Full Moon Stages

"FULL MOON STAGES transcends the reception model that comprises most books, by which one simply absorbs information in the hope of better understanding the subject matter at hand, and demands of the reader an intensity of psychic and durative commitment that is difficult to summon in these days of instantaneity. This book-length poem privileges experientiality over intellectual understanding, asking that you take the trip and allow yourself to be changed by the journey. If one commits to taking the Malinian trip, this story of a life, told sequentially yet in fragments, as if it were an existence illuminated by lightning bolts, is one of the most powerful interactions I've ever had with a piece of nonfiction. As I sat at the table after finishing it, tears streaming down my face, I could not help but reflect on all that remained to be done." --American Theatre Magazine "Judith Malina, the pioneering cofounder of the radical, politically fiery troupe The Living Theater ... has performed all over the world and even went to jail for her convictions. But come hell or high water, on every full moon she wrote a new entry in the diary of her life. This memoir collects those frank and funny observations, creating a biography of her career and a record of the movement she helped steer for decades."--Broadway Direct Book Filter Best of the Winter Picks "Serious theater buffs will applaud this final performance by a singular artist." --Library Journal "An exceptional memoir rich with detail and an inherently fascinating read from beginning to end. Of special note is the succinct dedication by Al Pacino. FULL MOON STAGES is very highly recommended for both community and academic library Theatrical History and Theatrical Biography reference collections." --Midwest Book Review "For fifty years, Malina kept a journal, recording what she and her troupe were doing during every full moon ... It becomes a sketchbook, a framework of ideas stretching across generations. FULL MOON STAGES is a work of broad strokes that ... paints an intimate portrait of an innovator and her uncompromising vision of what theater can be." --Manhattan Book Review "The music of the repetition, its insistent organizing principle, functions like the serial arrangement in Cage, Steve Reich, or Phillip Glass, and it provides a haunting resonance. The impact on a reader over 200 pages is cumulative. Even though Malina's lens may be tightly focused, the scope of her story stretches over a half-century." --LA Review of Books "I can't think of any other inspiration of freedom that comes close to representing the message of The Living Theatre and its daring and monumental effects." -- Al Pacino, award-winning actor, from the dedication "Her stamina was extraordinary. She was happy, buoyant, and spread the love." --Angelica Huston, award-winning actress "A magical diary: pithy, salient. Shows the great arc of an ever radiant revolutionary artist and activist. Judith Malina is still out in the vast sky of our Utopian Living Theatre hearts and minds." --Anne Waldman, award-winning poet and performer "If one wants to have a life as a woman artist, first of all read Judith Malina--this lovely and evocative FULL MOON STAGES. She was one of the greatest theater makers of the 20th into the 21st Century, and one of the most fascinating, brilliant women of the world." --Karen Malpede, award-winning playwright "For the people who knew Judith Malina in life nothing can fill the absence of that most vibrant, profound, quixotic, being but this book, FULL MOON STAGES is a Fattura, a spell, that can conjure Judith for YOU in the present. It is a vortex, an entry into her world, into that amazing mind and life of hers. It is a diagram, an ex-ray, a blueprint, a map of a poetic, artistic, political, metaphysical life lived to the fullest." --Penny Arcade, award-winning performance artist "Every month describes a concise lunar aspect of the Beautiful Nonviolent Anarchist Revolution. Judith has inscribed The Living's Akashic Record in a 50-year love letter." --Joanie Fritz Zosike, Living Theatre company member "A palimpsest of Living Theatre experience of over 50 years." --Thomas Walker, Living Theatre company member "Having this collection in hand is to hold an intimate portrait of Judith's honesty, resilience, pain and spirit wrapped around life with her Living Theatre!" --Lois Kagan Mingus, Living Theatre company member since 1988/Artistic Associate/Board of Directors member "I can't think of any other inspiration of freedom that comes close to representing the message of The Living Theatre and its daring and monumental effects." -- Al Pacino, award-winning actor, from the dedication "Her stamina was extraordinary. She was happy, buoyant, and spread the love." --Angelica Huston, award-winning actress "A magical diary: pithy, salient. Shows the great arc of an ever radiant revolutionary artist and activist. Judith Malina is still out in the vast sky of our Utopian Living Theatre hearts and minds." --Anne Waldman, award-winning poet and performer "If one wants to have a life as a woman artist, first of all read Judith Malina--this lovely and evocative FULL MOON STAGES. She was one of the greatest theater makers of the 20th into the 21st Century, and one of the most fascinating, brilliant women of the world." --Karen Malpede, award-winning playwright "For the people who knew Judith Malina in life nothing can fill the absence of that most vibrant, profound, quixotic, being but this book, FULL MOON STAGES is a Fattura, a spell, that can conjure Judith for YOU in the present. It is a vortex, an entry into her world, into that amazing mind and life of hers. It is a diagram, an ex-ray, a blueprint, a map of a poetic, artistic, political, metaphysical life lived to the fullest." --Penny Arcade, award-winning performance artist "Every month describes a concise lunar aspect of the Beautiful Nonviolent Anarchist Revolution. Judith has inscribed The Living's Akashic Record in a 50-year love letter." --Joanie Fritz Zosike, Living Theatre company member "A palimpsest of Living Theatre experience of over 50 years." --Thomas Walker, Living Theatre company member "Having this collection in hand is to hold an intimate portrait of Judith's honesty, resilience, pain and spirit wrapped around life with her Living Theatre!" --Lois Kagan Mingus, Living Theatre company member since 1988/Artistic Associate/Board of Directors member "The single most influential American company of its era." --Stephen J. Bottoms, author, Playing Underground: A Critical History of the 1960s Off-Off-Broadway Movement "The most prominent and persistent advocate for a 'new theater,' one that sought to dissolve the accepted artifice of stage presentations, to conjoin art and political protest, and to shrink, if not eliminate, the divide between performers and the audience." --New York Times