Description
Book SynopsisA collection of twenty-five essays which explore the place of the stage within the larger society, as well as issues of performance and physical space. It examines the settings in which plays were acted; and juxtaposes the theater with such contemporary subcultures as the church, the city, and the court.
Trade ReviewIt is a book that every serious student of early English drama will want to own. -- Alan Somerset Medieval and Renaissance Drama in England The twenty six essays in this valuable and much-needed work focus particularly on the social and material implications of performance spaces from street to court; the ways in which religious, civic, domestic, courtly, literary, and popular expectations affected the drama [prior to 1642]; and the conditions under which plays were produced and disseminated. The collection provides an accurate and authoritative overview of the early English drama, embeds it in the historical conditions of its production, and suggests directions for future study. The bibliography, index, and play index all cover the entire book, so that one can easily locate a topic wherever it appears. Choice
Table of ContentsIntroduction: Demanding History World Pictures, Modern Periods, and the Early Stage, by Margreta de Grazia The English Church as Theatrical Space, by John M. Wasson, A Commonty a Christmas gambold or a tumbling trick: Household Theater, by Suzanne Westfall The Universities: Early Staging in Cambridge, by Alan H. Nelson Early Staging in Oxford, by John R. Elliott, Jr. Streets and Markets, by Anne Higgins The Theaters, by John Orrell Rowme of its Own: Printed Drama in Early Libraries, by Heidi Brayman Hackel Theater and Religious Culture, by Paul Whitfield White Wonderful Spectacles: Theater and Civic Culture, by Gordon Kipling, The Theater and Domestic Culture, by Diana E. Henderson Entertainments at Court, by Graham Parry The Theater and Literary Culture, by Barbara A. Mowat Theater and Popular Culture, by Michael D. Bristol Touring, by Peter H. Greenfield Cloathes worth all the rest: Costumes and Properties, by Jean MacIntyre and Garret P.J. Epp Censorship, by Richard Dutton Audiences: Investigation, Interpretation, Invention, by Ann Jennalie Cook Rogues and Rhetoricians: Acting Styles in Early English Drama, by Peter Thomson Personnel and Professionalization, by W.R. Streitberger Playwriting: Authorship and Collaboration, by Jeffrey Masten The Publication of Playbooks, by Peter W. M. Blaney Patronage and the Economics of Theater, by Kathleen E. McLuskie and Felicity Dunsworth The Revision of Scripts, by Eric Rasmussen The Repertory, by Roslyn L. Knutson Plays in Manuscript, by Paul Werstine
