Like the companion volume for men; Alternative Shakespeare Auditions for Women brings together fifty speeches from plays frequently ignored such as Coriolanus; Pericles; and Loves Labours Lost. It also features good; but over-looked speeches from more popular plays such as Diana from Alls Well That Ends Well; Perdita from The Winters Tale and Hero from Much Ado About Nothing. Each speech is accompanied by a character description; brief explanation of the context; and notes on obscure words; phrases and references--all written from the viewpoint of the auditioning actor. It is the perfect resource for your best audition ever.
#3228402 in eBooks 2013-10-10 2013-10-10File Name: B00FPMB59I
Review
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. Great book.By Molly GandolfoI bought this as a gift for my father. As a music collector he found it very funny and entertaining!8 of 8 people found the following review helpful. A little too judgemental to really workBy Brian ConnorsLook; I understand the title means there will be incomprehensible and laughable lyrics in here. And Im expecting the author to bring the snark; especially in a book from the UK. But... eh; I dont know.Inevitably there will be a subjective aspect to books like this. But when books mock bad art; theres usually some real insight into where it went wrong; consider Roger Eberts I Hated; Hated; Hated This Movie or Tom Reynolds I Hate Myself and Want to Die; both of which go into great detail about what they mock (though; to be fair; not all Reynolds song picks are bad; just depressing). The fun comes in the dissection; the nitpicking of assorted minor stupidities; and the firehose approach. Johnny Sharp does not do this.Instead; this book is more of a "point and laugh" (or; more accurately; "point and cringe") kind of book. Though theres certainly no shortage of cheezy; pretentious; or outright incomprehensible lyrics in here; Sharp takes a very superficial approach to all of them; missing the point of intentional oddness like some of Elton John and Bernie Taupins work or Syd Barretts surreal; schizophrenically inspired lyrics to "Bike"; or avoiding the reality that some lyrics are less straight poetry than wordscape meant to invoke a feeling despite superficially lacking obvious meaning. (He does; admittedly; hit songs like "My Humps" and "Horse With No Name"; where parody and stream of consciousness respectively fail embarrassingly; but he seems to dislike a lot of songs like that for all the wrong reasons.) In addition; the author comes off as kind of a cranky; outdated music snob; sort of like SomethingAwfuls David Thorpe if he was a 60 year old classic rock aficionado; and less funny.Writing reviews of bad art is an art form in and of itself. Good snark doesnt just lay it on with a shovel; it dismantles the target and smears it part by part to make sure nothing is left untouched. Movie; music; and video game reviewers know this; political comedians thrive on this. Point-and-laugh snark works for one-liners; but becomes tedious stretched out to essay or book length; at that point; its about as much fun as reading Mallard Fillmore (which uses roughly the same sort of comedy; to no particular benefit). Thats what the author of this book has missed. There have been much; much better books on this subject; buy them instead.0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. "Sharp" as a tack!By Robert BischoffI loved this book! Its really fun to see these songs dissected into the piles of poop most of them are; and Mr. Sharpdoes it wonderfully. To me; the music industry has enough songs with "crap lyrics" to keep Mr. Sharp like his name -"sharp" - for many years to come. (One gripe; though - most of his "crappy" lyrics are from British singles of the1990s; if he expanded to American music from almost anytime since Tinpan Alley - including it - hed never havea shortage of material to write about.)