Kenneth's First Play
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Designed for young audiences but especially suitable for eight to fifteen-year-olds, KENNETH'S FIRST PLAY takes us on an imaginative journey into the history of Western theater. As young Kenneth (who with a few changes of lines provided by the playwrights can also be a female character named Katie) encounters his first play as a bored audience member, his whole view of theater changes once he steps accidentally onto the stage and into the frame of the play. Now as a character in many different dramas he discovers a world of excitement and pure delight: the theater of the ancient Greeks, a day in Shakespeare's theater, an encounter with a play by Anton Chekhov. By getting out of his seat and becoming an active part of the theater experience, Kenneth learns about the language of plays, their special joy, and why the classics are great. Included with the text are the authors' commentary and notes about the script and its production.
Colin Chambers
Colin Chambers is Emeritus Professor of Drama at Kingston University. Colin was Literary Manager of the Royal Shakespeare Company from 1981 to 1997, and has also been a journalist and theatre critic. He is co-author with Richard Nelson of Kenneth's First Play and Tynan (both Royal Shakespeare Company), and he selected and edited for performance Three Farces by John Maddison Morton, which were produced at the Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond. As well as editing the Continuum Companion to Twentieth Century Theatre, Colin has written extensively on the theatre including Other Spaces: New Writing and the RSC, Playwrights' Progress (with Michael Prior), The Story of Unity Theatre, Peggy: The Life of Margaret Ramsay, Play Agent (winner of the inaugural Theatre Book Prize), Inside the Royal Shakespeare Company, Here We Stand: Politics, Performers and Performance – Paul Robeson, Isadora Duncan and Charlie Chaplin and Black and Asian Theatre in Britain: A History.
More by Colin Chambers
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