Abel, Lionel.
Metatheater: A New View of Dramatic Form
. New York: Hill and Nang. 1963
Interesting discussion on the death of tragic form; only to be reborn again as “Metatheater.”
Albee, Edward.
The Zoo Story, The Death of Bessie Smith, The Sand
-box. New York: Coward-McCann, Inc. 1960.
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? New York: Pocket Books, Inc. 1963.
Biting, scratching, clawing to the bitter end. Searing lacerating explorations into the human condition.
Chaikin, Joseph. The Presence of the Actor. New York: Atheneum, 1972. By the director of the Open Theater. Notes and comments on the use of a workshop approach to theater. Includes exercises used in group work.
Dezseran, Louis J.
The Student Actor’s Handbook
.
Palo Alto, Calif.: Mayfield Publishing Co. 1975 A series of exercises and games designed to help student actors (and teachers) develop technique.
Lahr, John.
Up Against The Fourth Wall: Essays on the Modern Theater
New York: Grove Press, Inc. 1970.
Lively collection of critical essays on theater in the 60’s by the son of Bert.
McCaslin, Nellie.
Creative Dramatics In The Classroom
. New York: David McKay Co., Inc. 1968.
Good introduction to use of drama in classroom; activities range from pantomime to staging a complete play. Also, good ideas on building dramatic activities from stories and poetry.
Passoli, Robert.
A Book On the Open Theater
; New York: Avon Books. 1970 Detailed history of the Open Theater; good source of exercises used in group work.
Perls, Frederick S.
Gestalt Therapy Verbatim
. New York: Bantam 1969. Perls was a major force behind the self-growth and human potential movement. Includes theorical discussion of Gestalt Therapy as well as workshop interviews with participants in his dreamwork seminars.
Rabe, David.
The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel, Sticks and Bones.
New York: Penguin Books. 1978. More than Vietnam War protest plays, these plays strike to the moral bankruptcy resulting from that experience.
Shepard, Sam.
Angel City and Other Plays
. New York: Urizen Books. 1980. With a vision that is sometimes comic, sometimes pathetic, Shepard’s plays are like nightmarish trips across the contemporary American landscape.
Spolin, Viola.
Improvisation For The Theater
. Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern Univ. Press. 1963. Classic book of theater exercises and games.
Stoppard, Tom.
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead.
New York: Grove Press, Inc. 1967. Witty, philosophical, inventive, reversal of Hamlet. On stage becomes off stage, with the play existing somewhere in between.