Staging Success: The PlayhouseSquare Story

As PlayhouseSquare celebrates its first 90 years, “Staging Success: The PlayhouseSquare Story” pays tribute to the people who were instrumental in saving the theaters and shows how the community worked together to create a cultural showplace in the heart of downtown Cleveland. This new documentary, a production of WVIZ/PBS, in collaboration with Think Media Studios, reveals a Cleveland rags-to-riches tale as dramatic as any on Broadway.

Six by Sondheim

This intimate documentary explores the life and career of the stage legend Stephen Sondheim through six of his best-known songs.

1789

Recording of the play 1789, a collective creation by Théâtre du Soleil at La Cartoucherie de Vincennes in 1970, edited from several shows.

Seans : hommage á Antonin Artaud

A seance in which Antonin Artaud can be seen as a swirling depiction of a theater of freedom in the rubble of the hateful counter between actor and audience. Percival is the author of many books in Swedish and English. He has exhibited his paintings and photographs, composed experimental world music and directed some of his own plays and a play by Beckett.

He! Viva Dada

Report from the second free expression festival organized at the American Cultural Center, Boulevard Raspail, in May 1965. The shows, all happenings inspired by ""théâtre panique/ the panic theater", includes Fernando Arrabal, Roland Topor and Alejandro Jodorowsky.

Athens Rising: The Sicyon Project: Volume One

Featuring dozens of performances from the living rooms, backyards, and unconventional venues throughout Athens, GA, the first Athens Rising film takes a deep look at music, dance, food, stand-up comedy, strange theater, visual art, and the origins of AthFest.

Jammin': Jelly Roll Morton on Broadway

A behind the scenes look at the Broadway production of Jelly's Last Jam, including a tribute to jazz musician and composer Jelly Roll Morton. Gregory Hines and George C. Wolfe, who wrote the book for Jelly's Last Jam, are interviewed. Includes scenes from the show.

Màscares

Ve perde!

A film on Haldun Taner, a respectable, democratic intellectual and a brilliant author of political essays, various genres and kinds of literary texts and especially theatre plays all of which have been a masterpiece in Turkey art history.

Master Will Shakespeare

A short biography of William Shakespeare that highlights the various jobs he worked at in the theater.

Muse of Fire

Funny, passionate, exciting, and smart: ‘Muse Of Fire’ will change the way you feel about Shakespeare forever. This unique feature documentary follows two actors, Giles Terera and Dan Poole, as they travel the world to find out everything they can about tackling the greatest writer of them all. Together they have directed and produced an inspiring film that aims to demystify and illuminate Shakespeare’s work for everyone: from actors, directors and students of all disciplines, right through to the? man on the street? Denmark with Jude Law, Baz Luhrmann in Hollywood, Prison in Berlin, and on the street with Mark Rylance. Think Shakespeare is boring? Think again!

Tennessee Williams' South

The brutes and the belles. The gadflies and the good ol' boys. The taboos and the profound truths. They're all part of a tennessee state of mind -- a realm of places, personalities and ideas. Williams is front and center for this exploration, reading from his works, placing them in the context of his life, and serving as guide in visits to his career-shaping refuge in New Orleans and his later-day writing quarters in Key West. Also, dramatizations by distinguished actors -- including Jessica Tandy, Broadway's original Blanche DuBois, in a recreation of her A Streetcar Named Desire triumph -- give flesh-and-bone immediacy to some of the writer's famed works. In his own words. In his own places. The resilient character and memorable characters of one of our greatest writers reside in Tennessee Williams' South.

La mort de Danton

Steve, a 25-year-old Black man from the Paris suburbs, seeks to escape the violence of his immediate surroundings by training to become an actor at one of France’s most prestigious drama schools. But soon he discovers that the theater world is only interested in having him inhabit “Black” roles.

An Evening with Quentin Crisp

In this witty monologue, Quentin Crisp advises and opines about personal style (with a few digressions).

Tennessee Williams: Orpheus of the American Stage

A study of Tennessee Williams's life and work as a whole, ranging from his youth in Mississippi and in St. Louis to success and acclaim, followed by the final difficult years. Includes some of the most celebrated scenes from film adaptations of Williams' work, among them extracts of A Streetcar Named Desire (1951),Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958), Night of the Iguana, The (1964), and Suddenly, Last Summer (1993) (TV). Contains footage of Williams being interviewed, including conversations with David Frost, 'Edward R. Murrow (I)', and Melvyn Bragg, as well as reminiscences from people who knew and worked with him, among them Edward Albee, Gore Vidal, and his lifelong friend, Lady Maria St. Just. Features readings from Elia Kazan's Notebook by Kim Hunter.

Театр. Послесловие

The film was shot as the final part of the play "Drink the sea, Xanthos" theatre-Studio "NEO" (St. Petersburg 1987-1989). As a result, the performance was changed and the film gained independence. He became an allegory of acting.

Chita Rivera: A Lot Of Livin' To Do

A retrospective of Chita Rivera's film, television and stage career, including interviews with Dick Van Dyke, Ben Vereen, Carol Lawrence and others. Originally aired as Episode 2 of Season 43 of the PBS series Great Performances.

Patrice Chéreau, Pascal Greggory, une autre solitude

A look at the entire process of creating and developing Patrice Chéreau’s third staging of "In the Solitude of Cotton Fields" by Bernard Marie Koltès with Pascal Greggory and Chéreau himself. From the first reading around the table through the first contact with the performance space, rehearsals and lighting to opening night, the entire creative process unfurls in front of our eyes. The film shows us the evolving and ongoing dialogue between Greggory and Chéreau, a dialogue full of crises and magical moments of harmony and insight via which the truth, intensity, complexity, mystery and depth of Koltès’ text gradually emerge to form an implicit bond between these two men. The film also shows Chéreau directing rehearsals for Mozart’s "Don Giovanni" in Salzburg, revealing both the unity of and profound differences between his opera and theater work.

Curtain Call

Fifty years ago, aspiring thespians Terry and Carole Ann Gill arrived in Australia from England seeking fame and fortune. But they never quite made the big time. Instead they stumbled into the curious world of children's pantomimes. Over the decades, they have built a successful business and touched the lives of generations of children; but their own dreams have slowly faded. Now aged in their 70s, with their beloved theatre under threat from a greedy property developer, Terry and Carole Ann's careers appear to be coming to an untimely close. As they battle to remain open, they are forced to reflect on the choices they have made in their lives.

One Ticket Please

A documentary about a 78-year-old Indian woman in New York who is the world's most passionate theatergoer. Nicki Cochrane has been seeing a play every day for more than 25 years, acquiring free tickets using a variety of ingenious means.