Break a Leg!: The Kids' Guide to Acting and Stagecraft
Gr 4-10-An informative, how-to guide on the essentials of acting and stage production. This theater-course-in-a-book has sections on body preparation and exercises, theater games and other techniques, acting skills such as accents and stage fighting, analyzing scripts, rehearsals, and overcoming stagefright. It also takes a look backstage with chapters on stage managing, light, sound, and costume design, and advice on doing your own costumes and makeup. And for readers who devour all this information with interest, there's a chapter on acting as a career, with tips on headshots; agents; auditioning; and getting jobs in theater, film, television, and radio. Also included are appendixes with lists of resources, Web sites, and selected monologues and scenes. While the title implies that this book is for children, photos include depictions of teens and adults. This guide is truly chock-full of information, so much so that it at times seems too crowded with photos, inserts, illustrations and diagrams, sidebars with definitions, young actors' quotes, and informative asides on topics such as green rooms and improv troupes. Even so, if you need one book to introduce students to the theater, this is a good choice.Betty S. Evans, Southwest Missouri State University, SpringfieldCopyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.