New Releases by Richard Courtney

Gigantic roving shadows and monster-size footprints test the engines'' bravery in the Thomas & Friends movie, Tale of the Brave, starring Thomas the Tank Engine and his friends. This reader, adapted from the movie, will thrill train-obsessed little boys and girls ages 3-7.

Thomas the Tank Engine''s friends Bash and Dash are fast, cheeky, and always getting into mischief! Thomas chases the twin engines all around the Island of Sodor, trying to keep them out of trouble. Train-obsessed boys and girls ages 4-6 will love this book featuring their favorite Thomas & Friends characters.

As the greatest rock and roll band of all time, the Beatles rocketed to worldwide fame soon after their 1964 arrival in the United States. Much of their achievement can be attributed to the unique Beatle sound, but it was more than just the music that catapulted them to the summit of success, and kept them there even after the band ceased touring and broke apart. How the Beatles both failed and triumphed as businessmen and the lessons today’s entrepreneurs and business leaders can draw from this unique journey is the subject of Come Together: The Business Wisdom of the Beatles. Authors Richard Courtney and George Cassidy recount the band’s many exploits, from its early struggles in Hamburg to the success of Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band and beyond, revealing from a business perspective what worked and what didn’t. More than the music, this book explores what it took to pass the audition.

An award-winning Realtor offers the ultimate guide to navigating the confusing and often cutthroat world of home buying and selling.

This book presents practical examples of modern research in the arts and education, and details how to prepare a thesis. A strong theoretic base is provided with chapters on arts therapies and culture studies. Contents: THE QUEST: What is Research? What is Arts Education? THEORY: The History of Inquiry; Contemporary Forms of Inquiry; Contemporary Knowledge and Reason; PRACTICE: Research Frameworks in Arts Education; Grounded Theory and the CEQRM; The Thesis; The Evaluation of Arts Programs; Examples of Program Evaluation; Research Projects; Arts and Culture Studies; Research in Creative Arts Therapies; Conclusion; Bibliography; Index.

Modern scholarship shows a startling fact - that belief in one God originated with Moses and became the basis of the Jewish Bible and the Old Testament in a ritual drama, The Play of Moses, first created by Joshua as the Israelites crossed the Jordan and performed it at Schechem. This play was altered over time into The Play of David. Remnants of this ritual drama are to be found in The Book of J, written hundreds of years later - after the time of Solomon - and it was severely suppressed by priests returning from the Exile hundreds of years after that. The Play of Moses is the hidden basis of the modern Jewish and Christian religions.

How many ages hence Shall this our lofty scene be acted o’er In states unborn and accents yet unknown! – Julius Caesar, III.i.111 Many ages later, we are still enjoying Shakespeare’s works. But, too often, his plays are studied as "literature," ignoring the fact that Shakespeare wrote plays for living performance. Richard Courtney puts the focus back where it should be, helping us to understand the works of Shakespeare as dramas intended for an audience. Written for directors and actors, the eight books in the series will also interest theatregoers, scholars, and the general reader seeking a fuller understanding of Shakespeare’s works. The introduction and end notes give helpful information on life in sixteenth century England, its language and beliefs, Elizabethan theatre and stages. Each play is analyzed scene by scene, with background on the history and the leading characters, and reasons for the choice of theme. From his own wide experience as actor and director, Richard adds anecdotes and examples to illustrate directing challenges and provide practical solutions. Shakespeare’s World of Love discusses Much Ado About Nothing, As You Like It, Twelfth Night, The Merry Wives of Windsor

Shakespeare''s World of Death discusses Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar, and Hamlet.

Drama, as defined by Courtney, encompasses all kinds of dramatic action, from children''s play to social roles and theatre. He shows not only that teachers have found educational drama and spontaneous improvisation to be an invaluable learning tool but that many skills required for work and leisure reflect the theatrical ability to "read" others and see things from their point of view. The main thrust of Drama and Intelligence is that drama can enhance and develop various aspects of intelligence. Courtney suggests that the "costumed player" must bring into play many levels of intelligence in the rehearsal and execution of dramatic acts and that such acts offer unsurpassed opportunities to practice and develop these cognitive skills. He uses the term intelligence to refer to the potential for specific types of mental activity and employs a theoretic-analytic method to view cognition and intelligence in a post-structuralist and semiotic mode. Courtney examines such issues as the relation of the actual to the fictional; the dramatic creation of meaning; signs, symbols, and practical hypotheses; and experi-mental logic, intuition, and tacit modes of operation. Drama and Intelligence will interest not only scholars and students of developmental drama, but also those in the fields of dramatic and performance theory, educational drama, and drama therapy.

In this collection of theoretical essays, Richard Courtney argues that there is a human drama essential to life and education. Imagination, creativity, learning, myth, ritual, symbolism, media, "masks" - these and other ideas are shown as fundamentally dramatic. Re-Play commences by considering Developmental Drama - the study of human drama, both personal and cultural. The author then looks at the drama of learning - examining motivation and transfer in detail. Subsequent chapters describe instruction, giftedness, English and language learning, dramatherapyy, the nature of culture, and a rationale for the arts in education. The book concludes with appendixes which give a new theory of curriculum and refer to many aspects of modern research.

Written as a source book for students.