drama begins with the script, the value or power of a play must be tested upon an audience. In the theatre experience, it is not so much the elements of drama on the stage or the perceptions of the audience which are important, as the relationships between them. It follows that the study of drama is the study of how the stage compels its audience to be involved in its actual processes; it is a study of a particular social situation. Professor Styan discusses in detail the particular social situation, conditions of performance and physical playhouse in which a play thrives. There is a wealth of examples from all periods of Western drama. He especially deals with plays which make no pretence to 'realism', and much of the discussion turn
Performance and Politics in Popular Drama
Since the beginning of the nineteenth-century, many forms of theatre have been called 'popular', but in the twentieth-century the term 'popular drama' has taken on definite political overtones, often indicating a repudiation of 'commercial theatre'. Does this mean that political theatre is or tries to be more attractive to more people than commercial theatre? Does it conversely mean that commercial theatre has no political effects? The articles in this book were submitted as papers for a conference on the theme of 'popular' theatre, film and television. Contributions came from people with very different types of experience: from an ex-animal trainer to a lecturer in film studies; from playwrights, directors and actors to professional critics and academics. Each author focused on a particular problem of defining drama in performance, drawing together the conditions of performance, the types of audience and the political effects of the plays or films in question. The result was a series
Actors and Acting in Shakespeare's Time
- This link opens in a new window
John Astington brings the acting style of the Shakespearean period to life, describing and analyzing the art of the player in the English professional theater between Richard Tarlton and Thomas Betterton. The book pays close attention to the cultural context of stage playing, the critical language used about it, and the kinds of training and professional practice employed in the theater at various times over the course of roughly one hundred years – 1558–1660. Perfect for courses, this up-to-date survey takes into account recent discoveries about actors and their social networks, about apprenticeship and company affiliations, and about playing outside the major center of theater, London. Astington considers the educational tradition of playing, in schools, universities, legal inns, and choral communities, in comparison to the work of the professional players. A comprehensive biographical dictionary of all major professional players of the Shakespearean period is included as a handy
Irony and the Modern Theatre
- This link opens in a new window
Irony and theater share intimate kinships, not only regarding dramatic conflict, dialectic, or wittiness, but also scenic structure and the verbal or situational ironies that typically mark theatrical speech and action. Yet irony today, in aesthetic, literary, and philosophical contexts especially, is often regarded with skepticism – as ungraspable, or elusive to the point of confounding. Countering this tendency, Storm advocates a wide-angle view of this master trope, exploring the ironic in major works by playwrights including Chekhov, Pirandello, and Brecht, and in notable relation to well-known representative characters in drama from Ibsen's Halvard Solness to Stoppard's Septimus Hodge and Wasserstein's Heidi Holland. To the degree that irony is existential, its presence in the theater relates directly to the circumstances and the expressiveness of the characters on stage. This study investigates how these key figures enact, embody, represent, and personify the ironic in myriad
Stage Fright, Animals, and Other Theatrical Problems
- This link opens in a new window
Each volume in the Theatre and Performance Theory series introduces a key issue about theatre's role in culture. Specially written for students and a wide readership, each book uses case studies to guide readers into today's pressing debates in theatre and performance studies. Topics include contemporary theatrical practices; historiography; interdisciplinary approaches to making theatre; and the choices and consequences of how theatre is studied; among other areas of investigation
Professing Performance
- This link opens in a new window
Contemporary academic discourse is filled with the word "perform". Nestled among a variety of prefixes and suffixes (re-, post-, -ance, -ivity?), the term functions as a vehicle for a host of inquiries. This development is intriguing and complex for students, artists, and scholars of performance and theater. By examining the history of theater studies and related institutions and comparing the very different disciplinary interpretations and developments that led to this engagement, this study offers ways of placing performance theory and performance studies in context
More eBooks or search the catalogue
Arts activism, education, and therapies : transforming communities across Africa
The Methuen Drama Guide to Contemporary South African Theatre
South Africa has a uniquely rich and diverse theatre tradition which has responded energetically to the country's remarkable transition, helping to define the challenges and contradictions of this young democracy. This volume considers the variety of theatre forms, and the work of the major playwrights and theatre makers producing work in democratic South Africa. It offers an overview of theatre pioneers and theatre forms in Part One, before concentrating on the work of individual playwrights in Part Two. Through its wide-ranging survey of indigenous drama written predominantly in the English language and the analysis of more than 100 plays, a detailed account is provided of post-apartheid South African theatre and its engagement with the country's recent history.Part One offers six overview chapters on South African theatre pioneers and theatre forms. These include consideration of the work of artists such as Barney Simon, Mbongeni Ngema, Phyllis Klotz; the collaborations of William Kentridge and the Handspring Puppet Company; the work of Magnet Theatre, and of physical and popular community theatre forms.Part Two features chapters on twelve major playwrights, including Athol Fugard, Reza de Wet, Lara Foot, Zakes Mda, Yaël Farber, Mpumelelo Paul Grootboom, Mike van Graan and Brett Bailey. It includes a survey of emerging playwrights and significant plays, and the book closes with an interview with Aubrey Sekhabi, the Artistic Director of the South African State Theatre in Pretoria.Written by a team of over twenty leading international scholars, The Methuen Drama Guide to Contemporary South African Theatre is a unique resource that will be invaluable to students and scholars from a range of different disciplines, as well as theatre practitioners.

Books

Books may be borrowed for particular time periods depending on your year of study. They are arranged according to subject matter, using the Dewey Decimal Classification system. The online iCatalogue (see link below) will help you find the books you need.

Library Borrowing Privileges

OFF-CAMPUS access via Ezproxy

OFF-CAMPUS access via Ezproxy

You will be prompted for your UKZN username and password the first
time you click on a link on this page. You will not be prompted again for the rest of the session.