The San Francisco Mime Troupe Reader

Book Overview

The San Francisco Mime Troupe Reader is a long-overdue collection of some of the finest political satires created and produced by the Tony Award-winning company during the last forty years. It is also a history of the company that was the theater of the counterculture movement in the 1960s and that, against all odds, has managed to survive the often hostile economic climate for the arts in the United States. The plays selected are diverse, representing some of the Troupe's finest shows, and the book's illustrations capture some of the Troupe's most memorable moments. These hilarious, edgy, and imaginative scripts are accompanied by insightful commentary by theater historian and critic Susan Vaneta Mason, who has been following the Troupe for more than three decades. The Mime Troupe Reader will engage and entertain a wide range of audiences, not only general readers but also those interested in the history of American social protest, the counterculture of the 1960s-particularly the San Francisco scene-and the evolution of contemporary political theater. It will also appeal to the legions of Troupe fans who return every year to see them stand up against another social or corporate Goliath.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0472068423
• ISBN13: 9780472068425
• Release Date: April 2005
• Publisher: University of Michigan Press
• Length: 281 Pages
• Weight: 1.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.4" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

If You Can't Go to San Fran Each of the Last 40 Years

The San Francisco Mime Troupe has been going now for about forty years. They must be doing something right. Or maybe left. More likely all over the place. Their specialty is political satire. Political satire has to be topical or it looses it's whole sense of being. And once spoken, the show is over, it closes soon for the next incident to hit the press. At last Professor Mason, has collected some of their finest work and put it together in this book along with some stories that set the pieces in their time. It's broken down by the decade and includes fourteen of their best pieces. Unfortunately reading a play is much less satisfactory than hearing it actually performed on stage. But reading it is one hell of a lot better than having such work go away forever.