Shakespeare: a pocket guide

I bought 'A Pocket Guide to Shakespeare's Plays' by Kenneth McLeish and Stephen Unwin through Amazon.co.uk FOR A PENNY. Yep, that's ONE PENNY STERLING (plus postage of course).

It's great. For each play (and they do them in alphabetical order too) they provide the story of the play, a pen picture of the main characters, a short analysis of the plot and its context, and a history of its performance.

So, if you have a student preparing a Shakespeare monologue for an exam or a feis performance, this will be invaluable for providing some of the character context.

There's a few more going for a penny. Here's the Amazon link: click.

Improvisation: a useful tool

I feel sometimes students need reminding that Improvisation is more than just an activity - it's a useful tool.

In this link - here - from www.backstage.com, some acting teachers speak about how improvisation can be used in character creation.

This will be useful for diploma students too.

Stage Make-up

There's a very simple introductory guide to stage make-up on the website of The Stage, a UK-based theatre magazine. You'll find it here.

Here's a link to the eHow series of videos on applying stage make-up: eHow

And here's a link to a quick text guide to stage make-up to children: children

Perhaps of more value, The Stage's piece above contains a link to a publication, available through Amazon, entitled: Stage Make-up: step by step.


Just a quick note about buying through Amazon. Many of the more recent purchases for the Irish Board's resource centre have been bought through Amazon.co.uk. I would rarely buy them directly from Amazon, however. Quite often you'll see, just under the Amazon quoted price, 'Available from these sellers' with a link. Following this link will bring you to other on-line sellers who will quite often have the same book at a much cheaper price. Sometimes, they'll have a second-hand copy available for as little as 1p + postage. I've bought several of these, and the quality has been excellent.

Some of these sellers don't ship to Ireland but those that do usually have 'International delivery available' in their description. Always choose a seller that has a good number of ratings and a high (in the 90%) rating.

As an example, here's the 'other sellers' link for the book mentioned above: link

Don't hesitate to contact me if you want any clarification on how this works ... 01-2164270

Happy New Year

The Irish Board of Speech and Drama wishes you a creative, fun-filled and successful 2010!

IDAC AGM

The IDAC AGM and New Year's Lunch has been postponed 'til Sunday 31 January 2010. It's that pesky weather again. Grrr! Brrr!