Showing results by publisher "Random House Audio" in Entertainment & Performing Arts

 Broadsword Calling Danny Boy is Geoff Dyer's hilarious tribute to a film he has loved since childhood: It's a scene-by-scene analysis - or should that be send-up? - taking us from it's snowy, Teutonic opening credits to its vertigo-inducing climax. 

The legendary Patti LuPone is one of the theatre’s most beloved leading ladies. Now she lays it all bare, sharing the intimate story of her life both onstage and off - through the dizzying highs and darkest lows - with the humor and outspokenness that have become her trademarks. From inspired costars and demanding directors to her distinct perspective on how she developed and honed her Tony Award - winning performances, Patti LuPone: A Memoir is as inspirational as it is entertaining.

With a discerning eye and acerbic wit, Lynskey examines how various doomsday tropes and predictions in literature, art, music, and film have arisen from contemporary anxieties, whether they be comets, pandemics, world wars, the Cuban Missile Crisis, Y2K, or the climate emergency. Far from being grim, Lynskey guides readers through a rich array of fascinating stories and surprising facts, allowing us to keep company with celebrated works of art and the people who made them, from H.G. Wells, Jack London, W.B. Yeats and J.G. Ballard to The Twilight Zone, Dr. Strangelove, and The Terminator.

Among the most widely admired Hollywood stars of his generation, Redford has appeared onstage and on-screen, in front of and behind the camera, earning Academy, Golden Globe, and a multitude of other awards and nominations for acting, directing, and producing, and for his contributions to the arts.

Noël Coward on theatre was as dazzling and entertaining as his masterful plays and lyrics. Here his ideas and opinions on the subject are brilliantly brought together in an extraordinary collection of commentary, lyrics, essays, and asides on everything having to do with the theatre and Coward's dazzling life in it.

From the Emmy-winning writer and creator of All My Children, One Life to Live, and Loving, a memoir of her trailblazing rise to the top of the television industry, including behind-the-scenes stories from some of the most beloved soaps of all time.

It was an explosion that reverberated across the country—and into the very heart of early-twentieth-century America. On the morning of October 1, 1910, the walls of the Los Angeles Times Building buckled as a thunderous detonation sent men, machinery, and mortar rocketing into the night air. When at last the wreckage had been sifted and the hospital triage units consulted, twenty-one people were declared dead and dozens more injured. But as it turned out, this was just a prelude to the devastation that was to come.

Lisa Napoli was in the grip of a crisis, dissatisfied with her life and her work as a radio journalist. When a chance encounter with a handsome stranger presented her with an opportunity to move halfway around the world, Lisa left behind cosmopolitan Los Angeles for a new adventure in the ancient Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan—said to be one of the happiest places on earth.

Veteran character actor David Dean Bottrell draws on his 35-plus tumultuous years of work in the entertainment industry to offer a guide to breaking in, making a living, and making a life in the fabulous trenches of show business. Mixing prescriptive advice with wisdom drawn from Bottrell's own professional highs and lows and those of his acting compatriots, this book's humorous, tell-it-like-it-is tone is a must-have guide for anyone hoping to successfully navigate show business.

Directors operate behind the scenes managing actors, establishing a cohesive creative vision, at times literally guiding our eyes with the eye of the camera. But we are often so dazzled by the visions onscreen that it is easy to forget the individual who is off-screen orchestrating the entire production - to say nothing of their having marshaled a script, a studio, and other people's money. David Thomson, in his usual brilliantly insightful way, shines a light on the visionary directors who have shaped modern cinema and, through their work, studies the very nature of film direction.

Dickens was one of the first true celebrity authors. Thousands of fans in Britain and America eagerly awaited each new installment of his stories, and flocked to see him on his legendary speaking tours. Not only did he create an incredible cast of characters on the page, but he was also a dazzling mimic and storyteller, and he wrote, stage-managed, and acted in plays for the public. Throughout his life, from his childhood performances to his legendarily powerful reading tours, Dickens was fanatical about the stage.

The Memory Palace is a collection of tiny, crystalline historical tales that come across like luminous short fiction, and, like Nate DiMeo’s acclaimed podcast of the same name, conjure lost moments and forgotten figures who are calling out across time to be remembered.

On March 17, 2005, Spamalot debuted on Broadway to rapturous reviews for its star-studded creative team, including creators Eric Idle and John Du Prez, director Mike Nichols, and stars Hank Azaria, David Hyde Pierce, Sara Ramirez, Tim Curry, and more. But long before the show was the toast of Broadway and the winner of three Tony Awards, it was an idea threatening to fizzle before it could find its way into existence. Now, Eric Idle shares original journal entries and raw email exchanges, revealing the sometimes bumpy, always entertaining, path to the show’s unforgettable run.

The definitive biography of movie executive and philanthropist Sherry Lansing traces her groundbreaking journey to become the first female head of a major motion picture studio, shares behind-the-scenes tales from movie sets and Hollywood boardrooms, and explains what inspired her to walk away from it all to start the Sherry Lansing Foundation.

In a time of sweeping media change, the four major networks struggle for the attention of American viewers increasingly distracted by cable, video games, and the Internet. Behind boardroom doors, tempers flare in the search for hit shows, which often get on the air purely by accident. The fierce competition creates a pressure-cooker environment where anything can happen.

Time magazine called her “the Dancer of the Century.” Her technique, used by dance companies throughout the world, became the first long-lasting alternative to the idiom of classical ballet. Her pioneering movements—powerful, dynamic, jagged, edgy, forthright—combined with her distinctive system of training, were the epitome of American modernism, performance as art. Neil Baldwin, author of admired biographies, gives us the artist and performer, the dance monument who led a cult of dance worshippers as well as the woman herself in all of her complexity.

Improv instructor and writer Jorjeana Marie presents the first book to harness the creative power of improvisation exercises to help both aspiring and seasoned authors defeat writer's block and generate new ideas. Introducing the rules and techniques of improvisation as they apply to fiction writing, improv instructor and writer Jorjeana Marie addresses each major element of storytelling by applying writer's-block-busting games and inner-critic-quieting exercises to get the creative ideas flowing.

In this wholly original work of film criticism, David Thomson, celebrated author of The Biographical Dictionary of Film, probes the many ways in which sexuality has shaped the movies - and the ways in which the movies have shaped sexuality.

One hundred and thirty years ago Eadweard Muybridge invented stop-motion photography, anticipating and making possible motion pictures. He was the first to capture time and play it back for an audience, giving birth to visual media and screen entertainments of all kinds. Yet the artist and inventor Muybridge was also a murderer who killed coolly and meticulously, and his trial is one of the early instances of a media sensation.

Grammy Nominee for Best Spoken Comedy Album
Once again there's good news for those of us who rage at the evening news, shake our heads at Washington's business-as-usual, or watch as politicians carom helplessly between political crises and sex scandals: Dennis Miller is back performing his fourth installment of hilarious observations, I Rant, Therefore I Am. More from Miller.