THE WORKING ARTS LIBRARY 's Mission In Progress

Glenn Young, Executive Producer and Founder

Who would not sacrifice their shelf of leather-bound Stanislavskys for ten minutes with the master himself. Who would prefer a dozen brilliant professorial treatises on Meyerhold to a five minute revelation of the artist himself at work? The Working Arts is in the business of revelation direct, unmediated, unfootnoted DVDs and CDs of contemporary artists passionately at work and deep in thought about their craft. While our inaugural list is devoted to thespian matters, we plan to introduce titles on the process of painting, dance, architecture, music, and photography as well.

A Book Publisher Converts

My work as Cicely Berry's producer on WORKING SHAKESPEARE provoked a 180-degree conversion in my life. I'd spent my arts career urging ever more intense cultural reflections through the lens of a book. (I've edited and published hundreds of books about theatre and film.) And while I'm not about to shatter that article of faith (we intend to offer some seminal books on the arts and process here as well), there is no inkwell deep enough, no roll of paper long enough to capture the dynamic of Cicely Berry at work. The immediacy and heat she projects, the intelligent intuition she generates, could only have been flash frozen and released through the art of film and video. Thus it was that I decided to climb my way back into the arts through the lens of a camera.

The Typical Acting Video

The majority of acting videos suffer because they aim to demonstrate rather than discover. Demonstration is a good deal safer for the teacher and a great deal less expensive for the producer. Shareholders adore it because the result is guaranteed before the first penny is ever spent. The teacher carefully selects star students who already know the syllabus backwards and forwards; the actors follow the precepts to the letter; the teacher comments on their work; the producer stuffs the film in the can, and off they go to the bank. You may note a resemblance to the infomercials on late night cable television.

The Working Arts Difference

What's so rewarding about Cicely Berry's work is not simply how well her actors act, but how far they gamble with their talents. They're not merely trading on their names, going through the usual paces, they're putting their reputations on the line. Those high dives you see them make are performed live. It's this openness, this courage, that makes their breakthroughs so volcanic and so precious. For the most part, Cicely had not met these actors until day one of the Workshops she too was putting her reputation on the line. To see these megawatt actors step forward into that creative void was one of the life-changing events in my professional life, and may well be in yours too.

Our Inaugural Working Arts List

MICHAEL CHEKHOV : ON THEATRE AND THE ART OF ACTING offers an experience beyond all the books of Michael Chekhov combined. Hear Chekhov's own voice in five hours (4 CDs) of his classes covering all the touchstones of his method. There is something deeply talismanic in hearing his voice or in seeing John Barton and Peter Hall in the throes of work on a text as you may in THE SHAKESPEARE SESSIONS . If you were unfortunate enough to miss two of the greatest American acting teachers of our time, Uta Hagen and David Craig, count yourself lucky indeed to join their classes in situ with these remarkable DVD collections: UTA HAGEN'S ACTING CLASS.

For those who have a taste for hubris in the arts (and who among us does not?), there may not be a more mouth-watering case study of artists flying at the edge of the sun than the saga behind John Barton's monumental TANTALUS, directed by Peter Hall.

Stay Tuned?

Arguably, the greatest classic master acting classes on video were first presented by Maria Aitken and Nathan Silver nearly a generation ago as The BBC ACTING SERIES. The series which debuts in August in its Working Arts DVD format, includes these legendary titles: MICHAEL CAINE: Acting in Film, SIMON CALLOW: Acting in Restoration Comedy, JONATHAN MILLER: Acting in Opera, MARIA AITKEN: Acting in High Comedy, JANET SUZMAN; Acting in Shakespearean Comedy, and BRIAN COX: Acting in Tragedy.

May The Working Arts Play Button Turn You On To Much Serious Pleasure!

GLENN YOUNG is Publisher Emeritus and Founder of Applause Theatre and Cinema Books, where he edited and published many of the foremost performing artists of our time, including John Gielgud, Terry Gilliam, John Houseman, Eric Bentley, John Cleese, Paul Sills, Comden & Green, Stephen Sondheim, Paddy Chayefsky, William Goldman, John Patrick Shanley, Michael Caine, Edith Skinner, Oliver Stone, Larry Gelbart, Cy Coleman, Harold Clurman, Robert Cohen, John Russell Brown, Herb Gardner and Simon Callow, among many others. He was a special consultant to THE BBC ACTING SERIES. He is the longtime editor of THE BEST AMERICAN SHORT PLAY ANNUAL .

Young served on the faculty of Wesleyan University, where he taught advanced seminars on American and European theatre, and on the graduate faculty of Columbia University, where for many years he taught the advanced graduate playwriting seminar.