Reading List

A number of registrants have been asking for a list of books in order to read ahead about our rich topic. Below are some suggestions, with a request that if you are aware of a wonderful book or recording on this subject you’ll please share it with the rest of us.

Caveat: As you all know, theatre is written for performance, and this is a particularly dense school of drama. So, please, if you find reading any of the plays hard going, trust us!

One goal of the Theatre Forum is to introduce audiences to and acquaint audiences with materials that have been of supreme importance in the history of Western culture. You can all thoroughly enjoy the weekend (and feel greatly enlightened, we hope) without doing alot – if any - of homework.

That said, here are some works you might enjoy browsing through. All are available on Amazon (links included below, and also in the sidebar to the left), some can even be read on your computer screen by accessing them through Googlebooks. And, while you’re on the computer, you can, of course, check Wikipedia for basic background information. The Wikipedia entries for all these extraordinary theatrical artists are well documented.

General Background: 
     Essays:  The Romantic Imperative by Frederick C. Beiser

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832):
     Plays:  Faust I and II (among many)
     Novels:   Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship
                    The Sorrows of Young Werther
     Anthologies:  The Collected Works
                    Selected Poetry

Friedrich Schiller (1759-1805):
     Essays:   Aesthetical Essays
     Plays:   Mary Stuart
                 Don Carlos
                 Wilhelm Tell

Richard Wagner (1813-1883):
     Biography/Essays: Wagner Without Fear by William Berger

Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956):
     Plays:   The Threepenny Opera (with Kurt Weill)
                 Mother Courage and her Children
                 A Caucasian Chalk Circle
                 The Good Woman of Szechwan
                 Life of Galileo

Kurt Weill (1900-1950):
     Biography:  Love Song, the Lives of Kurt Weill and Lotte Lenya 
                            by Ethan Mordden
                 Kurt Weill-Onstage: From Berlin to Broadway 
                            by Foster Hirsch and Kurt Weill

Musical Partners:

Donizetti:  Maria Stuarda (from Schiller)
Verdi:   Don Carlo (from Schiller)
Massennet:   Werther (from Goethe)
Gounod:   Faust (from Goethe)
Kurt Weill:   Threepenny Opera (with Brecht)