English Theater

Poppy thought her toughest challenge this winter would be sticking to her Paleo diet and filling all her orders for her gluten-free goodies, but now she has to choose between two suitors. She's not the only one with boyfriend drama. Aunt Ginny's long-ago high-school beau, Royce Hanson, a retired Broadway actor, has returned to Cape May, New Jersey, to star in a Senior Center staging of Mamma Mia. Slated to open February 13th, the problem-plagued production seems to be cursed - with stolen props, sabotage, and even a death threat.

The St. Charles Players present multi-cast dramatizations of some of Edgar Allan Poe's greatest works, including The Black Cat, The System of Dr. Tarr and Prof. Fether, The Purloined Letter, and The Murders in the Rue Morgue.

In this third book in a four-book series, Lindell A. Warden, a former student of Neville Goddard, will be sharing with you some powerful principles around Neville's teachings. You will learn about spirituality, not religions. You'll also discover that everything begins in the theater of your mind and that you are always creating in your imagination.

Gain insights into how to mentally live from the end of your intentions by living in the power of your imagination.

Jack is back! He is once again joined by his loyal friend Gooch and his loveable familiar Rat Damon as they attempt to save Earth from the might of the Ravanan Empire. With the addition of two newcomers from earth, the party continues their quest to shut down power sources, make friendly with the natives, and be excellent to each other.

The work of Mike Nichols pervades American cultural consciousness - from The Graduate and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? to Angels in America, The Birdcage, Working Girl, and Primary Colors, not to mention his string of hit plays, including Barefoot in the Park and The Odd Couple. Over a career that spanned half a century, Mike Nichols changed Hollywood, Broadway, and comedy forever. Here, for the first time, Ash Carter and Sam Kashner offer an intimate look behind the scenes of Nichols' life.

From 1935 to 1939, the Federal Theatre Project staged over a thousand productions in 29 states that were seen by thirty million (or nearly one in four) Americans, two thirds of whom had never seen a play before. At its helm was an unassuming theater professor, Hallie Flanagan. It employed, at its peak, over twelve thousand struggling artists, some of whom, like Orson Welles and Arthur Miller, would soon be famous, but most of whom were just ordinary people eager to work again at their craft. The Playbook takes us through some of its most remarkable productions.

The Pestilence has come, and kingdoms fall. Nemon Fargus has done what he could to prepare for this, but the End of an Age is not something that can be fought—only endured. The wizard can only hope that what he's done will be enough.

As author Ethan Mordden looks back at Chicago's various moving parts - including the original 1926 play that started it all, a sexy silent film directed by Cecil B. DeMille, a talkie remake with Ginger Rogers, the musical itself, and at last the movie of the musical - we learn how the American theater serves as a kind of alternative news medium, a town crier warning the public about the racy, devious interior contradictions of American society. Opinionated, witty, and rich in backstage anecdotes, All That Jazz brings the American musical to life in all its artistry and excitement.

In 1974, director/producer Harold Prince released his first book, Contradictions: Notes on Twenty-Six Years in the Theatre. Although Contradictions has since attained cult status among producers, directors, and actors alike, Prince, in hindsight, believes he wasn't ready to publish such a tome at that point in his career. Although he doesn't regret that effort, he is at last prepared to conclude it. In Sense of Occasion, Prince returns to this seminal text, invigorating it with fresh insights cultivated through four decades of additional practice.

I never believed in superheroes. I certainly didn't believe I'd become one, or that strategically forming a harem of hot chicas and getting down with them to unlock my superpowers would be the key to my survival. Did I say my survival? I meant the universe's. No, really.... That's exactly what happened when I was taken to a galaxy of supers, thrown into a prison ship full of villains, and told it was up to me to stop them all.

At the height of the McCarthy era, an experimental theater troupe set up shop in a bar near the University of Chicago. Via word-of-mouth, astonished crowds packed the ad-hoc venue to see its unscripted, interactive, consciousness-raising style. From this unlikely seed grew the Second City, the massively influential comedy theater troupe, and its offshoots - the Groundlings, Upright Citizens Brigade, SNL, and a slew of others. Sam Wasson charts the meteoric rise of improv in this richly reported, scene-driven narrative.

With less than six months on the clock until the planet's destruction, Nate and his friends scramble to find a way to get everyone to move on to the second planet in the System of Twelve. Laybor is a dangerous world, one that cannot be safely traversed by anyone below the 30th rank, and things only get worse from there.

Jackson Ghasnavi is a lot of things—a techie, a smoothie afficionado, a totally not obsessive list-maker—but one thing he’s not is a romantic. And why would he be? He’s already had a front row seat to his parents’ divorce and picked up the pieces of his sister Jasmine’s broken heart one too many times.

Tom Stoppard is a towering and beloved literary figure. Known for his dizzying narrative inventiveness and intense attention to language, he deftly deploys art, science, history, politics, and philosophy in works that span a remarkable spectrum of literary genres: theater, radio, film, TV, journalism, and fiction. His most acclaimed creations - Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, The Real Thing, Arcadia, The Coast of Utopia, Shakespeare in Love - remain as fresh and moving as when they entranced their first audiences.

Draysky was born to die on the ridge. Like his father before him, his fate was to harvest elemental treasures until the dust claimed his lungs. As the lowest of society, a Knotted, the thin cord around his neck signifies to all his low rank. He would never progress as a mage, nor learn of the forbidden runes of the kingdom magicians.

Daniel's Guide to Early Retirement: 1. Intercept illegal money transfer from mafia boss. 2. Hide out in super-exclusive Full Immersion Virtual Reality game until the heat is off. 3. Roll a bard. Max out charisma. Live it up. 4. Profit. With all the pesky planning out of the way, Daniel set out to realize his ultimate dream: gaining enough money to buy a tropical island and spend his days playing the violin and RPGs. What could possibly go wrong?

It's the first real summer since the devastating accident that killed Cedar's father and younger brother, Ben. But now Cedar and what's left of her family are returning to the town of Iron Creek for the summer. They're just settling in to their new house when a boy named Leo, dressed in costume, rides by on his bike. Intrigued, Cedar follows him to the renowned Summerlost theatre festival. Soon she not only has a new friend in Leo and a job working concessions at the festival, but she finds herself surrounded by mystery.

When we think of '70s cinema, we think of classics like The Godfather and Taxi Driver...but the riches found in the overlooked B-movies of the time, rolled out wherever they might find an audience, unexpectedly tell an eye-opening story about post-Watergate, post-Vietnam America. Revisiting the films that don't make the Academy Award montages, Charles Taylor finds a treasury many of us have forgotten, movies that in fact "unlock the secrets of the times".

This is the riveting, brutally honest story of a man’s struggle to make something of himself in the theater. Coming from meager circumstances in the Ozark Mountains, he fights his way up the shaky ladder toward fame. He makes mistakes, goes down blind alleys, fails and succeeds, again and again. But he never quits.