Contemporary Scenes for Student Actors - by Michael Schulman & Eva Mekler (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

This collection of contemporary scenes provides the student actor, as well as professional and untrained performers, with material from some of the best plays ever written. Each selection contains critical information on characters, setting, and background to give a clear sense of what the play is about. Contemporary Scenes for Student Actors accommodates a wide variety of acting styles, from naturalistic to poetic to highly stylized, spanning a range of ages and a variety of locales, and incorporating excerpts of various lengths.

Includes scenes from plays by
- Woody Allen
- Maxwell Anderson
- Jean Anouilh
- Simon Gray
- John Guare
- Lillian Hellman
- Albert Innaurato
- David Mamet
- Mark Medoff
- Arthur Miller
- Miguel Pinero
- David Rabe
- Sam Shepard
- Tennessee Williams
- And many more!

About the Author

Having taught acting at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute and at The Actors Studio, Michael Schulman now teaches at his own workshop in New York City. He has also written and directed a number of plays for Off and Off-Off Broadway theatre. He is director of The British-American Acting Academy, a school with braches in New York and London, dedicated to the synthesis of the best of British and American acting techniques. He is also chairman of the theatre department of The Usdan Center for the Creative and Performing Arts. In addition to his theatrical career, he is a clinical and research psychologist who has held assistant professorship at Fordham and Rutgers universities. His PhD is from the City University of New York.

Eva Mekler is both a playwright and a former actress who has performed on and off Broadway. Trained in psychology, with a master's degree from New York University, she divides her time between her work as a clinician and writing. She is also the editor of The New Generation of Acting Teachers.