Harold Clurman Book order (chronological)

The Group Theatre was perhaps the most significant experiment in the history of American theater. Producing plays that reflected topical issues of the decade and giving a creative chance to actors, directors, and playwrights who were either fed up with or shut out of commercial theater, the "Group" remains a permanent influence on American drama despite its brief ten-year life. It was here that method acting, native realism, and political language had their tryouts in front of audiences who anticipated--indeed demanded--a departure from the Broadway "show-biz" tradition. In this now classic account, Harold Clurman, founder of the Group Theatre and a dynamic force as producer-director-critic for fifty years, here re-creates history he helped make with Lee Strasberg, Elia Kazan, Irwin Shaw, Clifford Odets, Cheryl Crawford, Morris Carnovsky, and William Saroyan. Stella Adler contributed a new introduction to this edition which remembers Clurman, the thirties, and the heady atmosphere of a tumultuous decade.

This comprehensive volume contains nine of the most important, most indispensable plays of the modern theatre. What Harold Clurman has done in this seminal collection is to create for us a portrait of the progress and turmoil of the twentieth century. Ranging from the eerie realism of Pinter's sinister "Birthday Party," to the absurd literalism of Ionesco's conformist city in "Rhinoceros," to the baroque fantasy world of Genet's brothel in "The Balcony," to the tragic hilarity of Stoppard's "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead," these nine plays, each entirely distinct, together form an incisive, compelling, and sometimes heartbreaking mosaic of our time.

“A straightforward, tasteful, and articulate account of what it is to bring a play to palpitating life upon a stage” ( The New York Times Book Review ).In this classic guide to directing, we are taken logically from the choice of the play right through ever aspect of its production to performances and beyond. Harold Clurman, director of such memorable productions as A Member of the Wedding and Uncle Vanya , describes the pleasures and perils of working with such celebrated playwrights and actors as Marlon Brando, Arthur Miller, Julie Harris, and Lillian Hellman. He also presents his own directing notes for ten of his best-known productions.