Books for Beginners

The VERY BEST book for training in drama I've come across (and use ALL THE TIME)
is DRAMA MINISTRY by Steve Pederson
(he's a theatre professor turned drama minister for Willow Creek)
The way it's written is the most pragmatic easy to understand, great excercises, and the bonus of weaving in how to use the art form for the glory of the Father. It even comes with a training CD for showing examples. He has done an EXCELLENT job of paring down subjects like script writing, and directing to RICH 20 page chapters...anyway, enough said.

One for youth called THE ULTIMATE YOUTH DRAMA BOOK, Paul McCusker has a good selection of well written scripts as well as a wonderful intro to theatre. Paul is a producer for Focus on the Family radio dramas. This particular book was published in the UK, don't know the publisher, cause my copy is on loan right now.
Technical Theatre for Non-Technical People is another great beginner book well written (Anyone who organizes events will have a lot to learn from it).