Theatre studies Books

Book SynopsisThe Arden Research Handbook of Shakespeare and Social Justice is a wide-ranging, authoritative guide to research on Shakespeare and issues of social justice and arts activism by an international team of leading scholars, directors, arts activists, and educators. Across four sections it explores the relevance and responsibility of art to the real world. The collection draws from noted scholars, writers and practitioners from around the globe to assert the power of art to question, disrupt and re-invigorate both the ties that bind and the barriers that divide us.A series of interviews with theatre practitioners and scholars opens the volume, establishing areas for research, exploration, and change. In Section 2 ''The Practice of Shakespeare and Social Justice'' contributors examine Shakespeare's place and possibilities in intervening on issues of race, class, gender and sexuality. Section 3 ''The Performance of Shakespeare and Social Justice'' traces ShakespeareTrade ReviewThis progressive and encouraging collection really does assume that Shakespeare’s plays, like the players whom Hamlet welcomes to Elsinore, are ‘the abstracts and brief chronicles of the time’ – of our own times. I hope these essays continue a range of on-going conversations about justice, inclusion, diversity, fairness, and, yes, kindness. * Rev. Dr Paul Edmondson, The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, UK *Table of ContentsList of Illustrations Notes on Contributors Series Preface Acknowledgements Introduction: “This Is Real Life: Shakespeare and Social Justice as a Field of Play”, David Ruiter (University of Texas at El Paso) Part One: The Shakespeare and Social Justice Interviews 1.1.“Deconstructing Social Hierarchies: Interviews”, Erin Coulehan Chris Anthony (Assistant Professor of Acting at DePaul University, Chicago, USA) Erika Whyman (Deputy Artistic Director at the Royal Shakespeare Company, UK) Arthur Little (Associate Professor, English, UCLA) Ewan Fernie (Professor at the Shakespeare Institute, University of Birmingham, UK, and Director of the 'Everything to Everybody' Project, UK) Farah Karim-Cooper (Professor of Shakespeare Studies at King’s College London, UK, and Head of Higher Education and Research at Shakespeare's Globe, UK) Part Two: The Practice of Shakespeare and Social Justice 2.1. “Active Shakespeare: A Social Justice Framework” Ayanna Thompson (Arizona State University) and Laura Turchi (University of Houston, USA) 2.2. “Bending Toward Justice: From Shakespeare’s Black Mediterranean to August Wilson’s Black Atlantic”, Peter Erickson (Northwestern University, USA) 2.3.“Black Hamlet, Social Justice, and the Minds of Apartheid”, Arthur Little (UCLA, USA) 2.4.“Shakespeare and Civil Rights: Rhetorical Universalism”, Jason Demeter (Norfolk State University, USA) 2.5.“Shakespeare’s Disabled, Disabled Shakespeare”, Adelle Hulsmeier (University of Sunderland, UK) 2.6.“Social Justice in the Academy: Reflecting on Shakespeare’s Royal Women”, Christie Carson (Royal Holloway, University of London, UK) Part Three: The Performance of Shakespeare and Social Justice 3.1.“William Shakespeare’s Enrique IV, Primera Parte: Common [Battle]Grounds between Medieval England and Mexico’s Present”, Alfredo Modenessi (National University of Mexico) and Paulina Morales (National University of Mexico) 3.2. “King Lear and Gender Justice in India”, Preti Taneja (Newcastle University, UK) 3.3.“Re-enacting Hamlet in South Africa”, Malcolm Cocks (Shakespeare's Globe, UK) 3.4.“‘Shakespeare in Prison’: A South African Social Justice Alternative”, Kevin Quarmby (The College of St. Scholastica) 3.5.“Romeo and Juliet with Chinese Characteristics: Questions of Usefulness and Engagement in 21st Century China”, Julie Sanders (Newcastle University) and Li Jun (University of International Business and Economics) 3.6.“Social Justice, Social Order and Political Power in NTCC’s Adaptation of Richard III”, Chee Keng Lee (Yale-NUS College) Part Four: The Economies of Shakespeare and Social Justice 4.1.“The Empathetic Imagination and the Dream of Equality: Shakespeare’s ‘Poetical Justice’”, Kiernan Ryan (Royal Holloway, University of London, UK) 4.2.“The Idea of Communism in Shakespeare”, Peter Holbrook (University of Queensland, Australia) 4.3.“‘Leftward Ho!’: Shakespeare and Lenin in the Tempest of Class Politics”, Jeffrey Butcher (College of Coastal Georgia) 4.4.“The Visible and the Invisible: Shakespeare and the Question of Social Justice in King Lear”, Geraldo de Sousa (University of Kansas, USA) Annotated Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisJulian Meyrick is Professor of Creative Arts at Griffith University. He is a theatre historian and cultural policy analyst, as well as an award-winning theatre director. Previously he was Associate Director and Literary Advisor at Melbourne Theatre Company, where he was responsible for establishing Hard Lines, a new play development program. Professor Meyrick has published widely on the Australian theatre, culture, and cultural policy, including over 90 articles for The Conversation. He was a founder member and Deputy Chair of PlayWriting Australia, and a member of the federal government's Creative Australia Advisory Group. His book, Australia in 50 Plays, was published in 2022.

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Book SynopsisChris Thurman is the Director of the Tsikinya-Chaka Centre at Wits University, South Africa. He is the editor of Shakespeare in Southern Africa, president of the Shakespeare Society of Southern Africa and founder of Shakespeare ZA. He edited South African Essays on Universal' Shakespeare (2014).Sandra Young is Professor of English Literary Studies at the University of Cape Town, South Africa. Her publications include Shakespeare in the Global South: Stories of Oceans Crossed in Contemporary Adaptation (The Arden Shakespeare, 2019) and The Early Modern Global South in Print: Textual Form and the Production of Human Difference as Knowledge (2015).

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Book SynopsisShortlisted for the 2021 TaPRA Edited Collection PrizeThe Methuen Drama Handbook of Theatre History and Historiography offers an authoritative guide to contemporary debates and practices in this field. The book covers current key themes and methods in theatre history research, and expands the object of study to include engagement with theatre and performance practices and the development of theatre histories around the world. Central to the book are 16 specially commissioned essays by established and emerging scholars from a wide range of international contexts, whose discussion of individual case studies is predicated on their understanding and experience of their local' landscape of theatre history. These essays reveal where important work continues to be done in the field and, most valuably, draw on academic contexts beyond the Western academy to expand our knowledge of the exciting directions that such an approach opens up. Prefaced by an introduction tracing the deveTrade ReviewThe collection’s impressive range of case studies, thought-provoking organization and attentiveness to innovative methodologies offer readers a wealth of possibilities and ideas. This is a book that should change forever how we think about – and practice – theatre history and historiography. * Susan Bennett, University of Calgary, Canada *Table of ContentsList of Illustrations List of Contributors Acknowledgements How to Use this Book Claire Cochrane (University of Worcester, UK) and Jo Robinson (University of Nottingham, UK) 1. Introduction Claire Cochrane (University of Worcester, UK) and Jo Robinson (University of Nottingham, UK) 2. Research Methods and Methodologies Claire Cochrane (University of Worcester, UK) and Jo Robinson (University of Nottingham, UK) 3. Current Research: Case Studies from the Field 3.1 Seeing Differently Through Time and Space Introduction: Claire Cochrane (University of Worcester, UK) and Jo Robinson (University of Nottingham, UK) 3.1.1 A-foot in Time: Temporality in the Space of a Moment in Theatre History Rosemarie Bank (Kent State University, USA) 3.1.2 Nuwhju and the Archive: Recuperating the History of Aboriginal Australian Performance Practice Maryrose Casey (Monash University, Australia) 3.2 Challenging Dominant Histories Introduction: Claire Cochrane (University of Worcester, UK) and Jo Robinson (University of Nottingham, UK) 3.2.1 Theatre History vs Theatre Canon: the Chilean Case Milena Grass Kleiner (Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, USA), Mariana Hausdorf Andrade (Independent Scholar), Nancy Nicholls (Universidad Católica de Chile, USA) 3.2.2 When Napoleon went to the Theatre: A Closer Examination of Stories and the History of the Milanese Patriotic Scene Laura Peja (Università Cattolica, Italy) 3.3 Politics, Precursors and Erasure Introduction: Claire Cochrane (University of Worcester, UK) and Jo Robinson (University of Nottingham, UK) 3.3.1 How to Make Political Theatre? Polish Socialist Realism as a Historiographical Problem Dorota Sosnowska (Institute of Polish Culture, University of Warsaw, Poland) 3.3.2 The First Actress Party:Adunni Oluwole and the First Guerrilla Theatre in Nigeria Ngozi Udengwu (University of Nigeria, Nigeria) 3.4 Mapping Landscapes of Theatre Introduction: Claire Cochrane (University of Worcester, UK) and Jo Robinson (University of Nottingham, UK) 3.4.1 Mapping London’s Amateur Theatre Histories David Coates (University of Warwick, UK) 3.4.2 Between Back Province and Metropolis. Actor Autobiographies as Sources to Trace Cultural Mobility Katharina Wessely (University of Vienna, Austria) 3.5 Place and the Performance Event Introduction: Claire Cochrane (University of Worcester, UK) and Jo Robinson (University of Nottingham, UK) 3.5.1. History vs Historiography. A Renaissance Case Study Revisited Clelia Falletti (University of Rome, Italy), trans. by Victor Emmanuel Jacono 3.5.2 Of Shrine and Stage: A Study of Huizhou Temple Theatre in Late Imperial China Xiaohuan Zhao (Shanxi Normal University & Donghua University, Shanghai, China) 3.6 Material Evidence and the Archive Introduction: Claire Cochrane (University of Worcester, UK) and Jo Robinson (University of Nottingham, UK) 3.6.1 Historiography of Yellowface: Stage Makeup, Materiality and Technology Esther Kim Lee (Duke University, USA) 3.6.2 Archived Voices: Attempting to Listen to the Theatrical Past Ruthie Abeliovich (University of Haifa, Israel) 3.7 The Imperatives of Local Difference Introduction: Claire Cochrane (University of Worcester, UK) and Jo Robinson (University of Nottingham, UK) 3.7.1 What’s in a Name? The Performance of Language in the Invention of Colonial and Postcolonial South Asian Theatre History Rashna Darius Nicholson (University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong) 3.7.2 Korean Masked Dance Drama and a Historiography of Emotions Hyunshik Ju (Kyonggi University, South Korea) 3.8 Rhizomes and Palimpsests: Theatre Histories Across Cultures Introduction: Claire Cochrane (University of Worcester, UK) and Jo Robinson (University of Nottingham, UK) 3.8.1 Erased Trails: Investigating Icelandic-Canadian Theatre History Magnus Thor Thorbergsson (University of Iceland, Iceland) 3.8.2 Decolonizing Theatre History in the Arab World (The Case of the Maghreb) Khalid Amine (Abdelmalek Essaadi University, Tétouan, Morocco) 4. Changing Perspectives and Current Challenges Introduction: Claire Cochrane (University of Worcester, UK) and Jo Robinson (University of Nottingham, UK) 4.1 A Manifesto for Performance Research Elisabeth Dutton (University of Fribourg, Switzerland) 4.2 Digital Histories, Digital Landscapes: New Possibilities of Arranging the Record Jo Robinson (University of Nottingham, UK) 4.3 Historians in Dialogue: a Roundtable Discussion 5.1. Works Cited 5.2 Annotated Bibliography 5.3 Selected Resources Index

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Book SynopsisGoran Petrovic Lotina is Research Fellow at the University of Warwick, UK, and Lecturer at Sciences Po: The Paris Institute of Political Studies, France.Théo Aiolfi is a Marie Curie Cofund EUTOPIA Science and Innovation Fellow at CY Cergy Paris University, France.Table of ContentsList of Illustrations Notes on Contributors Acknowledgements Introduction: Performance and Left Populism Goran Petrovic Lotina (University of Warwick, UK, and Sciences Po: The Paris Institute of Political Studies, France) and Théo Aiolfi (University of Warwick, UK) I. Performance and Populism Theories 1. The Stylistic Approach to Populism: From Early Definitions to Interdisciplinary Hybridization Théo Aiolfi (University of Warwick, UK) 2. American Paranoia: Trump, Sanders, and Theoretical Reflections on Researching Populism as Performance Reid Kleinberg (University of Essex, UK) II. Performance and Populist Leadership 3. The Democratic Productivity of Populist Bodily Representation María Esperanza Casullo (National University of Río Negro, Argentina) 4. Performing the People: Discourses and Performances of Pablo Iglesias and Volodymyr Zelensky Alina Mozolevska (Petro Mohyla Black Sea National University in Mykolaiv, Ukraine and UniGR-Center for Border Studies, Saarland University, Germany) III. Performance, Populism and Artistic Practices 5. The Last Peronist Spectacle: The Argentina Pavilion at the Expo 2015 World’s Fair David M. K. Sheinin (Trent University, Canada) 6. Joyful Festivities: Happenings as a Populist Strategy in the Work of Alex Mlynarcík Sam Cermák (Queen Mary University of London, UK) 7. Left Populism and the Revival of Demos Through Performance: Four Tasks for Practicing Democracy Danae Theodoridou (Performance maker and researcher, Fontys University of Applied Sciences, the Netherlands) IV. Further Perspectives on Performance and Populism 8. Populism and Populism Research. A Conversation with Yannis Stavrakakis Goran Petrovic Lotina (University of Warwick, UK, and Sciences Po: The Paris Institute of Political Studies, France) Index

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Book SynopsisThis book introduces readers to the widespread phenomenon of how social media platforms such as YouTube, Twitter, and TikTok become an extension of long-standing aspects of musical theatre engagement. Although casual observers may dismiss social media's import, social media has revolutionized the field of musical theatre since the early days of Web 2.0 with spaces such as AOL, LiveJournal, and Myspace. Now, as social media continues to grow in relevance, the nuanced ways in which digital platforms influence musical culture remain ripe for study. Social Media in Musical Theatre moves beyond viewing social media merely as a passing fad or a space free from critical engagement. Rather, this volume takes a serious look at the critical role social media play in musicals, thus challenging how social media users and musical theatre-makers alike approach digital spaces. This book introduces the relationship between musical theatre and social media in the 21st century as well as methods Table of ContentsIntroduction Chapter One – YouTube and Musical Theatre Chapter Two – Twitter and Musical Theatre Chapter Three – TikTok and Musical Theatre Conclusion Notes Bibliography Acknowledgements Index

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Book SynopsisChekhov often said that I am a doctor by trade and sometimes I do literary work in my free time', a surprising claim, given his status as a giant of 20th century drama. This literary-biographical study uncovers new sides to him, as both a medical professional and humanitarian, and tells the story of Chekhov''s trip to Sakhalin Island in the harsh wastes of Siberia.Anton Chekhov practiced medicine for most of his life and engaged in humanitarian work which took him away from writing for months. He placed one such trip though, across the unforgiving terrain of Siberia to write about the penal island of Sakhalin, above all others. Chekhov''s Sakhalin Journey, written by a neuroscientist and practicing clinician, uses this trip and Chekhov''s own account of it to shed light on hitherto overlooked aspects of his life. In doing so, it shows that to understand the man we need his medicine as well as his literature, and we need to assess his life from his perspective as well as oTable of ContentsPrologue Introduction Chapter One; Medical School Chapter Two; Why Chapter Three; Going to War Chapter Four; Everything is chained Chapter Five; The Chasm of Sorrow Chapter Six; South Chapter Seven; Thesis Assembled Chapter Eight; Numbers Chapter Nine; Monday to Wednesday Chapter Ten; Duelling with himself Chapter Eleven; Conscience, irony and understatement Chapter Twelve; Holy of Holies Postscript: Sakhalin Now Bibliography

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Book SynopsisAlexa Alice Joubin is Professor of English, Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Theatre, International Affairs, and East Asian Languages and Cultures at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., USA. She is the inaugural recipient of the bell hooks Legacy Award.

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Book SynopsisAva Wong Davies is a playwright and theatre critic based in London. She is a regular contributor to The Stage and Exeunt Magazine, is a monthly theatre columnist for gal-dem, and in 2018 won the Sunday Times Harold Hobson award for criticism. As a playwright, her work has been showcased at The Yard, The Bunker, Theatre Deli, VAULT Festival, and The North Wall. Her debut play i will still be whole (when you rip me in half) was programmed as part of Chris Sonnex's second season at The Bunker Theatre in November 2019. She is an alumna of the Soho Theatre Writers Lab 18/19 and one of the Bush Theatre's Emerging Writers.

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Book SynopsisJody Enders is Distinguished Professor of French at the University of California, Santa Barbara, USA.Theresa Coletti is Professor of English and Distinguished Scholar Teacher Emerita at the University of Maryland, USA.John T. Sebastian is Professor of English at Loyola Marymount University, USA.Carol Symes is Professor of History at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USA.Table of ContentsList of Illustrations Notes on Contributors Series Preface General Editor’s Acknowledgements Introduction: Miscarriages of Justice, Jody Enders (University of California, USA) 1. Forms and Media, Carol Symes (University of Illinois, USA) 2. Sites of Performance and Circulation, Christopher Swift (City University of New York, USA) 3. Communities of Production and Consumption, John T. Sebastian (Loyola Marymount University, USA) 4. Philosophy and Social Theory, Antonio Donato (City University of New York, USA) and Erith Jaffe-Berg (University of California, USA) 5. Religion, Ritual, and Myth, John Parker (University of Virginia, USA) 6. Politics of City and Nation, Hannah Skoda (University of Oxford, UK) 7. Society and Family, Theresa Coletti (University of Maryland College Park, USA) 8. Gender and Sexuality, Karen Sullivan (Bard College, USA) Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisNaomi Conn Liebler is Professor of English and a University Distinguished Scholar at Montclair State University, USA.Table of ContentsList of Illustrations Notes on Contributors Series Preface Introduction: Defining the Elephant, Naomi Conn Liebler (Montclair State University, USA) 1. Forms and Media, Rebecca Bushnell (University of Pennsylvania, USA) 2. Sites of Performance and Circulation, Bruce R. Smith (University of Southern California, USA) 3. Communities of Production and Consumption, András Kiséry (The City College of New York, USA) 4. Philosophy and Social Theory, Richard Wilson (Kingston University, UK and the University of Oxford, UK) 5. Religion, Ritual and Myth, Paul Innes (University of Gloucestershire, UK) 6. Politics of City and Nation, Ivan Lupic (Stanford University, USA) 7. Society and Family, Coppélia Kahn (Brown University, USA) 8. Gender and Sexuality, Goran Stanivukovic (Saint Mary’s University, Canada) Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisMitchell Greenberg is Distinguished Professor of Arts and Sciences in Romance Studies at Cornell University, USA.Table of ContentsNotes on Contributors List of Illustrations List of Graphs Series Preface Introduction: Definitions and Understandings, Mitchell Greenberg (Cornell University, USA) 1. Forms and Media, Christian Biet (University of Paris Nanterre and Institut Universitaire de France, France) 2. Sites of Performance and Circulation, Jan Clarke (Durham University, UK) 3. Communities of Production and Consumption, Sylvaine Guyot (Harvard University, USA) and Clotilde Thouret (Lorraine University, France) 4. Philosophy and Social Theory, Jonathan Strauss (Miami University, USA) 5. Religion, Ritual and Myth, Juliette Cherbuliez (University of Minnesota) and Christopher Semk (Independent Scholar) 6. Politics of City and Nation, Julie Stone Peters (Columbia University, USA) 7. Society and Family, John D. Lyons (University of Virginia, USA) 8. Gender and Sexuality, Jennifer Row (University of Minnesota, USA) Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisJennifer Wallace is the author of Tragedy Since 9/11: Reading a World Out of Joint (Bloomsbury Academic, 2019) and the Director of Studies in English at Peterhouse, University of Cambridge, UK.Table of ContentsList of Illustrations Notes on Contributors Series Preface Editor's Acknowledgements Introduction: Tragedy Since 1920, Jennifer Wallace (University of Cambridge, UK) 1. Forms and Media, Ramona Mosse (Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany) 2. Sites of Performance, Drew Milne (University of Cambridge, UK) 3. Communities of Production and Consumption, Olga Taxidou (University of Edinburgh, UK) 4. Philosophy and Social Theory, David Kornhaber (The University of Texas at Austin, USA) 5. Religion, Ritual and Myth, Ben Quash (King's College London, UK) 6. Politics of City and Nation, Tony Fisher (The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, UK) 7. Society and Family, Kélina Gotman (King's College London, UK) 8. Gender and Sexuality, P.A. Skantze (Roehampton University, UK) Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisJane Plastow is Professor of African Theatre at Leeds University, UK, and for 10 years was director of Leeds University Centre for African Studies. She has worked as an academic, trainer, researcher, director and theatre maker in Africa for 40 years. In 2020 and 2021 she published the 2-volume A History of Theatre in East Africa.Katie McQuaid is Associate Professor in the School of Geography at the University of Leeds, UK. An anthropologist with expertise on climate change, gender and sexuality, ageing and intergenerationality, and forced displacement in informal urban settings, she was awarded a UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship in 2019 to lead the GENERATE Project on: 'Gender, Generation and Climate Change: Creative Approaches to Building Inclusive and Climate Resilient Cities in Uganda and Indonesia'.

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Book SynopsisThis volume highlights the variety of forms comedy took in England, with reference to developments in Europe, particularly France, during the European Enlightenment. It argues that comedy in this period is characterized by wit, satire, and humor, provoking both laughter and sympathetic tears. Comic expression in the Enlightenment reflects continuities and engagements with the comedy of previous eras; it is also noted for new forms and preoccupations engendered by the cultural, philosophical, and political concerns of the time, including democratizing revolutions, increasing secularization, and growing emphasis on individualism. Discussions emphasize the period''s stage comedy and acknowledge comic expression in various forms of print media including the emerging literary form we now know as the novel. Contributions from scholars reflect a wide variety of interests in the field of 18th-century studies, and the inclusion of a generous number of illustrations throughout demonst

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Book SynopsisHow has our expression, use and reception of comedy developed from antiquity to the present day? What role has it occupied in Western culture, and what can it tell us about how society has changed? In a work that spans 2,500 years, these ambitious questions are addressed by 55 experts, each contributing their overview of a theme applied to a period in history. The volumes describe various manifestations of comedy, its use in religion, theatre and literature, and its historical and philosophical significance. Individual volume editors ensure the cohesion of the whole, and to make it as easy as possible to use, chapter titles are identical across each of the volumes. This gives the choice of reading about a specific period in one of the volumes, or following a theme across history by reading the relevant chapter in each of the six. The six volumes cover: 1. Antiquity (500 BCE - 1000 AD); 2. Middle Ages (1000 - 1400); 3. Early Modern Age (1400 - 1650)

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Book SynopsisThis volume examines the work of Joan Littlewood, Giorgio Strehler and Roger Planchon, demonstrating how these three directors take up key aesthetic prompts from earlier innovators Stanislavski, the modernist avant-garde and not least Brecht and thereby prepare the ground for contemporary, politically-engaged directors' theatre'. It argues that, in creating their major productions in the prosperous glorious decades' that followed the devastation of the Second World War, they represent a first expressly European' generation of theatre directors. Revisiting works from the classical dramatic canon by drawing on popular theatre traditions, and reaching out to spectators beyond the educated middle-class elite, they put theatre in the service of uniting a traumatized continent. This study posits that for Littlewood, Strehler and Planchon, theatre has the capacity to create communities.

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Book SynopsisThe Great European Stage Directors Set 1 offers an authoritative account of the work, lineage and legacy of the major theatre directors from the late nineteenth and first half of the twentieth centuries. Across the four volumes and the companion series Set 2: Post-1950, it provides a uniquely rich study of the genealogy and development of a practice through focus on individual directors and the wider context and artform in which they worked. For professional practitioners and those developing their skills, as well as those engaged in the analysis of theatre practices, forms and history, it will prove an essential resource. Each volume provides substantial treatment of three major directors, with each director considered by two specialists, combining analysis of the director's practical craft with accounts of the historical, cultural and theoretical context of their practice. Links between the featured directors and other artists and directors from the period ar

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Book SynopsisThrough a selection of essays from a variety of scholarly voices, this volume maps the various ways in which Shakespeare has been adapted, adopted and appropriated in Ireland from the late 17th century through to the present day.Shakespeare''s plays have been performed in Ireland since the 1660s, when Smock Alley theatre was established in Dublin, with Shakespeare serving as its essential stock-in-trade. Since then the playwright''s work has played a central role in the formation of Irish culture. Shakespeare's works helped to fashion colonial identity in Ireland from the 18th century and beyond, whilst his presence in Irish cultural life became more dispersed in the 1800s, with Irish writers such as Charles Robert Maturin drawing on Shakespearean sources something that would become evident in the Irish literary tradition across the ensuing decades.Considering the ways in which such Irish writers as Samuel Beckett and W. B. Yeats drew on Shakespearean

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Book SynopsisProposes a new perspective on the contemporary rise of mainstreamed populism by exploring features of populist-style politics through the lens of distrustTrade Review"Going beyond well-worn and simple theatrical metaphors to describe political action, Julia Peetz's new book offers a sophisticated and genuinely interdisciplinary - blend of performance and political analysis. Readers will find compelling new approaches to, and arguments about, crucial factors in political life, from legitimacy and representation to distrust, authenticity and populism. The book's in-depth engagement with the past and present of US presidential performance is both illuminating and insightful." -Michael Saward, University of Warwick

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Book SynopsisArgues for the social and ethical importance of judgment in politics, law, art and everyday life, taking Shakespeare as a guide and travel companion.

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Book SynopsisGÜNTER BERGHAUS is Senior Research Fellow at the University of Bristol, UK. He has published widely in the areas of Renaissance and Baroque theatre, popular theatre, dance history, Modernist theatre, and avant-garde performance. As a theatre practitioner he has directed numerous plays from the classical and modern repertoire and devised many productions of an experimental nature.

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Book SynopsisDr Jane Milling is Senior Lecturer in the department of Drama at the University of Exeter, UK. Series editors: Richard Boon, Professor and Director of Research in the Department of Drama and Music, University of Hull, and Philip Roberts, Emeritus Professor in the School of English, University of Leeds.Table of ContentsGeneral Preface by series editors Richard Boon and Philip Roberts Acknowledgements Introduction to the 1980s Domestic life Education Culture Media Science, technology and industry Political events Theatre in the 1980s Thinking about the recent past Institutions, policies and funding New writing and playwrights in the 1980s Cultures of protest: issue as subject matter Present pasts Introducing the Playwrights Crafting careers Howard Barker Jim Cartwright Sarah Daniels Timberlake Wertenbaker Playwrights and Plays Howard Barker by Sarah Goldingay Jim Cartwright by David Lane Sarah Daniels by Jane Milling Timberlake Wertenbaker by Sara Freeman Documents Howard Barker: Interview with Jane Milling Jim Cartwright: In His Own Words Sarah Daniels: Interview with Jane Milling Timberlake Wertenbaker: In Her Own Words Afterword Notes Select Bibliography Index Notes on Contributors

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Book SynopsisBertolt Brecht (1898-1956) is acknowledged as one of the great dramatists whose plays, work with the Berliner Ensemble and writing have had a considerable influence on the theatre. His landmark plays include The Threepenny Opera and, while exiled from Germany and living in the USA, such masterpieces as The Life of Galileo, Mother Courage and The Caucasian Chalk Circle.Trade ReviewBrecht on Performance is a companion volume and has two parts. The first is an overhaul of what Willett previously called the Messingkauf Dialogues. ‘Buying Brass’ – the more literal translation of Messingkauf – assembles more of the fragmentary material and includes Brecht’s ‘Practice Pieces for Actors’, revealing that the ‘dialogues’ were only one, albeit major, element in the overall project. The editing of the fragments is exemplary … The second part includes writings and images from three of Brecht’s ‘modelbooks’, as well as essays from the Berliner Ensemble’s documentation Theatre Work and the ‘Katzgraben’ Notes. Taken together, the extracts presented here form a rich collection that includes significant work from when Brecht returned to theatre-making in 1948. These two volumes represent an excellent extension of Brecht’s writings in English. The editors draw on contemporary scholarship, apply high editorial standards, and offer a readability that opens up Brecht’s theories and practices for a new generation. -- David Barnett * New Theatre Quarterly *An excellent complement to Brecht in Practice. … These theoretical essays concern the practice of theatre (known as Messingkauf, or “buying brass”) and explore the way actors should interpret and perform a text. -- Nathaniel Nesmith * American Theatre *Combined with Brecht in Practice, [Brecht on Performance] makes a compelling contribution to the anglophone understanding of Brecht and may indeed breathe new life into how we do theatre in the twenty-first century. -- Michael Wood, University of Edinburgh, UK * Modern Language Review *Brecht in Performance is the ideal and long-awaited companion to the much loved, but now greatly improved Brecht on Theatre. Essential reading for students, theatre practitioners and anyone interested in this hugely important figure. -- Stephen UnwinThis is a book at least as essential as Brecht on Theatre, not least because it restores to print a carefully reconstructed version of Brecht’s major theoretical work The Messingkauf Dialogues (first released in English by Willett in 1965), with many variant texts absent from the first publication of that treatise. … It is unnecessary to qualify my praise for the other major element of Brecht on Performance, and that is a fresh, lushly illustrated translation of three of Brecht’s modelbooks, created for the Berliner Ensemble during the brief period that Brecht was at its helm. * Brecht on Performance *Brecht on Performance is a vital aid to English speakers in understanding Brecht as a theatre practitioner as well as what constitutes Brechtian performance. For the first time, a full edition of the unfinished Messingkauf — translated as Buying Brass — is available in English. [This book] will allow Anglophone scholars and performance practitioners to revisit Brecht’s influence as a writer, theoretician, and theatre maker specifically, but also — more generally — the relationship between political thought and aesthetics, and between the theory and the practice of making art. * TDR: The Drama Review *

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Book SynopsisJean E. Howard is the George Delacorte Professor in the Humanities at Columbia University, USA. Author of Shakespeare's Art of Orchestration, The Stage and Social Struggle in Early Modern England, Engendering a Nation (with Phyllis Rackin, 1994) and Theater of a City: The Places of London Comedy (2001), she has edited six collections of essays, including the four-volume Companion to Shakespeare's Works (2003). General Editor of the Bedford contextual editions of Shakespeare, Howard is Past President of the Shakespeare Association of America. She has received numerous fellowships and awards including Guggenheim, ACLS, NEH, Folger, Huntington, and Newberry Library Fellowships. At Syracuse University she received the Wasserstrom Prize for Excellence in Graduate Teaching and at Columbia University the University Graduate Mentoring Award.Trade ReviewHow I wish I could take a class with Jean Howard! She is the perfect guide to the complexities and demands of King Lear. Throughout, this book is wise and inviting, subtle and engaging, provocative and helpful. This is a perfect book for students – but not only for students: everyone will learn from and be made to think by reading it, however well we suppose ourselves to know this astonishing play. * Peter Holland, University of Notre Dame, USA *Table of ContentsSeries Preface Introduction I. Language in Print II. Language: Forms and Uses III. Language Through Time IV. Writing and Language Skills Suggestions for Further Reading Index

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Book SynopsisBill Connington has devoted his career to helping performersincluding Broadway actors, Metropolitan Opera singers, and renowned instrumentalistsmanage their art through managing themselves. The former chairman of the board of the American Center for the Alexander Technique, Bill is currently a lecturer in acting at the Yale School of Drama and has taught performers at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, the Juilliard School, and the Actors Studio MFA Program.Trade ReviewA clear, detailed, and practical account of how the Alexander Technique can help liberate performers from habitual psychophysical tensions, allowing them to access the deepest and most creative impulses in their work. * Walton Wilson, Chair, Department of Acting, and Head of Voice and Speech, Yale School of Drama *In small, doable steps, Bill guides the actor toward a healthy, creative life as a performer—always with a supportive, encouraging tone and attention to process as opposed to results. * Kim Jessor, faculty, Tisch School of the Arts at the New York University Graduate Acting Program *Bill Connington writes with insight, clarity, and flair about a subject he loves and shares his valuable perspective on the training of actors by exploring the all-important connection between body, mind, and spirit. In a voice both friendly and knowledgeable, Physical Expression on Stage and Screen guides the actor from class to rehearsal to performance. * Jessica Wolf, Assistant Professor, Yale School of Drama; director of 'Jessica Wolf’s Art of Breathing' *Physical Expression on Stage and Screen provides new insight into the Alexander technique, which was pioneered by F. M. Alexander in the late 1800s … The best part of the book is the exercises (more than 100) that help actors explore their unique styles. Many of the exercises are also supported by free online videos created by the author. This no-nonsense explanation of the Alexander technique is accessible to untrained students and a good refresher for those knowledgeable about acting. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty and professionals -- E. C. Skiles, Lone Star College-Kingwood * CHOICE *Table of ContentsA Note on the Exercises Introduction PART ONE Preparing Yourself Chapter 1 The Alexander Technique and Theater Training Chapter 2 Sensory Awareness Chapter 3 Poise, Flow, and Choice Chapter 4 The Use of Your Self Chapter 5 Changing Your Mind-Body Chapter 6 Breathing PART TWO Organic Expression Chapter 7 Using Your Imagination Chapter 8 Conscious Imitation of Others Chapter 9 Using Voice and Movement to Stimulate the Mind-Body PART THREE Putting It All Together Chapter 10 Auditions, Rehearsals, and Performances Chapter 11 Your Psycho-Physical Health and Choice Textual References Acknowledgments Index Exercise Videos Contact

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Book SynopsisD. C. Moore was born in 1980 in Duston, Northamptonshire. He took part in the Royal Court's Young Writer's Programme and his first full length play Alaska was produced there in 2007. In 2008 Alaska was awarded the Tom Erhardt Award for promising new playwright by the Peggy Ramsey Foundation. Moore's other plays include The Empire (2010), Honest (2010), Town (2010), and The Swan (2011). He was nominated for the 2010 Evening Standard Award for Most Promising Playwright, while The Empire won the 2010 TMA Award for Best Touring Production.Trade ReviewDC Moore's new play, Straight, is a sharp-witted comedy about sex and relationships. -- Jane Shilling * Daily Telegraph *It is a poignant reflection on long-term relationships, the danger of monotony and boredom but also the potential for forgiveness and starting anew after betrayal and hurt ... In short, Straight is a gregarious, flirtatious romp. As corny as it sounds, I have kept thinking about the characters today; such is their vivacity and colour. -- Ruth Kilner * What's On Stage *Alert to emotional modulations ... Moore's wonderful facility for fresh-minted dialogue -- Lyn Gardner * Guardian *Rather than insecurity about orientation, what the play deftly captures is that hunger for wild, category-shattering experience that may – or may not and that's the risk – enable one to return to everyday normality with the grateful sense of now having made a real choice. -- Paul Taylor * Independent *Jabbing punchlines and cringe-inducing comedy make this drama a real hoot ... it's also surprisingly sweet. -- Matt Trueman * Financial Times *Moore writes acutely about masculinity, trust and the numbing effects of social responsibility. -- Henry Hitchings * Evening Standard *Moore pulls it all off via some brilliantly raucous comic writing. From the bewildered squaddies of 'The Empire' to the nihilistic office worker in 'Honest'. up-and-comer Moore has a killer eye for the neuroses of the British everybloke, which he lovingly amplifies, exaggerates and dissects ... Moore goes way beyond Shelton's film in exploring the grey areas that conventional masculinity papers over. -- Andrzej Lukowski * Time Out *

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Book SynopsisThis volume contains key articles and chapters which represent both seminal and innovative scholarship on European theatre performance practice from 1750 to 1900. The selected topics focus on acting and performance, staging (including set design and lighting), and audiences, and are approached with a broad perspective as well as with in-depth, focussed analysis. The volume captures the rich, dynamic and variegated nature of European theatre throughout the late-eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and provides a carefully selected body of significant texts on this important period of theatre history.Table of ContentsContents: Introduction. Part I Acting and Performance: Nature to advantage dressed: eighteenth-century acting, Alan S. Downer; Vitalism and the crisis of sensibility, Joseph R. Roach; Garrick, the ghost and the machine, Joseph R. Roach; The performance practice of acting: the eighteenth century part I: ensemble acting, Dene Barnett; The dangers of the new sensibilities in eighteenth century German acting, Gloria Flaherty; ’Reading Shakespeare by flashes of lightning’: challenging the foundations of Romantic acting theory, Tracy C. Davis; Researching the acting of French melodrama, 1800-1830, Gabrielle Hyslop; The training of actors at the Paris Conservatoire during the nineteenth century, F.W.J. Hemmings; Players and painted stage: nineteenth century acting, Alan S. Downer; On natural acting, George Henry Lewes. Part II Staging, Scenery and Lighting: Lighting at the King’s Theatre, Haymarket, 1780-82, Judith Milhous; Appendix A. Pantomime trickwork, David Mayer; The German stage in the nineteenth century, Brigitte Schatzky; Gas man’s duties. Lighting the rehearsal. Exterior lighting. Pilot lights and electrical ignition. Rehearsing the lighting, Terence Rees; The modern theatre - the stage, M.J. Moynet (translated and augmented by Allan S. Jackson with M. Glen Wilson); Professor Pepper’s ghost, George Speaight; Erasing the spectator: observations on nineteenth century lighting, Victor Emeljanow; Art in the theatre: I - scenery, William Telbin; Art in the theatre: the painting of scenery, William Telbin; Art in the theatre: spectacle, Augustus Harris; From political to cultural despotism: the nature of the Saxe-Meiningen aesthetic, John Osborne. Part III Audiences: From courts to consumers: theater publics, James Van Horn Melton; Tears and the new attentiveness, James H. Johnson; Working-class audiences, F.W.J. Hemmings; The audiences of the Britannia Theatre, Hoxton, Clive Barker; New views on cheap theatres: reconstructing the nineteenth-century theatre

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Book SynopsisThis volume captures the rich diversity of European performance practice evident in the twentieth and early part of the twenty-first century. Written by leading directors, actors, dancers, scenographers and academics from across Europe, the collection spans a broad range of subject areas including dance, theatre, live art, multimedia performance and street protest. The essays are divided into three sections on: performers and performing; staging performance; representation and reception, and document innovations in acting, performance and stagecraft by key practitioners. Articles also explore the ways that performance has been used to stage debates around major preoccupations of the age such as war, the human condition, globalization, the impact of new technologies and identity politics. This volume, which features previously published performance manifestoes, articles, and book chapters on the most frequently discussed and debated topics in the field, is an indispensable referenceTable of ContentsContents: Part I Acting and Performance: When acting is an art, Constantin Stanislavski, trans. Elizabeth Reynolds Hapgood; Michael Chekhov on the technique of acting: ’Was Don Quixote true to life?’, Franc Chamberlain; The dance of the future, Isadora Duncan; The actor and the über-marionette, Edward Gordon Craig; Actors on Brecht, Margaret Eddershaw; Introduction, Rudolf Laban; Samuel Beckett as director: the art of mastering failure, Anna McMullan; Performance, Jennifer Kumiega; Theatre theory: sociology and the actor’s technique, Ian Watson; The masks of Jacques Lecoq, John Wright; Woman, man, dog, tree: two decades of intimate and monumental bodies in Pina Bausch’s Tanztheater, Gabrielle Cody; On risk and investment, Tim Etchells; On seeing the invisible, Peggy Phelan. Part II Staging Performance: Of the futility of the ’theatrical’ in the theater, Alfred Jarry; Ideas on a reform of our mise en scène, Adolphe Appia; The founding and manifesto of futurism, Filuppo T. Marinetti; Biomechanics and constructivism, Edward Braun; The naked stage, John Rudlin; Theater (Bühne), Oskar Schlemmer; The documentary play, Erwin Piscator, Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956) and Caspar Neher (1897-1962), Joslin McKinney and Philip Butterworth; Production and metaphysics, Antonin Artaud; Myth and theatre laboratories, Peter Brook; After ideology: Heiner Müller and the theatre of catastrophe, David Kilpatrick; 1789, Victoria Nes Kirby; Notes on political street theatre, Paris: 1968, 1969, Jean-Jacques Lebel; Make-believe: Socíetas Raffaello Sanzio do theatre, Nicholas Ridout; Spectacle, synergy and megamusicals: the global-industrialisation of the live-entertainment economy, Jonathan Burston; The digital double, Steve Dixon. Part III Representation and Reception: Women’s suffrage drama, Katharine Cockin; A propertyless theatre for the propertyless class, Tom Thomas; Modern dance in the Third Reich: six positions and a coda, Susan A. Manning; Reading The Blacks through t

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Book SynopsisThis volume presents foundational and representative essays of the last half century on theatre performance practice during the period 1580 to 1750. The particular focus is on the nature of playing spaces, staging, acting and audience response in professional theatre and the selection of previously published research articles and book chapters includes significant works on topics such as Shakespearean staging, French and Spanish theatre audiences, the challenging aspects of the evolution of Italian renaissance acting practice, and the 'hidden' dimensions of performance. The essays provide coherent transnational coverage as well as detailed treatments of their individual topics. Considerations of theatre practice in Italy, Spain and France, as well as England, place Shakespeare's theatre in its European context to reveal surprising commonalities and salient differences in the performance practice of early modern Europe's major professional theatres. This volume is an indispensable referTable of ContentsContents: Introduction. Part I Playing Spaces: The changing scene: plays and playhouses in the Italian Renaissance, Michael Anderson; The theatres, John Orrell; Staging and performance, Jonathan Thacker; The material conditions of Molière’s stage, Jan Clarke. Part II Staging: Shakespeare’s stage, J.L. Styan; Shakespeare’s theater: tradition and experiment, Robert Weimann; Women at the windows: commedia dell’ arte and theatrical practice in early modern Italy, Jane Tylus; The circulation of clothes and the making of the English theater, Ann Rosalind Jones and Peter Stallybrass; Absorbing interests: Kyd’s bloody handkerchief as palimpsest, Andrew Sofer; Insubstantial pageants: women’s work and the (im)material culture of the early modern stage, Natasha Korda. Part III Acting: Ruzante and the evolution of acting practice in Renaissance Italy, Ronnie Ferguson; Arte dialogue structures in the comedies of Molière, Richard Andrews; Rogues and rhetoricians: acting styles in early English drama, Peter Thomson; Rehearsal, performance and plays, Tiffany Stern; Comic stage routines in Guarinonius’ medical treatise of 1610, M.A. Katritzky; ’La virtu et la volupté’: models for the actress in early modern Italy and France, Virginia Scott; Acting, Gerry McCarthy. Part IV Audiences: The audiences, Andrew Gurr; Theaters and audiences, Stephen Orgel; Women as spectators, spectacles, and paying customers, Jean E. Howard; Toward reconstructing the audiences of the commedia dell’ arte, Robert Henke; The audience, W.L. Wiley; The actors and their audience, N.D. Shergold. Name index.

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Book SynopsisAmongst recent contemporary art and museological publications, there have been relatively few which direct attention to the distinct contributions that twentieth and twenty-first century artists have made to gallery and museum interpretation practices. There are fewer still that recognise the pedagogic potential of interventionist artworks in galleries and museums. This book fills that gap and demonstrates how artists have been making curious but, none-the-less, useful contributions to museum education and curation for some time. Claire Robins investigates in depth the phenomenon of artists'' interventions in museums and examines their pedagogic implications. She also brings to light and seeks to resolve many of the contradictions surrounding artists'' interventions, where on the one hand contemporary artists have been accused of alienating audiences and, on the other, appear to have played a significant role in orchestrating positive developments to the way that learning is defined Trade Review’In this engaging and thought-provoking work, the author enlivens the recent history of pedagogically motivated artists’ interventions and offers significant insights into the curious lessons they provide to museum and gallery learning departments.’ Julie Sheldon, Liverpool John Moores University, UK ’With deft scholarly touch, Robins traces the pedagogic thread of artists' interventions woven throughout the history of museum collections both private and public, from the historical to the contemporary. In so doing, she reveals the subtle and witty complexity and broad educational agency of these interventions, making the book essential reading for museum scholars, students and professionals today.’ Helen Charman, Design Museum London, UK ’In this historical overview of museum pedagogy, Claire Robins points out that many recent artistic interventions seek to tap the pre-Enlightenment wonder of the institution. She analyzes compelling instances from Andy Warhol to Fred Wilson and Jeremy Deller, as well as her own performance at the William Morris Gallery, England. She argues for artists’ interventions as an increasingly more accurate term than the fashionable institutional critique, for the wide-ranging, ever growing roster of contemporary artist/ trickster legitimated transgressions embraced by museums to freshen their image. Highly recommended for all parties in this complex interplay.’ Lewis Kachur, Kean University, USA and author of Displaying the Marvelous: Marcel Duchamp, Salvador Dali and Surrealist Exhibition Installations ’... the content is well-researched, insightful and page-turning, and this work has the potential to stimulate further research and constructive dialogue in the field. This publication is appropriate for students and professionals of museum studies, while at the same time art historians, and even artists, would find the content of this book equally fascinating.’ Rosetta'The strength of the book lies in the author's commitment to represent a wide and disparate set of voices, among them contemporary artists, social and museological theorists, and arts educators. This approach will no doubt provide new insights to any reader, as few authors have attempted to combine these competing concerns in existing scholarship.' Art JournalTable of ContentsIntroduction; Part I Artists, Museums and Education in Historical Context; Chapter 1 Shifting priorities for learning in the museum; Chapter 2; Chapter 3 Historical tracings of artists’ interventions in the mid-twentieth century; Part II Parody and Irony in the Museum; Chapter 4 Humour, irony and parody in artists’ interventions; Chapter 5 Jokers, tricksters and the parafictional; Chapter 6 An Elite Experience for Everyone: a case study intervention at the William Morris Gallery, London; Part III Contemporary Museums and the Role of Artists’ Interventions; Chapter 7 The role of artists’ interventions in opening up micro, counter and affective narratives in museum interpretation; Chapter 8 Artists’ interventions and the reflexive museum: addressing difference; Chapter 9 The affable interventionists;

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Book SynopsisThis volume, organized in five major sections, honors the myriad scholarly contributions of Matthew D. Stroud to the field of Early Modern Spanish theater. Building upon Stroud's seminal studies, each section of essays simultaneously claims and wrestles with aspects of the rich legacy generated by his explorations. The essays included in this volume consider the moral, ethical, and legal backdrop of uxoricide, explorations of the meaningful intersections of psychoanalytic theory and the comedia, and engage the topics of women, gender, and identity. They also bridge the gap between dramatist and actors and between page and stage as they consider everything from the physical demands on Early Modern actresses to the twenty-first-century performance possibilities of comedias. Moreover, these essays incorporate studies that transcend temporal, spatial, political, and cultural limits, continuing to push at the edges of traditional scholarship characteristic of Stroud's pioneeriTable of ContentsContents: David J. Hildner: Wife-Murder Deflected: How Stage Husbands’ Prudence and Ingenuity Lead to Differing Outcomes – Susan L. Fischer: «Nada me digas»: Silencing and Silence in Comedia Domestic Relationships – Katrina M. Heil: Mencía as Tragic Hero in Calderón’s El médico de su honra – Ezra Engling: We Too Suffer: Calderón’s Honor Husbands – William R. Blue: El médico de su honra: A Crisis of Interpretation – Manuel Delgado: Incest, Natural Law and Social Order in El castigo sin venganza – Gwyn E. Campbell: Duelling (Dis)Honour in Mira de Amescua’s La adúltera virtuosa – Christopher Weimer: Ovid, Gender, and the Potential for Tragedy in Don Gil de las calzas verdes – Barbara F. Weissberger: The Queen’s Dreams: Lope’s Representation of Queen Isabel I in El mejor mozo de España and El niño inocente de La Guardia – Barbara Simerka: Mirror Neurons and Mirror Metaphors: Cognitive Theory and Privanza in La adversa fortuna de don Alvaro de Luna – Robert M. Johnston - The Calderonian Aesthetic Experience: Plot, Character, Politics, and Primal Emotions in El alcalde de Zalamea (What Neuroscience and US Presidential Campaigns Might Tell Us about the Spanish Comedia) Catherine Connor-Swietlicki: Gendered Gazing: Zayas and Caro Go Back to the Future of the «Artful Brain and Body» – Edward H. Friedman: Of Love and Labyrinths: Feminism and the Comedia – Baltasar Fra-Molinero: Woman, Learning, and Fear: Racial Mixing in Diego Ximénez de Enciso’s Juan Latino – Kathleen Regan : Antona García: A Mujer Varonil for the 21st Century – Susan Paun de García: «Más valéis vos, Antona»: Worthy Wives in Lope, Tirso, and Cañizares – Sharon D. Voros: Tried and True: Leonor de la Cueva y Silva’s Tirso Connection – Barbara Mujica: Actresses as Athletes and Acrobats – Amy R. Williamsen: Stages of Passing: Identity and Performance in the Comedia – Peter E. Thompson: The Spanish Golden Age Entremés in English: Translating the Juan Rana Phenomenon – Maryrica Ortiz Lottman: Three Productions of El condenado por desconfiado: The Devil’s Polymorphism in Our Time – Catherine Larson: Adapting the Spanish Classics for 21st-Century Performance in English: Models for Analysis – Henry W. Sullivan: The Contours of Self-Representation: Why Call Himself Tirso de Molina? – Isaac Benabu: Inquisitorial Pressures: Honour as Metaphor on the Boards – Ronald E. Surtz: Staging the Fall in 16th-Century Spain: The Aucto del peccado de Adán – Kerry Wilks: Baltasar Funes y Villalpando’s El golfo de las sirenas: An Homage to Calderón? – Thomas A. O’Connor: The Transformation of a Baroque Zarzuela into an 18th-Century Opera: The Case of Salazar y Torres’s Los juegos olímpicos – Donald R. Larson: Two Visions of Brotherhood: Calderón and Richard Strauss.

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Book SynopsisAll great auditions require preparation and practice, but what's the secret to securing a callback? What are the best ways to prepare for that pivotal moment? And once you're in front of the casting director, what does it take to make the most out of your moment in the spotlight?In this second edition of Get the Callback: The Art of Auditioning for Musical Theatre, Jonathan Flom provides practical advice on the many facets of preparation, including selection of songs and monologues to suit your voice and the audition, organizing and arranging your music, working with the accompanist, and presenting yourself to the casting team. The book gives a detailed description of the actual audition performance and even offers advice on how non-dancers can survive a dance audition. In addition to extensively revised chapters on the audition process and how to build a repertoire book, this guide also features updated chapters on headshots, resumes, and cover letters; voice training techniques froTrade ReviewIn this second edition of Get the Callback, Flom not only updates the first edition but shifts the focus from ‘getting the job’ to ‘getting the callback,’ which is something the prepared actor can actually control. A great guide for young actors in high schools and colleges who are embarking on their careers—but also offering good reminders for those already out in the profession—the book covers all aspects of the audition process: preparation, pulling in new material, the actual audition, how to talk to the accompanist, how to interact with the audition panel, the callback. Flom even covers aspects of the process that are often overlooked—how to read audition announcements properly, the best head-shot styles and résumé layouts—and includes an updated list of repertoire styles and genres. Finally, Flom provides sound advice about how to negotiate a job offer. In other words, this one little volume is an invaluable resource for anyone who plans to audition for a musical theater production—whether in high school, college, or professional theater. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower- and upper-division undergraduates; graduate students; professionals. * CHOICE *

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Book SynopsisIs this the right book for me?Wherever your theatre interests lies, this is an essential book for you. It covers a wide range of key issues, from tips on coping with first night nerves, to a full section on health and safety, to funding and taxation. Illustrated with handy guides to lighting and staging and containing essential resources, this book will enable you to have a successful show. Make Your Show a Success includes:Part one: Community theatre: getting involvedChapter 1: Community theatreChapter 2: The actorsChapter 3: The directorChapter 4: The stage managerChapter 5: The lighting designer/technicianChapter 6: The sound designer/technicianChapter 7: The set designerChapter 8: WardrobeChapter 9: The props teamChapter 10: Musical societiesChapter 11: FestivalsPart two: Community theatre: from registration to rehearsalChapter 12: Setting up a new community theatre group<Trade ReviewIf you're looking for a book that reveals the rudiments of everything behind the scenes, Make Your Show a Success in the Teach Yourself series is a good start. * whatsonstage.com *Table of Contents 1.: Introduction – providing a background to the subject and outlining the purpose of the guide and who it is aimed at. 2.: Community theatre – providing definitions and statistics. This will provide an examination of what constitutes community theatre: amateur groups; amateur-run theatre buildings; the national and international festivals scene (full-length and one-act) 3.: Joining a drama group – how to audition; the rehearsal process; performances; who to turn to if you have a problem; how to cope with first night nerves etc. (including personal case studies). 4.: Joining a musical theatre group – an explanation of how this makes different demands: auditions; rehearsals; performances etc. (including personal case studies). 5.: 5. The Production Team – who does what; Health & Safety (for the group and the audience); how to do a risk assessment; the production process (scenery, costume, props, make-up, lighting, sound); front of house. 6.: Setting up a new group – how to go about it and the legal obligations: the committee structure; constitution; getting charitable status; incorporation; personal liability; insurance; contracts; copyright; taxation and VAT; child protection; equal op 7.: Engaging professional personnel – eg. directors, musical directors, orchestras: contracts; fees, tax implications. 8.: Scripts – publishers and rightsholders; copyright. 9.: Marketing – how to promote a show to the media; print and publicity, including tips on good presentation. 10.: Fundraising – sources of funds (lottery, local authorities); fundraising toolkit (sponsorship, donations, money-raising ideas). 11.: Jargon-busting – a glossary of commonly used terms, to demystify theatre jargon. 12.: Useful contacts – representative bodies; funding agencies; regional, national and international organizations. 13.: Index

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Book SynopsisFreedom finally beckons for Algie Packer, Essex's most notorious gangster. He's done seven years inside and now he's coming home to collect his reward 3,672,000 in untraceable notes. But there's something Algie's family have forgotten to mention . . . The Packers are Essex's lovable, but most dysfunctional family. Witness their desperate attempts to cover their tracks before Algie arrives to collect what is rightfully his.Barking In Essex is a riotously funny comedy by Clive Exton, published and produced for the first time in 2013.Trade ReviewCheerfully crude new black comedy * The Times *Those who like their comedy black, blue, an raucous will have a ball. * Telegraph *Humorous delight to be had * Observer *

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Book SynopsisMusical Theatre Song is a handbook for musical theatre performers, providing them with the wide-ranging skill set they need for success in today''s competitive musical theatre environment. Breaking down the process into knowing how to select your song material based upon your individuality and how to prepare and perform it in a manner that best highlights your attributes, Stephen Purdy provides a succinct and personalized trajectory toward presentation, taking the reader through a series of challenges that is designed to evoke original, personal and vibrant song performances. Written by renowned Broadway and West End vocal and audition coach Stephen Purdy, Musical Theatre Song is a must-have guide for all performers who are looking to succeed in the musical theatre industry.Trade ReviewPurdy guides the singer/performer through a well-conceived series of chapters, moving from a basic understanding of the history of the genre, to choosing a song repertoire and then performing/acting the song. It is obvious that Purdy’s experiences in professional musical theatre have given him a strong perspective on the art, which he shares with the performer in a logical and well-designed fashion … The journey that Purdy takes the reader on, from song selection, through song preparation, to song performance and audition, is comprehensive and filled with personal anecdotes that bring the ride to life. With the new musical theatre performer in mind, Stephen Purdy has given a guidebook and source for information that will also inform the seasoned performer or instructor moving in a logical timeline approach to the process … The ideas Purdy puts forth in preparing the song move from in-depth table or paper work, through an easy to process performance. And finally, the information he puts forth on the business side is invaluable, stemming from a long personal experience in all aspects of musical theatre. Musical Theatre Song by Stephen Purdy is a book that will aid both the performer and the coach in preparing for the world outside of the studio. * Voice & Speech Review *With its combination of historicity and practicality, Musical Theatre Song … will be of interest to both educators and performers. * Journal of American Drama and Theatre *Dramatic stage singers today are more hard-pressed than ever to deliver original, truthful and personal performances with bravura. Stephen Purdy’s new text contains insightful, invaluable wisdom that gives modern stage performers the tools and the wherewithal to do this in a way that nurtures their individuality and fosters their artistry * Placido Domingo *It's about time that somebody put a real, relevant text out there about theatre song preparation and choice. As a music supervisor, arranger and orchestrator of many "rock" and "pop" Broadway, West End and Internationally produced musicals I'm extremely sensitive in the casting process to a singer's ability to execute story-based song performance and "act" the song. This is in addition to having chosen material that works for them personally. Purdy's knockout book gives modern musical theatre performers the essential ingredients they need to accomplish these things and so much else. * Ethan Popp, Grammy-nominated producer and Tony-nominated orchestrator *Purdy offers Musical Theatre Song as a guide to the singing actor in the selection, preparation, and presentation of audition material … Anyone preparing for an audition in the music theater arena will find this book invaluable. * NATS Journal of Singing *Purdy’s book serves as an excellent companion on the road to success in the audition room … the sections in which he offers practical advice, tricks of the trade, and exercises make the book a useful guide for students of musical theatre, as well as musical theatre practitioners and teachers … an excellent tool for classroom use … Purdy’s unique perspective and experience lend Musical Theatre Song a level of authority and insight that make it an excellent addition to any musical theatre student’s, teacher’s, or practitioner’s library. * Theatre Topics *Table of ContentsPreface Section I: Song Selection Chapter 1: Introduction to Song Selection and Historical Context: What You Should Know and Why You Should Care Chapter 2: Song Selection for Singing Actors: The Philosophical – What to Sing and Where to Find it Chapter 3: The Song is You: Song Selection for Singing Actors – The Practical Section II: Song Preparation Chapter 4: Introduction to Song Preparation Chapter 5: Off the Table and Off the Page: Techniques for Playability Chapter 6: A Music and Musical Theatre Term Lexicon Chapter 7: Coaching Songs Through with Singing Actors Section III: Song Presentation Chapter 8: Your Turn at Bat, Sir.

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Book SynopsisWhen Alice falls down a mysterious rabbit hole she stumbles upon a magical fantasy world where anything can happen . . . Take tea with the Mad Hatter, meet the White Rabbit, grin with the Cheshire Cat, and play croquet with the Queen of Hearts, but whatever you do . . . don't lose your head!Lewis Carroll's classic characters spring to life in an enchanting show for the whole family, bursting with music, madness and mystery.Simon Reade''s adaptation of Lewis Carroll's much-loved fantasy classic Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is a witty and brilliantly inventive re-working, which won the TMA Award for Best Show for Young People.Trade Review[Former director/designer Melly] Still and Reade boldly resist temptations to create a cute, fluffy, Disneyfied landscape, instead embracing the physical limitations of theatre as a catalyst for the audience's collective imagination . . . It's a fresh, idiosyncratic pleasure. * Daily Telegraph on the original production *

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Book SynopsisLook at us, Margaret - the press is on our side. We're heroes: the public is behind us, we're protecting our children, the party is united behind the cause. You can stand against it if you want, but you will stand alone.Margaret Thatcher, Britain's first female Prime Minister, gets lost around the streets of Soho on the eve of the vote for Section 28. Unwittingly, she finds herself quickly becoming a cabaret sensation within London's gay community.This camp political drag cabaret explores, through songs and laughter, homophobia and censorship, and how one person could have made a difference.Margaret Thatcher Queen of Soho received its world premiere at London's Theatre503 in June 2013 as part of the Thatcherwrite Festival, and was revived in a full production there in December 2013.Trade Review[This piece provides] both devilish humour and wit, but also thoughtful politicking. Get Margaret Thatcher Queen of Soho to Edinburgh or Brighton soon please. * A Younger Theatre *There has been a lot of advance talk about Jonathan Brittain's play The Wake, which won the Judges' Award for Comedy in last year's National Student Drama Festival. The talk has been worth it - as has the wait, since this is a sizzling piece of comic theatre. * Stage *Re-framing her [Thatcher's] key decisions through rainbow-tinted glasses . . . Tedford and Brittain have grasped the fact that gags drive the night * Daily Telegraph *Tedford gets the Thatcheresque head tilt just right * Evening Standard *

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Book SynopsisRobert Gordon is Professor of Theatre and Performance at Goldsmiths, University of London, UK and Director of the Pinter Research Centre in Performance and Creative Writing. He has published books on Stoppard and Harold Pinter, on modern acting theories and edited The Oxford Handbook of Sondheim Studies; he is co-editor of The Oxford Handbook of the British Musical. Olaf Jubin is Reader in Media Studies and Musical Theatre at Regent's University London, UK, and a Visiting Lecturer on the M.A. in Musical Theatre at Goldsmiths College, University of London, UK. He has written and co-edited several books on musical theatre and the mass media and is co-editor of The Oxford Handbook of the British Musical.Millie Taylor is Professor of Musical Theatre at the University of Winchester, UK. She worked as a freelance musical director and, for almost twenty years, toured Britain and Europe with a variety of musicals including West Side Story, RoTrade ReviewPleasingly, although each of the authors is an academic, they do not wear their learning to[o] heavily and this volume could easily please a general reader as well as students ... All in, this is a readable overview of its subject and a welcome addition to the bookshelves of anybody with an interest in British musicals. -- Philip Fisher * British Theatre Guide *This academic yet highly accessible text ... [offers] a detailed and relevant account of the industry from this side of the pond ... A demanding yet rewarding read ... There's much to enjoy for both the academic and the general theatre historian. * London Theatre *Table of ContentsList of Illustrations Introduction Part I: Musicals and Social Change (Robert Gordon) 1.1 British Theatre and Society after the Second World War 1.2 Innovation and Nostalgia: Camp in the Post-War British Musical Case Study 1: Salad Days 1.3 Rock and Roll and the Theatre Revolution 1.4 The Play with Music: Political Theatre and Working-Class Culture Case Study 2: Blood Brothers 1.5 The Impact of Oliver! 1.6 After Jesus Christ Superstar: Globalization and Cultural Specificity Case Study 3: Billy Elliot 1.7 Global and Local: The Family Musical Case Study 4: Matilda – The Musical Part II: British Popular Culture and Musical Theatre (Millie Taylor) 2.1 Nostalgia in Character and Dramatic Form Case Study 5: Oh What a Lovely War! 2.2 Reflecting Multiculturalism Case Study 6: Bombay Dreams 2.3 Changing Signification in Popular Music Case Study 7: Oliver! Case Study 8: The Rocky Horror Show Conclusion to Part Two Part III: Narrative and Story-Telling in the British Musical since 1970 (Olaf Jubin) Preamble Introduction 3.1 Concept Recordings: When What You See is What You Have Heard Case Study 9: Jesus Christ Superstar 3.2 Sung-Through Shows: When the Spoken Word is Shunned 3.3 Stage Adaptations of Novels: When the Written Word Becomes Theatrical Action Case Study 10: Les Misérables Case Study 11: The Phantom of the Opera 3.4 Original Stories: When the Content is Unknown 3.5 Jukebox Musicals: When You Know All the Songs Case Study 12: Mamma Mia! 3.6 Stage Adaptation of Films: When the Cinematic Becomes the Theatrical Conclusion Timeline Notes Selective Bibliography Discography Filmography Index

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Book SynopsisPeter Hall (19302017) is one of the most influential directors of Shakespeare's plays in the modern age. Under his direction, the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre rediscovered Shakespeare as a writer who could comment incisively on the modern world. Productions such as Coriolanus, The Wars of the Roses and Hamlet established his reputation as a director able to bring Shakespeare to the heart of contemporary politics. He later cemented his reputation with epic productions of Coriolanus and Antony and Cleopatra at the National. With the Peter Hall Company, Hall continued to work intensively on Shakespeare, directing plays in the UK and America.Reviewing Hall's work in its cultural and creative context, this study explores his approach to directing and rehearsal. This is the first book to analyse all of Hall's professional Shakespeare productions in a historical context, from the Suez crisis to the 9/11 attacks and beyond.Trade ReviewAn ambitious and highly readable survey which draws on detailed archival research to provide insights into Hall's artistic approach, documenting casting choices and examining Hall's rehearsal process, staging decisions, and use of design and costuming, as well as the reception of each production. * Theatre Notebook *This fascinating and richly detailed study of the Shakespeare productions of one of the greatest theatre directors of recent times excels at placing them within their social and political context. -- Sir Stanley Wells, Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, UKTable of ContentsAcknowledgements Series Preface Introduction: Speaking Shakespeare 1: Nostalgia and Politics at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre 2: Nation, Culture and Authority at the Royal Shakespeare Company 3: Authority in Crisis at the National Theatre 4: Protest and Politics at the National Theatre 5: Death and Sexuality after the National Theatre 6: Playing Shakespeare in America 7: National Stages List of Productions References Index

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Book SynopsisFarah Karim-Cooper is Head of Higher Education & Research, Globe Education (Shakespeare's Globe) and Visiting Research Fellow, King's College London, UK.Trade ReviewFarah Karim-Cooper’s The Hand on the Shakespearean Stage: Gesture, Touch, and the Spectacle of Dismemberment combines its author’s expert knowledge of early modern performance with new research on the cultural history of gesture to deliver a groundbreaking account of the emotional, psychological, and social work carried out by the hand on stage. * Studies in English Literature 1500-1900 *This book augments Arden’s reputation for producing monographs which are not only accessible to the reader, but academically rigorous and centred around fascinating subjects ... [It] serves as a vital new contribution, offering a comprehensive survey of the hand in Shakespeare’s day which will be of use to students and scholars interested in conceptions of the early modern body. * Early Theatre *Farah Karim-Cooper crafts a study that is narrow in focus yet wide-ranging in breadth by casting attention upon the early modern hand … Across six chapters, Karim-Cooper reveals the capacious symbolic capacity of the hand in early modern culture and, attendantly, on the stage … even as Karim-Cooper undertakes a historicist approach, she also pulls in dramaturgy, analysis of art, a careful attention to material culture, and a keen eye toward performance practice in order to enhance her fascinating analysis of the early modern hand … Karim-Cooper makes an important, original contribution to early modern body studies whose breadth will appeal to a wide audience of Shakespearean and early modern scholars. * Comparative Drama *Karim-Cooper skillfully locates the expressive hand in an emotional and theatrical context … Karim-Cooper gives well-deserved primacy to an oft-misunderstood and overlooked expression, a topic of interest not only to the scholars who seem to be her target audience, but also to educators, actors, and directors. Her insightful analysis of the hand demonstrates the close correspondence among the scientific, philosophic, and artistic fields … her command of period plays, oratory, and anatomical sources successfully brings interdisciplinary considerations of hand gestures to bear on the works of Shakespeare and his contemporaries, and also on contemporary plays onstage and in film. * Theatre Topics *[An] excellent handbook. Within the joy of the pun rests the richness of Karim-Cooper’s achievement. her encyclopedic consideration of the hand and her specific attention to gesture as narration and to the complexities of touch do the work for those of us who will go on to play with the discoveries she offers ... The Hand on the Shakespearean Stage provides both the material for invention and further study and points us toward the potential of a hands-on approach to contemporary productions of the early modern works with a new understanding of gesture, touch, and the intimacy of palms. * Shakespeare Quarterly *Table of ContentsIntroduction Chapter One: The Idea of the Hand in Shakespeare's World Chapter Two: Manners and Beauty: The Social Hand Chapter Three: 'Lively Action': Gesture in Early Modern Performance Chapter Four: Gesture and Shakespeare's Narrative Art Chapter Five: 'Let Lips do what Hands do': Shakespeare's Sense of Touch Chapter Six: Amputation: The Spectacle of Dismemberment in Shakespeare's Theatres Epilogue -- Fingers Notes Index

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Book SynopsisThis unique anthology presents the important historical essays on tragedy, ranging from antiquity to the present, divided into historical periods and arranged chronologically. Across its span, it traces the development of theories and philosophies of tragedy, enabling readers to consider the ways in which different varieties of environmentalist, feminist, leftist and postcolonial thought have transformed the status of tragedy, and the idea of the tragic, for recent generations of artists, critics and thinkers. Students of literature and theatre will find this collection an invaluable and accessible guide to writing from Plato and Aristotle through to Freud, Nietzsche, Schopenhauer and 21st century theorists. Ideas of tragedy and the tragic have been central to the understanding of culture for the past two millennia. Writers and thinkers from Plato through to Martha Nussbaum have analyzed the genre of tragedy to probe the most fundamental of questions about ethics, pleasure and respoTable of ContentsAcknowledgements Notes on the Texts General Introduction Chapter One: Antiquity and the Middle Ages Introduction 1.1. Plato, The Republic 1.2. Aristotle, On The Art Of Poetry 1.3. Horace, The Art of Poetry 1.4. Longinus, On the Sublime 1.5. Evanthius, “On Drama” 1.6. Augustine, “On Stage-plays” Chapter Two: The Early Modern Period Introduction 2.1. Giovan Battista Giraldi Cinthio, Discourse or Letter on the Composition of Comedies and Tragedies 2.2. Lodovico Castelvetro, The Poetics of Aristotle 2.3. Stephen Gosson, Plays Confuted in Five Actions 2.4. Philip Sidney, Defense of Poetry 2.5. Thomas Heywood, The Apology for Actors 2.6. Pierre Corneille, from Three Discourses on Dramatic Poetry 2.7. John Milton, “Of That Sort of Dramatic Poem Which is Called Tragedy” 2.8. René Rapin, Reflections on Aristotle’s Treatise of Poesie 2.9. John Dryden, “The Grounds of Criticism in Tragedy” Chapter Three: The Eighteenth Century Introduction 3.1. Joseph Addison and Richard Steele, The Spectator 3.2. George Lillo, “The Dedication” and “Prologue” to The London Merchant 3.3. David Hume, “Of Tragedy” 3.4. Edmund Burke, “Sympathy,” “Of the Effects of Tragedy” and “The Sublime” 3.5. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Letter to M. D’Alembert On the Theatre 3.6. Samuel Johnson, “Preface to Shakespeare” 3.7. Voltaire, "Letter XVIII. On Tragedy" 3.8. Elizabeth Montagu, An Essay on the Writings and Genius of Shakespear 3.9 Joanna Baillie, “Introductory Discourse” Chapter Four: The Nineteenth Century Introduction 4.1. August Wilhelm Schlegel, A Course of Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature 4.2. Charles Lamb, “On the Tragedies of Shakespeare Considered with Reference for Their Fitness for Stage Representation” 4.3. William Hazlitt, Characters of Shakespeare’s Plays 4.4. Percy Bysshe Shelley, A Defence of Poetry 4.5. Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation 4.6. G.W.F. Hegel, Aesthetics: Lectures on Fine Art 4.7. George Eliot, “The Antigone and its Moral” 4.8. Friedrich Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy Chapter Five: 1900 to 1968 Introduction 5.1. Sigmund Freud, from The Interpretation of Dreams 5.2. A.C. Bradley, Shakespearean Tragedy 5.3. William Butler Yeats, “The Tragic Theatre” 5.4. Virginia Woolf, “On Not Knowing Greek” 5.5. Bertolt Brecht, “A Short Organum for the Theatre” 5.6. Robert Warshow, “The Gangster as Tragic Hero” 5.7. George Steiner, Death of Tragedy 5.8. Raymond Williams, “Tragedy and Revolution” 5.9. Athol Fugard, “On A View from the Bridge” Chapter Six: Post-1968 Introduction 6.1 Augusto Boal, from The Theatre of the Oppressed 6.2. René Girard, “The Sacrificial Crisis” 6.3. Joseph Meeker, “Literary Tragedy and Ecological Catastrophe” 6.4. Catherine Belsey, The Subject of Tragedy 6.5. Biodun Jeyifo, “Tragedy, History and Ideology” 6.6. Nicole Loraux, The Rope and the Sword 6.7. Hélène Cixous, “Enter the Theatre (in between)” 6.8. Judith Butler, “Promiscuous Obedience” 6.9. Martha Nussbaum, “The ‘Morality of Pity’” 6.10. David Scott, Conscripts of Modernity Permissions Acknowledgements Supplementary Reading Index

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Book SynopsisRussian Futurist Theatre' explores is the first book to comprehensively uncover the Russian futurist theatre in all its virtuosity and diversity.

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