Lessons in Creativity from Musical Theatre Characters


Book Description

Lessons in Creativity from Musical Theatre Characters marries art and science with a new and exciting collaboration between one of the world’s leading creativity scholars and an internationally renowned musical theatre composer. This book will help readers tap into their creativity and unleash their own creative potential as they start their careers. Blending cutting-edge research, juicy anecdotes, lived experience, hands-on activities, and gentle advice, authors James C. Kaufman and Dana P. Rowe take readers on a journey to explore and enhance their own creativity. Each chapter addresses a key aspect of creativity, from how to overcome blocks to understanding one’s personal strengths all through the lens of Musical Theatre characters along with insights from those within the industry. Kaufman and Rowe shatter creativity myths (such as the tormented artist or having one big break) that may be harming the reader’s potential growth. Probing questions, fun quizzes, and engaging exercises will help the reader reflect on the material and develop strategies for their next step. All throughout, the readers can learn from the tales of Sweeney Todd, Maria Von Trapp, Alexander Hamilton, Christine Daaé, and countless others to inspire their own creativity. This book is ideal for aspiring theatre professionals, students of performing arts, and theatre and creativity scholars.




Creativity, Innovation, and Change Across Cultures


Book Description

This book offers interdisciplinary, multicultural, and international perspectives on the interrelation between culture, innovation, change and creative forces. Its wide-ranging contributions present theoretical and empirical approaches and with reference to different domains across disciplines including psychology, education, social sciences, humanities, and engineering. The authors demonstrate how urgent social, environmental, technological, and economic challenges can benefit from individual, and community creativity to effect change. In this volume, “culture” refers to sociocultural differences, educational culture, media culture, organizational culture, technological culture, ethnic differences within a culture, and digital culture. Its contributors offer fresh insights on how creativity, innovation, and change can propel us forward and offer hope for the future across these many different forms of culture. They offer both granular studies of creativity and innovation at work in particular contexts and macro-level discussion on how they affect organizational culture, the culture of a discipline and society at large. This cross-cultural analysis of creativity, innovation and approaches to change will particularly appeal to practitioners and researchers in the fields of psychology, organizational behavior and education.




Constraints in Creativity


Book Description

All creative work operates under constraints. Yet, despite an overall increase in attention over the past decade, the matter of constraints has received much less attention than has creativity, in general. This book represents an effort by the editors to integrate diverse perspectives on constraints in creativity from 22 researchers, who aim to define constraints, uncover their structure, delineate the conditions under which they facilitate or inhibit creativity, and outline how an understanding of the role of constraints in creative thinking can inform our understanding of the nature of creativity itself. Constraints in Creativity provides educators, managers, creativity researchers, and anyone looking to improve their own creative skills with theoretical and practical insights into the role of constraints in the creative process. Contributors are: Don Ambrose, John Baer, Paul Joseph Barnett, Michael Mose Biskjaer, Nathalie Bonnardel, Anthony Chemero, Peter Dalsgaard, Vlad Glăveanu, Armand Hatchuel, James C. Kaufman, Agnès Lellouche-Gounon, Pascal Le Masson, Kelsey E. Medeiros, Roni Reiter-Palmon, Eric Rietzschel, Wendy Ross, Diana Rus, Dean Keith Simonton, Robert J. Sternberg, Patricia D. Stokes, Catrinel Tromp and Benoit Weil.




Sondheim on Music


Book Description

From his early work as lyricist for West Side Story to acclaimed creations such as A Little Night Music, Sunday in the Park with George, and Sweeney Todd, Stephen Sondheim is widely regarded as the most important figure in musical theater since the second half of the 20th century. Who better to discuss this prolific artist’s work than the master himself? Sondheim on Music: Minor Details and Major Decisions is a collection of interviews conducted by Mark Eden Horowitz, senior music specialist in the music division of the Library of Congress. In these guided conversations, Sondheim expounds in great depth and detail on his craft. As a natural teacher, thoughtful and opinionated, Sondheim discusses the art of musical composition, lyric writing, the collaborative process of musical theater, and how he thinks about his own work. The entire scope of Sondheim’s career is covered here, in which Sondheim’s greatest works are discussed—from Passion, Assassins, Into the Woods, Sunday in the Park with George, Sweeney Todd, and Pacific Overtures to A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Merrily We Roll Along, Company, Follies, Anyone Can Whistle, and A Little Night Music. Sondheim even provides thoughts about the film adaptations of his works, such as Sweeney Todd. The book also features an entire chapter on Bounce, the previous incarnation of his latest musical, Road Show. Preserving the essential elements of the previous volumes, this edition includes all of the interviews—verbatim—and features a revised introduction and a postlude with an additional conversation. Finally in paperback, Sondheim on Music: Minor Details and Major Decisions, The Less Is More Edition is a must-have for fans of these creative genius.




Transformational Creativity


Book Description

Zusammenfassung: This edited volume brings together leading scholars in diverse disciplines to share their best thinking on how creativity can be conceived of, taught for, and deployed to serve rather than undermine humanity. Transformational creativity, as defined in this book, is creativity deployed to make a positive, meaningful, and potentially enduring difference to the world. Transformational creativity is compared to transactional creativity, which is creativity deployed in search of a reward, whether externally or internally generated. Robert J. Sternberg is Professor of Human Development in the College of Human Ecology at Cornell University and an Honorary Professor of Psychology at Heidelberg University, Germany. Previously, Sternberg served in academic administration as a university dean, senior vice-president, and president. Before that, he was IBM Professor of Psychology and Education, Professor of Management at Yale, and Director of the Yale Center for the Psychology of Abilities, Competencies, and Expertise. Sareh Karami is Assistant Professor of Educational Psychology at Mississippi University, USA. Karami earned her doctorate in Educational Studies from Purdue University. Sareh received her bachelor's and Masters in clinical psychology from the University of Tehran. She earned her second Master's in Education from the University of British Columbia, Canada. She served as the head of the research and extracurricular programs department in an Iranian gifted school for more than ten years.




New Jersey for Kids


Book Description

Many parents in the Garden State are familiar with Great Adventure in Jackson, the boardwalk at Point Pleasant, and the Adventure Aquarium in Camden, but do they know about Kindermusik in Teaneck, the Young Chef’s Academy in Hillsborough, or the Buehler Challenger and Science Center in Paramus? In New Jersey for Kids, Patrick Sarver provides parents with a handy reference guide offering hundreds of educational and entertaining ideas for children and their parents to explore and enjoy. Activities are designed specifically for kids ages 12 and under and cover a wide array of fun ways to enrich their intellectual lives, build their athletic skills, express themselves creatively, or just have room to play. The activities covered include: Robotics workshops Themed tea parties Plays and performances for children Museum tours, special exhibits, and programs for kids Pony rides and horseback riding lessons Specialized summer camps Arts and crafts classes Gymnastics classes Zoos and nature activities Hockey, soccer, and baseball clinics Acting and dancing lessons Play centers with slides, ball pits, and bounce castles Busy parents no longer need to spend hours surfing the Web and scouting out resources to find nearby activities their kids might enjoy. New Jersey for Kids puts this information right in the palms of their hands. Chapters are organized by category so it is easy to locate just the right activities to suit an individual child’s interests, whether it’s a fun way to spend an afternoon or a class that might inspire a lifelong passion. Along with descriptions and commentary, listings include recommended age ranges, handicap accessibility, and estimated durations of activities as well as practical information on hours, price ranges, Web sites, and phone numbers.




Passing Strange


Book Description

"Stew brings us the story of a young bohemian who charts a course for 'the real' through sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll."--Page 4 of cover.




Gender, Age and Musical Creativity


Book Description

From the perennially young, precocious figure of 'little orphan Annie' to the physical and vocal ageing of the eighteenth-century castrato, interlinked cultural constructions of age and gender are central to the historical and contemporary depiction of creative activity and its audiences. Gender, Age and Musical Creativity takes an interdisciplinary approach to issues of identity and its representation, examining intersections of age and gender in relation to music and musicians across a wide range of periods, places, and genres, including female patronage in Renaissance Italy, the working-class brass band tradition of northern England, twentieth-century jazz and popular music cultures, and the contemporary 'New Music' scene. Drawing together the work of musicologists and practitioners, the collection offers new ways in which to conceptualise the complex links between age and gender in both individual and collective practice and their reception: essays explore juvenilia and 'late' style in composition and performance, the role of public and private institutions in fostering and sustaining creative activity throughout the course of musical careers, and the ways in which genres and scenes themselves age over time.




Creativity in the Primary Curriculum


Book Description

Are you striving to establish a more creative and imaginative classroom? Are you interested in: the generosity of creativity; creative conjecture; being an advocate for creativity; welcoming the unexpected, the unpredictable and the unconventional; taking risks; learning which leads to new or original thinking which is of value? If so, this completely updated new edition of a classic text will show you how to achieve these ideals. The book is written in a clear and practical way by leading researchers and practitioners, offering help and advice on the planning and implementation of effective creative teaching and learning, and providing examples of best practice through a rigorous theoretical rationale. A hallmark of the book is its exploration of creativity through curriculum subjects. It builds on this in its first and last chapters by addressing key cross-curricular themes that thread their way throughout the book. Throughout there is an emphasis on critical and reflective practice. New to this edition are: three entirely new chapters on drama, music and geography; an update of the introduction to account for advances in creativity research, policy and practice; a new final chapter identifying cross-curricular themes; greater attention to international dimensions and examples. In this second edition the authors are drawn from six universities which between them produce some of the best education research internationally, and some of the best teacher education. The authors also come from leading national and international organisations such as the National Gallery in London and the Geographical Association. Creaivity for the Primary Curriculum is a core text for both training and practicing Primary teachers who wish to maintain high standards when approaching their teaching.




Teaching Creatively and Teaching Creativity


Book Description

Creative teaching as well as teaching creativity are cutting edge issues in psychology today as recent academic and popular media coverage has shown. This volume expands on that interest with chapter authors drawn from interdisciplinary areas. It includes examples of creatively teaching across the education system, including preschool, K-12, undergraduate, and graduate level education. The variety of subjects covered by the chapters include psychology,math, science, and reading. In addition to creative teaching which may lead to enhanced learning and achievement in students, as well enhanced creativity,another focus is teaching with the objective to enhance creativity.