Drama Memoir

Becoming Shakespeare begins with his death in 1616 and relates the fascinating story of his unlikely transformation from provincial playwright to universal Bard. Unlike later literary giants, Shakespeare created no stir when he died. Though he'd once had a string of hit plays, he had been retired in the country for six years, and only his family, friends, and business partners seemed to care that he was gone.

Isabel, tal como a sua mãe, D. Filipa de Lencastre, casava tarde. E a ideia de deixar Portugal, o pai envelhecido, os cinco irmãos em constante desacordo, e Lopo, irmão de leite e melhor amigo, para partir para um país longínquo e gelado atormentava-lhe o coração. Era a terceira mulher de Filipe, já duas vezes viúvo, esperava vir a dar-lhe o herdeiro legítimo de que Borgonha tanto precisava. A sua fama de mulherengo atravessava fronteiras… Mas Isabel sabia que nascera para cumprir um destino, ser a Estrela do Norte, que firme no céu indica o caminho.

Known as an actor-manager, Sir Henry Irving (1838-1905) took complete responsibility for season after season at London’s Lyceum Theatre, establishing himself and his company as representative of English classical theater. Beginning in 1878, author Bram Stoker worked for Irving as a business manager at the Lyceum for much of Irving’s career. Stoker revered Irving, and when he began writing Dracula, Irving was the chief inspiration for the title character.

Web Summit has been touted as one of the biggest Irish business success stories of the last decade, growing from a 150-person meet-up into an over 70,000-person gathering of industry leaders. Paddy Cosgrave, its charismatic co-founder cozied up to Silicon Valley elite, read Chomsky at the weekends, raised his family on a farm in Donegal, and attended Wimbledon with the wealthy. He had the world at his feet. That world, however, came at a cost.

Why would the multimillionaire producer of Cats, The Phantom of the Opera, and Miss Saigon take his limo from Manhattan to the struggling former steel town of Levittown, Pennsylvania, to see a high school production of Les Misérables? To see the show performed by the astoundingly successful theater company at Harry S Truman High School, run by its legendary director, Lou Volpe. Broadway turns to Truman High when trying out controversial shows such as Rent and Spring Awakening before they move on to high school theater programs across the nation. Volpe’s students from this blue-collar town go on to become Emmy-winning producers, entertainment executives, newscasters, and community-theater founders.

In Drama in the Bahamas, Dave Hannigan tells the occasionally poignant, often troubling, yet always entertaining story behind Ali's last bout. Through interviews with many of those involved, he discovers exactly how and why, a few weeks short of his 40th birthday, a seriously diminished Ali stepped through the ropes one more time to get beaten up by Trevor Berbick.

In My Greek Drama, Gianna Angelopoulos - known in her home country simply as "Gianna" - has written a memoir that is as much about Greece's journey as her own. From her childhood in Crete, to law school in Thessaloniki, to Athens, where she overcame male-dominated legal and political cultures to help redefine public service in Greece, Gianna worked her way into becoming one of the most respected women in Greek public life.

Written by the former Deputy Head of Make-Up and Wigs at the National Theatre, this book opens up a process that very few people will otherwise be privy to, giving perspectives on the preparation before a production and responsibilities during, as well as looking more widely at training, career opportunities and success. From designing and fitting wigs to managing lightning-fast quick changes, hair, wigs and make-up people are a major part of the creation of any theatrical production.

There are few labels not attached to Aphra Behn - playwright, poet, a spy, a scarlet woman condemned for loose morals. And yet, for all her notoriety Aphra Behn is an enigma. Born in around 1640, her early life isn't well recorded and facts about her are continually disputed. Her birth name may have been Eaffrey Johnson and she could have been the daughter of a Canterbury barber, although neither fact is certain. And, just after the Restoration she probably briefly lived in the English colony of Surinam in South America, where she was perhaps embroiled in political espionage.

In 2008, a troubled Vietnam veteran turned struggling actor named Hamilton Meadows became obsessed with a question: What did William Shakespeare's English sound like when the Bard and his actors spoke it? Others had asked the same thing before - the quest to piece together the pronunciation of Elizabethan English, the language as it was spoken during Shakespeare's lifetime, has captivated English scholars, theater directors, and romantic adventurers for two hundred years.

El artista Ricky Martin quien ha vendido mas de 60 millones de albumes en todo el mundo habla por primera vez sobre su infancia, sus comienzos musicales en el grupo Menudo, su busqueda de identidad durante el fenomeno de "Livin La Vida Loca", la aceptacion de su sexualidad, las relaciones en las que descubrio el amor y las decisiones que cambiaron su vida como el convertirse en padre y su dedicacion por ayudar a los ninos des privilegiados en todo el mundo.

Shakespearean is a rich, brilliant and superbly drawn portrait of an extraordinary artist, one of the greatest writers who ever lived. Through an enthralling narrative, ranging widely in time and space, McCrum seeks to understand Shakespeare within his historical context while also exploring the secrets of literary inspiration and examining the nature of creativity itself.

When LeBron James signed with the Los Angeles Lakers in 2018, it looked like a match made in heaven. Here was the preeminent athlete of his generation, fresh off ending Cleveland’s 50-year title drought and in need of a new challenge to help further burnish his legacy, joining forces with one of the most iconic teams in all of sports. And here were the Lakers, in the midst of their worst stretch in franchise history and reeling from the death of the legendary owner Dr. Jerry Buss, in need of a savior. The script wrote itself.

These two books will give you an insight few others can give into the dangerous world of fishing in the North Sea and the type of man the job breeds.

George Bernard Shaw has been called the second greatest playwright in English (after William Shakespeare) and one of the inventors of modern celebrity as the most famous public intellectual of his time. Beginning in the 1880s, as a critic and as a playwright, he transformed British drama, bringing to it intellectual substance, ethical imperatives, and modernity itself, setting the theatrical course for the subsequent century. That his legacy endures 70 years after his death is testament to the prescience of his thinking and his prolific creativity.

Peter Lorre, Michael B. Druxman’s one-person stage play, finds the famous actor in poor health near the end of his life. He contemplates his third divorce and ponders how he will provide for his young daughter, while remembering the greener years that he spent with the likes of Humphrey Bogart, John Huston, and Sydney Greenstreet. One simple set.

The Bard was so incredibly prolific that even most Shakespeare scholars would welcome the occasional refresher course, and most of the rest of us haven't even got a clue as to what a petard actually is. Fear not, the best-selling authors of Homework for Grown-Ups are here to help.

William Shakespeare had nothing to do with the actor and moneylender William Shaksper from Stratford-upon-Avon. The man behind the nom de plume "William Shakespeare" was, in fact, a very well-educated aristocrat who often frequented the court of Elizabeth and whose real name was Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford. The dramas of Shakespeare were not written for the Globe Theatre but for the Queen's court.

Can U Love Me is a memoir about Nicholas “NinosCorner” Battle, a young black child growing up in his hometown of Shreveport, Louisiana. A single-parent household, coupled with the “crack” epidemic, made life for this '80s baby very challenging. The introduction of hip-hop gave him an outlet to cope with the struggles he faced within his environment. It provided the soundtrack and the blueprint to his life and formed the foundation necessary for him to navigate through all the challenges the world would throw at him.

This study of Hollywood's favorite "screwball" comedienne begins on the eve of her death. Following a successful war bonds tour, she awaits word in an Indianapolis hotel room to see if she's been successful in securing plane reservations for a flight back to Los Angeles. She's anxious to get home, because she suspects that her husband, Clark Gable, is cheating on her.