The most comprehensive; smart; helpful and inspiring guide to improve available today. Applicable to comedians; actors; public speakers and anyone who needs to think on their toes.From The Improv Handbook: The problem for improvisers is anxiety. faced with a lot of nameless eyes staring at us; and feeling more than anything else like prey; we are likely to want to display very consistent behavior; so that anyone who looks at us; looks away and then looks back sees the same thing. Thus we become boring; we fade into the background; and we cease to be of interest. The Improv Handbook provides everything someone interested in improvisational comedy needs to know; as written by a husband and wife comedy duo with years of experience and teaching in the field. in addition to providing a comprehensive history of improvisational theater as a backdrop; it also looks at modern theories and practices of improvisation on a global scale; including how the form of comedy has evolved differently in different parts of the world; from Europe to the UK to the Chicago scene. The Improv Handbook also contains an essential performance segment that details different formats of improvisation. Chapter topics include Theatresports; Micetro; Gorilla Theatre; and the inventions of Keith Johnstone and Del Close as well as other popular forms of improv; like those on "Whose Line is it Anyway." The core section of the book is called simply; "How to Improvise" and delves into issues of spontaneity; the fundamentals of storytelling; working together; upping the ante; and character development. The book concludes with sections on how to improvise in front of an audience and- just as crucially- how to attract an audience in the first place.
#1384813 in eBooks 2013-06-13 2013-06-13File Name: B00D1Z58YE
Review
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful. The great Piero book now is James Bankeracirc;euro;trade;s Piero della FrancescaBy Bill BerksonThe great Piero book now is James Bankerrsquo;s Piero della Francesca; Artist and Man. It is astonishing in many ways. Banker began simply as a historian studying the medieval commune of San Sepolcro; found Piero in that mix; and busied himself writing two books on the documentation; such as it is; of Piero in the town archives. That started maybe 30 years ago. Now he has written about every aspect of Pierondash;ndash;artist; mathematician; possible architect; citizen; family manndash;ndash;connecting many dots; dispelling old hearsay notions; giving a very fine sense of who this Piero may have been; his boundless curiosity and intellectual connections; and how he did what he did. There are parts I disagree with (especially Bankers interpretation of The Flagellation; which all too easily dismisses the Oriental look of the lefthand foregound figure); and you must be prepared for Bankerrsquo;s rather hard-nosed refusal to see the kind of spiritual (if not Platonic) light that nonetheless many of us cannot help but see. But it is very good history; plainly writtenndash;ndash;"just the facts;" as it were; with straight declarative sentences aboundingndash;ndash; and eventually had me in tears; both for the understanding of Piero himself and for Bankerrsquo;s devotion.9 of 11 people found the following review helpful. Pieros Life and Work in a Superb New StudyBy Kenneth HughesJames R. Banker is Professor Emeritus of Italian History at North Carolina State University. For many years he has spent most of his time in Florence and in Sansepolcro; Pieros home town in the Tuscan hills southeast of Florence. He has written dozens of articles and books on Italian history and culture of the Quattrocento; concentrating especially on Sansepolcro and the life; times; and artistry of Piero. His current book is the summation of his years of archival research; scholarly sleuthing; and thoughtful consideration; and it is an outstanding study. Although not trained as an art historian per se; Prof. Banker has spent at least as much time steeped in the aura of Pieros art as anyone else; and his voice is as authoritative as any of the specialists in art history who have written before him. Indeed; his expertise in social and cultural history and his archival work (which has unearthed a considerable number of hitherto unknown documents pertaining to Piero) enable him to discuss the painters works in their social context more specifically and with greater certainty than most art historians do. That combination makes for one of the books most engaging features; its balance between discussion of the artworks and examination of what else was going on in the artists life at the time.One of the most difficult things in writing about Piero is to figure out exactly where he was at any specific time; given the general scarcity of documentation. But where he was determines also what he was doing; because you cant paint a fresco unless youre there; and; conversely; to date a painting means pinning the artist down to the particular place at the particular time. Prof. Bankers complete mastery of whatever documentation there is--contracts; letters; signed witnesses to marriages; dowries; the sale of everything from land to woad (the source of much of the towns wealth) and every other imaginable written source--enables him to construct a very convincing itinerary and; therefore; a persuasive timeline for Pieros major paintings. Many scholars have contended that it is difficult to date Pieros paintings because there is not much apparent development or evidence of evolving style in them. But the authors ability to construct a plausible timeline from extrinsic evidence has led him to discern for the first time three distinct phases in Pieros work; based on the painters use of perspective; proportion; and spatial organization--three major components of his painterly practice throughout his life; but with shifting emphasis. The discussion of Pieros mathematical work follows along with the examination of his life and art; the writer is keen to show how Pieros interest in perspective and proportionality continually informs his artistic practice and vice-versa; and when it comes to the painters later years; when his absorption in his geometrical treatises displaced much of his painterly activity; the discussion reveals Piero to have been one of the most gifted and original mathematicians of his time; a man whose "visual acumen" (216) was the source of both his brilliant painting and his brilliant geometrical theorizing. Piero emerges as a true "Renaissance man" equal in genius to Leonardo and Michelangelo; indeed; "the most intellectual painter of the Quattrocento" (1).Prof. Banker has taken an excellent look at Piero as "Artist and Man;" a fine model of what a life-and-work study of an artist should be. His writing is organized; lucid; and approachable--almost conversational--throughout. The volume has generous scholarly apparatus in the form of maps and figures of geometrical bodies; a chronology; extensive selected bibliography and index. There are ten color plates of major paintings and thirty-one black-and-white illustrations. Unfortunately; the majority of the paintings discussed are reproduced only in black and white on text paper and are neither very clear nor in very useful contrast; it will pay to have an album of good reproductions at hand while reading. That is the only negative criticism I have of this book; which is in every other way outstanding and highly recommended.0 of 3 people found the following review helpful. Piero in EvidenceBy David MaximBankers biography is beautifully written; beautifully clear. He presents evidence of Pieros whereabouts at certain times in the artists life heretofore sketchy in details as though he were solving a mystery in a way that is compelling for the reader to continue on.