The Intent to Live: Achieving Your True Potential as an Actor by Larry Moss

Far more than a handbook, The Intent to Live is the personal credo of a master teacher. His respect for actors and love of the actor’s craft enliven every page, together with examples from a wealth of plays and films, both current and classic, and vivid appreciations of great performances. Whether you act for a living or simply want a deeper understanding of acting greatness, The Intent to Live will move, instruct, and inspire you.

Available for $22.95 here!

Actions: The Actors’ Thesaurus by Marina Caldarone & Maggie Lloyd-Williams

Actions: The Actors’ Thesaurus is a no-nonsense book that every actor and director must also have in rehearsals. Long a secret of the acting community are those random lists of action words (in very dog-eared photocopy format) that circulate through rehearsal rooms. Actioning is a widely used rehearsal and performance technique: this thesaurus of active verbs pulls these vital action-words together and makes them available in an organized and comprehensive format, with which the actor can refine the action-word until s/he hits exactly the right one to help make the action come alive.

Available for $26.95 here!

F*ck Your Comfort Zone: Take a Risk & Become the Lead in Your Own Life by Margie Haber

Celebrated acting and audition coach Margie Haber has spent over 40 years teaching celebrities and top actors from around the world. She will gently and compassionately guide you out of your comfort zone and into a life of bravery, risk-taking, and being the best version of yourself. With Margie’s help, you will learn how to transform your fear into personal power and approach life with empathy, humour, and curiosity. It will change everything.

Available for $31.95 here!

Want more books for Acting? Check out our entire selection!

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Through the Bamboo by Andrea Mapili & Byron Abalos

Through the Bamboo is a full-length play for young audiences by Andrea Mapili and Byron Abalos. When Philly’s Lola (grandma) dies, she finds herself in the fantastical land of Uwi. Will Philly be able to end the reign of the evil Three Sisters, find her Lola, and bring her back home? Through the Bamboo is an action-packed tale suitable for the whole family, told in the style of The Wizard of Oz, The Chronicles of Narnia, and Alice in Wonderland while rooted in Philippine mythology.

Available for $18.95 here!

Lady Sunrise by Marjorie Chan

Finalist for the 2022 Governor General’s Literary Award for drama (Canadian equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize)

Lady Sunrise is a full-length drama by Marjorie Chan. From the glittering high-rise condos to the desperate streets of Vancouver, Lady Sunrise is a tale told by women of social climbing and the fraying social fabric among the wealthy and hangers-on in the city’s Asian-Canadian community, where the pursuit of money is the only serious occupation.

Available for $18.95 here!

The Patron Saint of Stanley Park by Hiro Kanagawa

The Patron Saint of Stanley Park is a full-length drama by Hiro Kanagawa. On Christmas Eve, the one-year-anniversary of their father’s disappearance, Josh and Jennifer go to Stanley Park to honour his memory instead of catching a bus to their uncle’s place. When a mysterious homeless man leads them to a fantastical bunker beneath the park, they experience wondrous visions that help them understand the truth about their father.

Available for $17.95 here!

A Perfect Bowl of Pho by Nam Nguyen

A Perfect Bowl of Pho is a full-length musical with book and lyrics by Nam Nguyen, music by Wilfred Moeschter. Journey across the noodle of time and space as Nam Nguyen writes a genre-bending musical history of the Vietnamese diaspora, told through its foods – particularly the world-famous noodle soup pho. Expect rapping ancient kings, communist spies, and dancing sharks.

Available for $18.95 here!

The post 4 Must-Read Plays for Asian American Pacific Islander Month appeared first on Biz Books.

Radio Golf

Radio Golf is a bittersweet drama of assimilation and alienation set in 1997 in a storefront redevelopment office in Pittsburgh’s Hill District. It traces the forces of change on a neighbourhood and its people caught between history and the twenty-first century. Boasting chain stores and luxury, Harmond Wilks’ revitalization project will make him Pittsburgh’s first black mayor. And his radio host partner advocates golf as deliverance in the era of Tiger Woods. But a hold-out on their real estate deal forces them to question their pathways to success.

Available for $16.95 here!

Joe Turner’s Come and Gone

Set in 1911 in a black boardinghouse in Pittsburgh, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone chronicles the experience of a man who has escaped from a chain-gang to search for the wife he lost many years earlier. August Wilson gives haunting voice to the souls of this dispossessed group of Americans at the beginning of the century. It is his epic vision, power and poetic sense that lift their stories to strange and compelling heights.

Available for $17.95 here!

Gem of the Ocean

Aunt Esther, the drama’s 287-year-old fiery matriarch, welcomes into her Hill District home Solly Two Kings, who was born into slavery and scouted for the Union Army, and Citizen Barlow, a young man from Alabama searching for a new life. Gem of the Ocean is the ninth work in August Wilson‘s ten-play cycle that has recorded the American Black experience and helped to define generations.

Available for $17.95 here!

Want more August Wilson plays? Check out our entire selection!

The post 3 Plays You Might Not Know by August Wilson appeared first on Biz Books.

27 Wagons Full of Cotton and Other Plays

The thirteen one-act plays collected in this volume include some of Tennessee Williams‘s finest and most powerful work. They are full of the perception of life as it is, and the passion for life as it ought to be, which have made The Glass Menagerie and A Streetcar Named Desire classics of the American theatre.

Available for $20.95 here!

The Eccentricities of a Nightingale

When Alma Winemiller, a sensitive and lonely young woman, becomes increasingly restive and disturbed by the fear she will remain a spinster, she makes an almost desperate attempt to win the man of her choice — the young doctor John Buchanan.

She finds herself hemmed in by her stern father, her deranged mother and the young man’s social-climbing mother who frowns on his attachment to Alma.

Available for $17.95 here!

Period of Adjustment

Two couples, one married for five years and the other recent newlyweds, experience ups and downs in their relationships, in a comedy of human foibles and frustrations.

Available for $17.95 here!

Suddenly Last Summer

In an opulent Garden District mansion, Violet Venable sets out to exact revenge on Catharine Holly. Truth, deceit and horror intermingle inside the garden walls where Catharine struggles for her life. What horrible secrets are locked in Catharine’s head, and why is Violet so determined to silence them…and could it be that Violet is the victim, and that Catharine is the hunter?

Available for $17.95 here!

Summer and Smoke

A Biz Staff Pick!

A repressed minister’s daughter nurses a longtime unrequited love for the boy next door, who grows up into a playboy whose nature is completely at odds with hers. A perennial favourite of summer theatres and schools, the play one of the author’s most highly regarded works.

Summer and Smoke has long been a favourite of acting teachers for female monologues, female/female scenes, and female/male scenes.

Available for $17.95 here!

I Rise in Flame, Cried the Phoenix

A fictionalized version of D. H. Lawrence’s last hours, supported by an abrasive wife, Frieda, and a doting friend, Lady Brett. As the poet clambers the tortured steps to death, refusing to go gently into that good night, we do get glimpses of Lawrence’s phoenix spirit and poetic pain; Lawrence was one of Williams’ chief literary influences.

Available for $17.95 here!

The Rose Tattoo

Set among a colony of Sicilian fisherfolk on the American Gulf Coast, The Rose Tattoo is the story of a woman for whom love was stronger than death. One of the author’s most beautiful and powerful plays.

Available for $17.95 here!

Not About Nightingales

Portrays a shocking prison scandal in which a prison warden locked some convicts leading a hunger strike in a section of jail made unbearably hot by radiators. An early Tennessee Williams play is based on a true incident and indelibly presages the great plays he was later to write.

Available for $17.95 here!

A Lovely Sunday for Creve Coeur

Focusing on one morning and one encounter of four women. The two-time Pulitzer Prize winner once again skillfully explores, with comic irony and great tenderness, the meaning of loneliness, the need for human connection, as well as the inevitable compromises one must make to get through ‘the long run of life.’

Available for $18.95 here!

Orpheus Descending

A Sicilian immigrant’s daughter, unhappily running a dry-goods store in the South and tending to her dying husband, is reawakened by a mysterious drifter who appears in town. A vague reworking of the Orpheus and Eurydice legend in modern America, with a Southern township presumably representing Hell.

Available for $17.95 here!

Clothes for a Summer Hotel

F. Scott Fitzgerald visits his wife, Zelda, in a mental hospital in Asheville, N.C. They look back over their lives and relationship in Tennessee Williams‘ final play to play Broadway in his lifetime.

Available for $17.95 here!

Camino Real

This hauntingly poetic allegory takes us to the mysterious Camino Real, a surreal netherworld populated by a colourful collection of lost souls anxious to escape but terrified of the unknown wasteland lurking beyond the city’s walls. When Kilroy, an American traveller and former boxer, inadvertently lands in Camino Real, he sets off on a phantasmagoric venture through illusion and temptation in an attempt to flee its confines – and defy his grim destiny.

Available for $17.95 here!

American Blues: Five Short Plays

Contains 5 one-act plays by Tennessee Williams published under the collective title American Blues. Included in this collection are: The Case of the Crushed Petunias, Moony’s Kid Don’t Cry, The Dark Room, Ten Blocks on the Camino Real, and The Long Stay Cut Short, or, The Unsatisfactory Supper.

Available for $17.95 here!

Sweet Bird of Youth

A local boy gone bad returns to his home town with an aging movie actress to reclaim his childhood sweetheart, but must face the brutal truth – lost innocence is impossible to resurrect but shame and regret live on forever.

Available for $17.95 here!

The Night of the Iguana

A Biz Staff Pick!

A defrocked priest accused of having sexual relations with a teenage girl seeks shelter at a Mexican inn run by his blowsy, widowed old friend, who finds herself competing for his attentions with a kindly spinster who is caring for her grandfather, an aging poet.

The Night of the Iguana has long been a favourite of acting teachers for female monologues, male monologues, female/female scenes, and female/male scenes.

Available for $17.95 here!

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

A Biz Staff Pick!

In this Pulitzer Prize winner, a wealthy Southern patriarch faces impending death and manipulates his family, as his children squabble and mislead in desperate attempts to secure the family inheritance. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is a modern tale of a world filled with people determined to keep secrets and lie while keeping up a certain appearance that feels particularly relevant in the age of social media and influencers. Especially recommended for school and contest use.

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof has long been a favourite of acting teachers for female monologues, female/male scenes, and male/male scenes.

Available for $17.95 here!

A Streetcar Named Desire

A Biz Staff Pick!

Fragile Southern belle Blanche DuBois moves to New Orleans to live with her sister, Stella, and her brutish brother-in-law, Stanley Kowalski, in a dingy apartment. Temperaments clash, fireworks fly and secrets are revealed in Tennessee Williams‘ Pulitzer Prize-winning drama A Streetcar Named Desire. Especially recommended for school and contest use.

A Streetcar Named Desire has long been a favourite of acting teachers for female monologues, female/female scenes, and female/male scenes.

Available for $17.95 here!

The Glass Menagerie

A Biz Staff Pick!

The author achieved his first major success with this autobiographical “memory play,” which looks at the Wingfield family – frustrated writer Tom, his nagging mother, Amanda, who is often lost in memories of her Southern-belle past, and his painfully shy sister, Laura – and the effect a visit from a “gentleman caller” for Laura has on all their lives. Especially recommended for school and contest use.

The Glass Menagerie has long been a favourite of acting teachers for female monologues, male monologues, female/female scenes, and female/male scenes.

Available for $17.95 here!

Enjoy and comment below with your picks!

The post 18 Unforgettable Plays by Tennessee Williams appeared first on Biz Books.

Eurydice is Sarah Ruhl’s retelling of the Greek myth, “Orpheus and the Underworld”. Featuring seven Vancouver actors, led by Ovation award nominee for “Outstanding Female Newcomer” Julie Casselman, Eurydice is directed by Eleanor Felton and runs on selected dates at Pacific Theatre.

We spoke with Julie Casselman and co-stars Brandon Bate and Joel R. Butler to find out more about Eurydice.

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What is your involvement with Eurydice and how did that get started?

Julie Casselman: I am playing the role of impulsive and curious Eurydice. I was asked to be a part of the show by Eleanor Felton and Brandon Bate, who I did my theatre training with at Trinity Western University and who I’ve had the pleasure of working with before!

Brandon Bate: I’m co-producing with Eleanor Felton, and I’m playing Orpheus. Eleanor Felton and I have been working together for the last 5 years onstage and off. We decided to set our sights on the Vancouver Fringe Festival while we were working as apprentices at Pacific Theatre last year. That was the birthplace of our company, Plan Z Theatre.

Joel R. Butler: I play the role of The Nasty Interesting Man/ Child!

Can you share some of your creative process in preparing for the role – from the initial planning of the production all the way through to opening night?

Julie Casselman: Sometimes I’ll read a bunch of material related to the production before I get into the rehearsal hall, but I actually kind of distanced myself from any of that this time. I even had the chance to see another production of Eurydice while I was out at the Winnipeg Fringe Festival, but decided I kind of wanted to come to rehearsal on day one with a fresh perspective and nothing “decided” ahead of time. Making discoveries in the moment and having to find more of my own impulsive side actually aligns with Eurydice’s nature, which I think has been helpful for me. And scary.

Brandon Bate: I knew I wanted to play Orpheus from the moment I read his line “My music sounds better in my head than it does in the world”.

I am constantly immersed in music and the worlds it can create just on a day-to-day basis. So getting to play Orpheus seemed perfect. I have enjoyed finding his passion and intensity, as well as the lightness and humanity in this myth of a character.

Joel R. Butler: Given the nature of the character(s) it has been quite different from my usual process. Getting to play these different roles has been a ton of fun, being able to explore the different nuances I can bring to each one, so my character homework has basically been me messing around with playing a seemingly sophisticated gentleman and then flipping it around and playing a child. It’s been a trip!

What should audiences expect from this show?

Julie Casselman: Expect to laugh at some pretty unexpected things, and to have random lines floating through your head late at night. The script has a strange way of saying beautiful things in jarring ways. And jarring things in beautiful ways.

Brandon Bate: Expect the unexpected in Eurydice. Sarah Ruhl has written some very quirky characters and bizarre turns in this play. The mythical story of “Orpheus and the Underworld” isn’t as cut and dry as it may seem. Especially when it’s told from the perspective of Orpheus’ beloved wife. Also expect to ask yourself questions about what is worth holding onto. Especially once you are dead.

Joel R. Butler: This show has a lot of beautiful language and imagery and is so fun, but it carries with it this deep overtone of sadness that will definitely have you feeling bittersweet at the end!

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For Young People

What are three most important ingredients for a successful stage production?

Julie Casselman: Coffee. Levity. Not quite enough time.

Brandon Bate: Commitment. Passion. Laughs and high fives.

Joel R. Butler: Full on commitment first and foremost. Especially with a show where the director and star are moonlighting as producers! It takes a lot of guts to take on those roles in the first place so as an actor in this type of situation, it is very important to accommodate them by doing the work and showing up to rehearsal with nothing but the play on your mind.

Secondly, having an open mind to fresh ideas and weird things that get you out of your comfort zone so you are able to explore and grow.

The third thing is to keep having fun and loving the wonderful opportunity to put on a wonderful piece of art!

How did you get started in acting?

Julie Casselman: I started as a dancer, and then did the whole musical theatre dealio in junior high. My first real role was Santa’s understudy in grade four, though.

Brandon Bate: I started acting when I was 12 years old. My first role was Mayor Shinn in The Music Man. From then on, the question of “Will I audition for the next play?” was never really a question at all. Since then, I’ve never gone more than 3 or 4 months without having a new theatre project to hack away at. And what a gift those projects are.

Joel R. Butler: I have been acting since I was 11 years old, having done my first show in grade 6 back in my hometown of Coquitlam! And it’s been a wild ride for the last 13 years since!

What books and authors have been influential to you?

Julie Casselman: Anne of Green Gables. Nancy Drew. Diary of Anne Frank. Mindy Kaling’s book. The Inner Voice by Renee Fleming. Basically, strong, bold female characters.

Brandon Bate: A Director Prepares by Anne Bogart, Wild at Heart by John Eldridge, Inner Game of Tennis by Timothy Gallwey, Hinds Feet on High Places by Hannah Hunard.

Joel R. Butler: I love Patrick Rothfuss, author of the King Killer Chronicles. His work is outstanding. My biggest play writers would probably be Sam Shepard, Tennessee Williams and Edward Albee! I am also a big fan of Cormac McCarthy and Irvine Welsh!

What’s the most important lesson you have learned so far in your career?

Julie Casselman: The learning doesn’t stop. Allow levity into the room.

Brandon Bate: The most important lesson I’ve learned is that failure is par for the course. Every time I fail or fall short of a goal or expectation, I take time to congratulate myself. Because I know that my failure brings me closer to finding a solution. Fail boldly.

The next most important thing is definitely that one should never stop playing. I find that hard work can only take you so far. Learn to have fun and “play” your way through a challenge.

Joel R. Butler: Keep on doing it. Doesn’t matter if the role is small, the risk is high or the people around you are telling you its a pipe dream. If its what you love, You have to find a way to keep doing it. 

What other projects are you involved with at the moment?

Julie Casselman: I’m currently writing original music for Tender Napalm, being produced by Twenty Something Theatre.

Brandon Bate: I will be in Wit at Pacific Theatre in May. There might be one or two other project percolating between now and then, but it’s a little too soon to say for sure.

Joel R. Butler: I am currently working on a Hip Hop/ Jazz album and a couple of short films! So stay tuned!!

Where can people find out more about you?

Julie Casselman: juliecasselman.wix.com/juliecasselman is where I have my sound design and acting portfolio. I love collaborating and coffee.

Brandon Bate: Find me on LinkedIn, or view some of my work on the Pacific Theatre blog: soulfoodvancouver.blogspot.com

Joel R. Butler: As long as the fine people of Vancouver are supporting their local arts, I’ll be around in some fashion making sure they are finding a new story to take them away from their day to day. 

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Our thanks to Julie Casselman, Brandon Bate, and Joel R. Butler: for speaking with us!

You can find out more about Eurydice and everything else at the 2015 Vancouver Fringe Festival at VancouverFringe.com.

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The post The Biz Interview: Fringe Spotlight – “Eurydice” appeared first on Biz Books.

With the contest winding down and “When Pigs Fly” holding steady as a prime contender, we spoke with Brendan Taylor about how the commercial came to be, what goes into a successful commercial, and what else he has in the pipeline.

Tell us about the Doritos Crash the Super Bowl contest and your commercial, “When Pigs Fly”.

The contest is open to anyone who wants to make an ad for Doritos; they don’t have to be filmmakers necessarily, they just have to have a good idea. The winning ad is shown during the Super Bowl, the filmmaker gets a job at Universal in LA, and they win $1 million! Graham Talbot and Nelson Talbot happen to be great local filmmakers, they are SFU Film Alumni and aspire to work on bigger projects. They entered the contest last year and made it to the Top 25 semi-finals, which is already great. But this year they made it to the Top 10, out of almost 5,000 submissions. But I didn’t know it would get there when we shot it in October! It turned out amazing, and of course I’m biased, but I actually do think it’s the best one out of the 10 finalists!

In the ad, a young boy approaches his neighbour and casually asks for a Dorito chip. The grown-up says to him “When pigs fly!”, and the smart young boy takes it literally; he comes back the next day to surprise his neighbour, with a fly-by pig with a rocket on his back. The neighbour concedes and gives him the whole bag.

How can people get involved to support it?

Please go to Doritos.com and click ‘VOTE’ under our video “When Pigs Fly”! We are 1 of 2 Canadian teams this year, and would love all the support we can get to win this thing! It’s real easy, no sign-up, just visit the site and vote! You can vote every day until Wednesday, January 28th, once a day on your computer, phone, and tablet!

And find Vote4whenpigsfly on Facebook for all the latest news and extra behind-the-scenes stuff! We find out who won the contest DURING the Super Bowl on February 1st; they will air it live, so we will all find out at the same time!

How did the idea for this commercial come about?

Graham Talbot and Nelson Talbot just did a brainstorming session and built on what they learned last year, got an idea, and ran with it. Raw creativity based on experience! They knew kids and animals were popular in ads, so they worked from there. They have a good friend who does most of the post-production CGI effects. You can find a great little video on the visual effects on our Facebook page.

What can you tell us about your creative process in putting it together?

There were many factors, the Talbots will tell you: working on a budget, calling in favours and finding the location, and the actors: Keegan Turbitt, the perfect young genius boy, myself for the ‘simple’ farmer, and Bernard the Pig, who is a local pig actor! I got a call randomly from a mutual friend who was helping them find cast. I looked at the Talbot’s previous work and really liked it. I decided to jump on board, thinking at the very least of having something cool for a demo reel. The rest is history!

What do you enjoy about doing commercials vs. theatre, television, and film?

Commercials have been great for me not only for on set experience, but as an outlet for comedic acting. I love comedy, but there’s not a lot of comedy that shoots in Vancouver, just mainly dreary sci-fi stuff. But I do love TV and Film, more so in fact because I get to dig into a real story, and not just a fleeting gag or idea from a 30 second spot. And I love theatre: I was trained in theatre, and firmly believe it makes the actor great. Name any famous actor you enjoy, and chances are they grew up on the stage. Overall, I just love being immersed in storytelling. In a perfect world, I would balance my time shooting TV in LA, traveling abroad and shooting a film on a remote island somewhere for 6 months, then hunkering down in NYC for a few months to work on a Broadway play.

What would you say are the three most important things that every successful commercial needs?

Hmm, tough question. I’m not a marketing person, but from my own experience I would say: know your market, think outside the box, and…hire good actors? I find advertising fascinating, but I think it’s a lot of pressure to constantly come up with good ideas! Often times I’ve found myself improv-ing something in an audition and they end up using my idea because it was better than their own!

One of my favourite recent gigs I had was a singing voice-over gig for Old Spice ‘Dadsong’, once of the most unique and creative ad campaigns out there. The song was written by Bret McKenzie of ‘Flight of the Conchords’. So bizarre, yet very high production value and and you can’t help but laugh and sing along. Check it out on Youtube!

What other projects are you involved with these days?

I have a few projects coming out very soon. I was on an episode of the CW’s Arrow, which will be airing in a couple weeks, and I was on a new show called Olympus on the SyFy Network. I have a few commercials airing right now, and couple more on the way. I was also a lead in a feature film that shot last summer called Charlotte’s Song, which will be in festivals this Spring. It’s a supernatural period piece set in the 1930s Dust Bowl based on the fable of the Little Mermaid. I’m very excited for people to see it.

I’m also in the midst of co-producing an original play with some friends from my theatre company. We’re still in early stages, and it’s scary to dive into something original, but it’s exciting.

Who are some of your influences in film, television, and theatre?

I’ve found my tastes and interests have changed greatly over my life, in terms of who I like and who I think is good. But I definitely have some role models: In dramatic acting, I look up to Daniel Day Lewis, Joaquin Phoenix, Michael Fassbender, Michael Keaton. In the world of comedy, I love Ty Burrell, Patrick Warburton, and Larry David’s brilliant writing. I’m fascinated by Wes Anderson, Paul Thomas Anderson, and Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction era. In theatre, sometimes I’m in the mood for William Shakespeare or Tennessee Williams, but then I’ll play with David Mamet or Martin McDonagh.

What books have been influential to you in your career so far?

As I mentioned, I like a variety of theatre, so I love reading plays. Actual physical plays, not so much online. I’d love to have a huge collection of play books that I could chip away at. I find they’re very useful to have around too, if you’re an actor in training, which you should be. It’s so easy to be lazy as an actor, so at the very least you should be reading plays, thinking of monologues, reading up on playwrights or directors, reading or watching biographies… do something to further your craft if you’re not taking classes. Which you should be.

Where can we find out more about you and keep up with your projects?

You can check out my website at Brendan-Taylor.com. I try to keep the blog up to date with my latest gigs. You can find most of my commercials there too, and plenty of photos from past projects, including several plays with Blind Pig Theatre. And you can follow my Twitter @bdog_taylor and Instagram @dardaboy. In the coming weeks I will have a new demo as well as a voice demo up on my site, so stay tuned!

The post The Biz Interview: Brendan Taylor appeared first on Biz Books.