 | Anton Chekhov's Plays (A Norton Critical Edition) by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov
Buy used from: $1.00 Svetlana Efremova (see IMDB) who trained at the the Moscow Art theatre and Yale School of Drama, taught my advanced acting class at CSUF and considers this to be the best translation of Chekhov's plays. It includes some critical essays that are invaluable to the actor. You'll have to find Ivanov on it's own, however.
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 | Frayn Plays: 2: Benefactors, Balmoral, and Wild Honey (Contemporary Dramatists) by Michael Frayn
Buy new: $18.96 / Used from: $9.94 Try to find "Wild Honey," translated by Michael Frayn on it's own. It's also important to get a good copy of Chekhov's short stories that include "The Bear," and "The Proposal."
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 | The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works 2nd Edition by William Shakespeare
Buy new: $26.40 / Used from: $7.24 |
 | Playing Shakespeare: An Actor's Guide (Methuen Paperback) by John Barton
Buy new: $10.36 / Used from: $3.99 Just by taking apart the language will show the actor that Shakespeare is literally giving us clues on how to perform his works. Watching the video of this book is best, but if you can't get it, this book is still invaluable on how to prepare a monologue just by breaking down the text.
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 | Shakespeare Lexicon and Quotation Dictionary: A Complete Dictionary of All the English Words, Phrases, and Constructions in the Works of the Poet (Volume 1 A-M by Alexander Schmidt
Buy new: $13.57 / Used from: $9.99 If you want to know the meaning of any word in Shakespeare's plays, you look it up as you would in a dictionary. It then gives you the meaning of that word in each play or sonnet that it appears. It'll list the word by Act, Scene, & line to guide you in choosing the right meaning Shakespeare most likely intended.
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 | Shakespeare Lexicon and Quotation Dictionary (Volume II, N-Z) by Alexander Schmidt
Buy new: $13.57 / Used from: $6.99 |
 | Building a Character by Constantin Stanislavski
Buy used from: $7.98 |
 | An Actor Prepares by Constantin Stanislavski
Buy new: $15.61 / Used from: $7.99 |
 | Shakespeare A to Z: The Essential Reference to His Plays, His Poems, His Life and Times, and More by Charles Boyce
Buy new: $17.25 / Used from: $4.44 |
 | Creating a Role by Constantin Stanislavski
Buy new: $16.29 / Used from: $12.00 |
 | Backwards & Forwards: A Technical Manual for Reading Plays by David Ball
Buy new: $16.16 / Used from: $11.00 |
 | History of the Theatre by Oscar G. Brockett
Buy new: $125.80 / Used from: $2.09 |
 | Commedia Dell'Arte: An Actor's Handbook by John Rudlin
Buy new: $39.95 / Used from: $27.35 |
 | Lazzi: The Comic Routines of the Commedia dell'Arte (PAJ Books)
Buy new: $12.56 / Used from: $9.25 |
 | One Voice by Joan Melton
Buy new: $17.95 / Used from: $7.72 I was a student of Joan's and can attest to her abilities as a vocal instructor. She integrates movement with vocal strengthening and the importance of diction, pronunciation, and phonetics. I recommend buying this book with the Handbook of IPA.
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 | Handbook of the International Phonetic Association : A Guide to the Use of the International Phonetic Alphabet by International Phonetic Association
Buy new: $23.80 / Used from: $18.96 |
 | A Challenge For The Actor by Uta Hagen
Buy new: $17.16 / Used from: $7.35 |
 | Respect for Acting by Uta Hagen
Buy new: $13.57 / Used from: $1.84 |
 | Poetics (Dover Thrift Editions) by Aristotle
Buy new: $2.00 / Used from: $0.01 Amazingly, this virtual 2400 year old bible for understanding plays is only $1.50
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| Stage Dialects by Jerry Blunt
Buy new: $19.95 / Used from: $8.00 It helps to have an understanding of phonetics before attempting dialects, but this text was used extensively in my training. It gives you not only phonetic transcriptions, but instruction of vocal placement and plenty of drills.
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 | Shakespeare's Wordcraft by Scott Kaiser
Buy new: $15.16 / Used from: $10.50 Start your Shakespeare text analysis here.
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