Author: David R. Yale Publisher: Healthy Relationship Press ISBN: 9780979176647 Category : Humor Languages : en Pages : 108
Book Description
* 746 wildly original puns on every subject from Arizona to zealous crusaders! * 14 ant puns certain to start a new fad! * Bi-lingual puns in English and Spanish, French, Chinese, Latin, Yiddish! * The best new moron puns since the Fifties! * You'll laugh out loud -- guaranteed! * Plus information on the first scientific studies showing the mental superiority of pun-lovers!
Author: Geoffrey Block Publisher: Oxford University Press ISBN: 0199888825 Category : Music Languages : en Pages : 615
Book Description
This new second edition of Enchanted Evenings offers theater lovers an illuminating behind-the-scenes tour of some of America's best loved, most admired, and most enduring musicals. Readers will find such all-time favorites as Show Boat, Carousel, Kiss Me, Kate, Guys and Dolls, My Fair Lady, West Side Story, Sweeney Todd, Sunday in the Park with George, and Phantom of the Opera. Geoffrey Block provides a documentary history of each of the musicals, showing how each work took shape and revealing, at the same time, how the American musical evolved from the 1920s to today, both on stage and on screen. The book's particular focus is on the music, offering a wealth of detail about how librettist, lyricist, composer, and director work together to shape the piece. Block also includes trenchant social commentary and lively backstage anecdotes. Jerome Kern, Cole Porter, the Gershwins, Rodgers and Hart, Kurt Weill, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Lerner and Loewe, Frank Loesser, Leonard Bernstein, Stephen Sondheim, Andrew Lloyd Webber, and other luminaries emerge as hardworking craftsmen under enormous pressure to sell tickets without compromising their dramatic vision. The second edition includes a greatly expanded chapter on Sondheim, a new chapter on Lloyd Webber, and two new chapters on the film adaptations of the main musicals featured in the text (including such hard to find films as the original 1936 version of Anything Goes and the 1959 film adaptation of Porgy and Bess). Packed with information, including a complete discography and plot synopses and song-by-song scenic outlines for each of the fourteen shows, Enchanted Evenings is an essential reference as well as a riveting history. "A solid and fascinating work that should become a model of how to investigate and report on the evolution of a musical. Block's research is persuasive and his writing vivid. . . Indispensable for anyone who cares to know more about Broadway musicals than Playbill can provide." --Steven Bach, The Los Angeles Times Book Review
Author: Washington Geoffrey Block Professor of Music University of Puget Sound Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA ISBN: 0199769885 Category : Musicals Languages : en Pages : 434
Book Description
The classic musicals of Broadway can provide us with truly enchanted evenings. But while many of us can hum the music and even recount the plot from memory, we are often much less knowledgeable about how these great shows were put together. What was the inspiration for Rodgers and Harts Pal Joey, or Rodgers and Hammersteins Carousel? Why is Marias impassioned final speech in West Side Story spoken, rather than sung? Now, in Enchanted Evenings, Geoffrey Block offers theatre lovers an illuminating behind-the- scenes tour of some of the best loved, most admired, and most enduring musicals of Broadways Golden Era. Readers will find insightful studies of such all-time favorites as Show Boat, Anything Goes, Porgy and Bess, Carousel, Kiss Me, Kate, Guys and Dolls, The Most Happy Fella, My Fair Lady, and West Side Story. Block provides a documentary history of fourteen musicals in all--plus an epilogue exploring the plays of Stephen Sondheim--showing how each work took shape and revealing, at the same time, production by production, how the American musical evolved from the 1920s to the early 1960s, and beyond. The book's particular focus is on the music, offering a wealth of detail about how librettist, lyricist, composer, and director work together to shape the piece. Drawing on manuscript material such as musical sketches, autograph manuscripts, pre-production librettos and lyric drafts, Block reveals the winding route the works took to get to their final form. Block blends this close attention to the nuances of musical composition and stagecraft with trenchant social commentary and lively backstage anecdotes. Jerome Kern, Cole Porter, the Gershwins, Rodgers and Hart, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Lerner and Loewe, Kurt Weill, Frank Loesser, Leonard Bernstein, Sondheim, and other luminaries emerge as hardworking craftsmen under enormous pressure to sell tickets without compromising their dramatic vision and integrity. Opening night reviews and accounts of critical and popular response to subsequent revivals show how particular musicals have adapted to changing times and changing audiences, shedding light on why many of these innovative shows are still performed in high schools, colleges, and community theaters across the country, while others, such as Weills One Touch of Venus or Marc Blitzsteins The Cradle Will Rock, languish in comparative obscurity. Packed with information, including a complete discography and plot synopses and song-by-song scenic outlines for each of the fourteen shows, Enchanted Evenings is an essential reference as well as a riveting history. It will deepen readersappreciation and enjoyment of these beloved musicals even as it delights both the seasoned theater goer and the neophyte encountering the magic of Broadway for the first time.
Author: Robin Leech Publisher: FriesenPress ISBN: 146026889X Category : Humor Languages : en Pages : 166
Book Description
Many puns are fleeting and transitory, devised and stated in a flash for a situation or immediate condition (see Word Plays, Puns Intended on the Internet). These kinds of puns can rarely be retold effectively, as the event that triggered them in the first place does not reappear exactly as before. But some puns are enduring! These can be memorized and told over and over in different social contexts and events, each time with the same overall effects - enjoyed by the teller, and enjoyed by the appreciative audience, albeit with some groaning. Some of the enduring puns are tongue twisters, so tellers are advised to practice telling them in private so as not to miss any key words that might lessen the effects of the punch lines. Other puns are timing precise, so a miscue, or mistiming destroys the intended effect.
Author: Chuck Closson Publisher: Xlibris Corporation ISBN: 1483632822 Category : Humor Languages : en Pages : 247
Book Description
The Pun is Older than Punctuation The start and use of punctuation occurred around 1500 AD. Prior to this no commas, periods, quotation marks, etc., were used in writing. What one doesn't have, one learns to do without. Books then were rare, no printing presses. Somewhere in those early years someone decided interpretative marks were needed to enhance writing. Yet puns were employed much earlier. In the New Testament, Matthew 16:18, Jesus is quoted as having said, "You are Peter, on this rock, I will build my Church". The word Peter in that ancient language translates as "rock. In effect a pun. Another early pun the headless horseman wore an unusual necklace. A young St. Augustine prayed, "Lord, make me pure, but not yet". Someone punned him as being a "roaming Catholic". Puns are inferential; they twist together meanings and entwine connections to enhance incongruity. No ifs, ands, or butts. Just a few months ago the White House and Congress faced the Fiscal Cliff. After weeks of back and forth wrangling only a few hours remained before going over the cliff to higher taxes. Expressing her disfavor toward a do nothing Congress, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said, punningly, "Congress, it's all about time, it's about time!"
Author: David R. Yale Publisher: Healthy Relationship Press ISBN: 9780979176678 Category : Humor Languages : en Pages : 116
Book Description
This winning combination of very funny puns and clever satire is the latest collection of wordplays from Champion punster David R. Yale, whose earlier book, Pun Enchanted Evenings, won the 2011 Global eBook Award for humor. Yale's collection of 823 wildly original word plays includes droll daffynitions that turn your understanding of common words insight out, and playful pun stories with priceless PUNchlines. Covering almost every subject from airplanes to zoology, Yale's puns about doctors, relationships, cats & dogs, lawyers, teenagers, food, knights, Greek gods, writers, farmers, bankers, politics -- and lots more -- guarantee a full 1,000 gigglebytes of belly laughs. In addition to Yale's puns, and information on new scientific studies proving the mental superiority of punsters, HomesPun Humor showcases the work of 16 of the world's best punsters, including O. Henry Pun-Off, Punderdome(R), and Punsr champs! In addition, HomesPun Humor reveals confidential insider information you won't find anywhere else: * The secret of efficient hay farming? (Slow mow shun!) * The name of an opera about smiling cows. (Low-and-grin!) * Why the army won't serve second helpings of ice cream. (That would be re-treating!) * What must you never plant on a green roof. (Leeks!) * Leading doctor's secret for getting over the grippe. (Study French. You'll soon become flu went!) * What do you call a stolen Venetian boat? (Gone-dola!) Punsters and language lovers will find it hard to put this book down. But Yale's entertaining style makes it impossible to overdo wit!
Author: Deems Taylor Publisher: ISBN: Category : Music Languages : en Pages : 254
Book Description
This is the story of a revolution in the American musical theater. It was achieved by two extraordinary persons who are now introduced to their public for the first time--in the saga of entertainment history that started with Columbia Variety Shows, through Rose Marie 1924 and The Garrick Gaieties in 1925 to the epochal Oklahoma!, South Pacific, and all the amazing hits that continue to come from the combined genius of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II. It is also the story of Lorenz Hart, the brilliant lyric writer who was the first to collaborate with Rodgers, and whose untimely death marked the end of an era in musical comedy. As Rodgers and Hart, and, later, Rodgers and Hammerstein progressed from one success to another, the careers of all three involved the theatrical greats of today and yesterday, from Mae West to Mary martin, from Lew Fields to Ezio Pinza. A fascinating backstage panorama, this book is even more engrossing as the intimate portrait of a team which is to the present generation what Gilbert and Sullivan were to the Victorians, a team that developed in the musical play a form of art and entertainment that is uniquely American.
Author: David R. Yale
Author: Geoffrey Block
Author: Geoffrey Holden Block
Author: Washington Geoffrey Block Professor of Music University of Puget Sound
Author: Robin Leech
Author: Margaret Ferguson (Novelist.)
Author: Chuck Closson
Author: David R. Yale
Author: Deems Taylor
Author: Betty Paterson