This Applause edtiion allows the reader and student to look beyond the scholarly reading text to the more sensuous, more collaborative, more malleable performance text which emerges in conjunction with the commentary and notes. Readers and students are faced with real theatrical choices in each speech as the editors point out the challenges and opportunities to the actor and director at each juncture. Readers will not only discover an enlivened Shakespeare,...

Three Sisters (1900) is a drama in four acts by Russian playwright and short story writer Anton Chekhov. It was first performed at the Moscow Art Theatre in 1901, directed by acclaimed actor Konstantin Stanislavski-who also played the role of Aleksandr Ignatyevich Vershinin, a philosophizing artillery officer in love with middle Prozorov sister Masha. Reviews were mixed at first, but as the play continued to run, Three Sisters became a popular success,...

Uncle Vanya (1898) is a four-act play by Russian short story writer and playwright Anton Chekhov. It was first performed at the Moscow Art Theatre in 1899, directed by acclaimed actor Konstantin Stanislavski-who also played the role of Astrov. Reviews were lukewarm at first, but as the play continued to run, Uncle Vanya gained both popularity and critical prowess, and has since become one of the most influential dramas ever produced. When retired...

A revelatory new translation of Gogol's comedy by renowned playwright Richard Nelson and Richard Pevear & Larissa Volokhonsky--the foremost contemporary translators of classic Russian literature including the best-selling Oprah's Book Club selection, Anna Karenina--marks the first of a series of translations of important Russian plays over the next ten years.

Regarded as the foremost Russian translators in today's literary field, Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhovsky -- together with acclaimed playwright Richard Nelson -- have created fresh interpretations of two seminal works from the acclaimed Russian author Mikhail Bulgakov. The original works were charged with cultural subtext and controversial intrigue, revealed in a new light with this exceptional new volume.