Applause Books Proudly Announces the Publication of WILL POWER: How To Act Shakespeare in 21 Days by John Basil and Stephanie Gunning

Books are in stores now, and I am so proud of what John Basil and I have accomplished. John is an amazing acting coach and classical director who has run American Globe Theatre, an off-off-Broadway theatre company near Times Square in NY City's theatre district, for 16 years. The company serves 10,000 students every year, and gives a home to 200 emerging theatre professionals. He and his wife, the talented actress Liz Keefe, do this without getting much financial reward. They do it from love. I know that this book is a breakthrough for John, because finally the entire world will get to see what he has spent a lifetime developing: a way of rehearsing Shakespeare drawn from hidden clues in the original, handwritten First Folio texts.

Will Power: How to Act Shakespeare in 21 Days is the book I wish I'd had as an acting student. It's a book that parents should have their teens read, and high school English teachers should assign to their students along with plays like Romeo & Juliet.

Here's the Table of Contents:

Acknowledgments
Introduction: Your 21-Day Journey with Will

THE SHAKESPEARE REHEARSAL
Phase 1 ~ Map Reading:
Secrets of Your Script Unfolded

Day 1 Revealing Your Repetitions
Day 2 Cracking the Capitalization Code
Day 3 Verse or Prose?
Day 4 Picking Out Punctuation
Day 5 Revving Up Your Verbs
Day 6 Amiable Adjectives, Saucy Similes, and
Merry Metaphors
Day 7 O! Thy Status Is Showing
Day 8 Your Secret Formula for Persuasive Rhetoric

Phase 2 ~ Scouting the Landscape:
Going on Instinct, Getting Off Book

Day 9 Script Rotations
Day 10 To Memorize, Physicalize
Day 11 Now, Go Ahead and Look It Up
Day 12 Draft Your Newspaper Headlines

Phase 3 ~ Charting Your Course:
Moments of Variety and Nuance

Day 13 Playing with the Pace
Day 14 Finding Your Focus
Day 15 Surely, You Jest
Day 16 Art Thou Parent, Child, or Adult?
Day 17 Greeks Bearing Gifts

Phase 4 ~ Staking Your Claim:
Stanislavski’s Approach

Day 18 Your Given Circumstances
Day 19 Five Basic Human Needs
Day 20 Your Doings
Day 21 Presto, PASTO!

SHAKESPEARE IN ACTION
On Day 22 . . .

Recommended Reading
Index
About the Authors