Writing in Restaurants

"Essays in direct line from Stanislavsky, Chekhov, Shaw, and Brecht"
—Mike Nichols

A collection of essays from Pulitzer Prize winning playwright David Mamet adressing many issues in contemporary American theater

Temporarily putting aside his role as playwright, director, and screen-writer, David Mamet digs deep and delivers thirty outrageously diverse vignettes. On subjects ranging from the vanishing American pool hall, family vacations, and the art of being a bitch, to the role of today's actor, his celebrated contemporaries and predecessors, and his undying commitment to the theater, David Mamet's concise style, lean dialogue, and gut-wrenching honesty give us a unique view of the world as he sees it.Writing in RestaurantsPreface
Acknowledgments
I. Writing in Restaurants
Capture-the-Flag, Monotheism, and the Techniques of Arbitration
A National Dream-Life
Radio Drama
A Tradition of the Theater as Art
First Principles
Stanislavsky and the American Bicentennial
An Unhappy Family
Some Thoughts on Writing in Restaurants

II. Exuvial Magic
Exuvial Magic: An Essay Concerning Fashion
True Stories of Bitches
Notes for a Catalog for Raymond Saunders
Decadence
A Family Vacation
Semantic Chickens
Chicago
On Paul Ickovic's Photographs
A Playwright in Hollywood
Oscars
Pool Halls
Things I Have Learned Playing Poker on the Hill

III. Life in the Theater
Epitaph for Tennessee Williams
Regarding A Life in the Theater
Concerning The Water Engine
Decay: Some Thoughts for Actors, Theodore Spencer Memorial Lecture, Harvard, February 10, 1986
Notes on The Cherry Orchard
Acting
Realism
Against Amplification
Address to the American Theater Critics Convention at the Tyrone Guthrie Theater, Minneapolis, Minnesota, August 25, 1978
Observations of a Backstage Wife

"Essays in direct line from Stanislavsky, Chekhov, Shaw, and Brecht"
—Mike Nichols

"Writing in Restaurants is rich with anecdotes . . . composed in precise mellifluous language."
—The Philadelphia Inquirer

"Passion, clarity, commitment, intelligence—just what one would expect from Mamet"
—Sidney Lumet

"Graceful, forceful, hortatory essays of a profoundly moral writer of our time"
—Richard Christiansen, Chicago Tribune

"Among the themes explored are why radio is a great training ground for writers, theater as an arena for dreams and the subconscious, Tennessee Williams's dramatic mission, and the craze for fashion as a symptom of the middle class's sterile lifestyle and loss of the ability to fantasize." -- Publishers Weekly

David Mamet's numerous plays include Oleanna, Glengarry Glen Ross (winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award), American Buffalo, Speed-the-Plow, Boston Marriage, November, Race and The Anarchist. He wrote the screenplays for such films as The Verdict, The Untouchables and Wag the Dog, and has twice been nominated for an Academy Award. He has written and directed ten films, including Homicide, The Spanish Prisoner, State and Main, House of Games, Spartan and Redbelt. In addition, he wrote the novels The Village, The Old Religion, Wilson and many books of nonfiction, including Bambi vs. Godzilla: On the Nature, Purpose and Practice of the Movie Business; Theatre; Three Uses of the Knife: On the Nature and Purpose of Drama and the New York Times bestseller The Secret Knowledge: On the Dismantling of American Culture. His HBO film Phil Spector, starring Al Pacino and Helen Mirren, aired in 2013 and earned him two Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Writing and Outstanding Directing. He was co-creator and executive producer of the CBS television show The Unit and is a founding member of the Atlantic Theater Company.