"Artemisia Gentileschi was one of the most celebrated female painters of the seventeenth century, yet her name was all but lost for centuries. Assaulted and publicly shamed at just seventeen, Gentileschi lived her life on her own terms as an artist, a mother, and a lover. Artemisia was a modern woman before her time; Artemisia is a play that celebrates her artistry, courage, and humanity"
"Explores consent as a principle to guide practices and policies in university level performing arts education. Describes structural power dynamics present in educational spaces and tools for defusing them. Adapts the protocols foundational to intimacy training to apply to classroom and rehearsal spaces across performing arts. This includes opening lines of communication, actively discussing personal boundaries and modeling behavior that respects those boundaries. Additionally, the book uses experiential reflections to address the real-world challenges that teachers face as they work to reshape their teaching habits and processes to include consent practices"
"As the half-blood son of a Greek god, Percy Jackson has newly-discovered powers he can't control, a destiny he doesn't want, and a mythology textbook's worth of monsters on his trail. When Zeus's master lightning bolt is stolen and Percy becomes the prime suspect, he has to find and return the bolt to prove his innocence and prevent a war between the gods. But to succeed on his quest, Percy will have to do more than catch the thief. He must travel to the Underworld and back; solve the riddle of the Oracle, which warns him of betrayal by a friend; and come to terms with the father who abandoned him"
"A Primer on Theatre and Aesthetics explores the philosophy of arts from the Ancient Greeks to our contemporary world. What began as a debate in a monoculture eventually mushroomed into a vision for aesthetic diversity and inclusion as declarative statements receded in importance and subjective perceptions became fundamental. Studies in aesthetics often focus on music or the visual arts whereas this volume explores the nexus between philosophical perspectives and theatre. The purpose for theatre is wholeness (catharsis) and philosophy is the guide for that analysis"
"2020 was a year in which global politics radically shifted, catalyzed by the Covid-19 pandemic and the #BlackLivesMatter movement. This book is a response to that year, asking was it a moment or is it a movement and what fundamental changes within the arts industry need to come out of this time? The book includes 20 interviews with some of the most pioneering black cultural leaders from a wide range of senior executive positions in the arts within the UK, US and Africa. It documents the sea of change in arts leadership post the height of the#Blacklivesmatter movement, the pressure on organisations to confront and change their racial and ethnic make-up, and shines a light on the guiding ambitions, strategic plans and visions for the future to support the ongoing decolonization of arts organisations across the world. Learn from those who have walked the walk to support your vision for the future"
Commemorating over 75 years of Broadway greatness with never-before told stories, rare photos from the American Theatre Wings' archives, and interviews with major honorees like Lin-Manuel Miranda, Patti LuPone, and Hugh Jackman, The Tony Awards is the official, authorized guide to Broadway's biggest night. The Tony Awards: A Celebration of Excellence in Theatre pays tribute to the magic that happens when the curtain goes up and Broadway's best and brightest step onto center stage. Supported by the American Theatre Wing, the arts organization that founded the Tony Awards in 1947 and continues to produce the Tony Awards live telecast each year, author Eila Mell has interviewed a cavalcade of past and present Tony winners, including actors, producers, writers, costume designers, and many many others. Their voices fill the pages of this book with fascinating, behind-the-scenes stories about what it's like to win the theatre world's highest honor"
"Luis Valdez studies the life and work of this Chicano playwright, director, performer, and producer along with the implications of his legacy for Chicana/o/x communities and for all who engage with his work. Valdez's work broadened the scope of theatre and arts in the Chicano community and his formation of El Teatro Campesino brought together students and farmworkers. This volume highlights his professional work and writings. It offers a unique investigation of Luis Valdez, his life, his oeuvre and his contributions to the theatre in the United States and beyond. This book combines: an in-depth biographical overview of Valdez's life and career, focusing on defining experiences that set his trajectory into motion; an exploration of Valdez's key writings -- the 1973 epic poem Pensamiento Serpentino and the unpublished lecture The Power of Zero which articulate his philosophy of the Theatre of the Sphere; a stylistic analysis of his key works, including Soldado Razo and Zoot Suit as well as their critical reception; a selection of improvisation and dance-based warm-ups, embodiment exercises, and an acto writing practicum adapted to experiment with Valdez's works. As a first step towards critical understanding, and as an initial exploration before going on to further, primary research, Routledge Performance Practitioners offer unbeatable value for today's students"
"Published alongside The Japan Foundation, this collection features five creative and bold plays by some of Japan's most prolific writers of contemporary theatre. Translated into English for the first time, these texts explore a wide range of themes from dystopian ideas of the future to touching domestic tragedies. Brought together in one volume, introduced by the authors and The Japan Foundation, this collection offers English language readers an unprecedented look at some of Japan's finest works of contemporary drama by writers from across the country"
"Fifty Key Figures in Latin American and Latinx Theatre is a critical introduction to the most influential and innovative theatre practitioners in the Americas, all of whom have been pioneers in changing the field. The chosen artists bridge political, racial, gender, class, and geographical divides that have traditionally restricted and misrepresented our understanding of Latin American and Latinx theatre while at the same time offering a space to discuss contested nationalities and histories. Each entry considers the artist's or collective's body of work in its historical, cultural, and political context and provides a brief biography and suggestions for further reading. Covering artists from the present day to the 1960s - the emergence of a modern theatre that was concerned with LatinX and Latin American themes rather than mirroring a European approach. A deep and enriching resource for the classroom and individual study, this is the first book that any student of LatinX and Latin American theatre should read"-
"The Routledge Companion to Theatre and Performance Historiography sets the agenda for inclusive and wide-ranging approaches to writing history, embracing the diverse perspectives of the twenty-first century and Critical Media History. Written by an international team of authors whose expertise spans a multitude of historical periods and cultures, this collection of fascinating essays poses the central question: 'what is specific to the historiography of the performative?' The study of theatre, in conjunction with the wider sphere of performance, involves an array of multi-faceted methods for collecting evidence, interpreting sources and creating meaning. Reflecting on issues of recording - from early modern musical scores, through VHS-technology to latest digital procedures - and on what is missing from records or oblique in practices, the contributors convey how theatre and performance history is integral to social and cultural relations. This expertly curated collection repositions theatre and performance history and is essential reading for Theatre and Performance Studies students or those interested in social and cultural history more generally"
"This book is a brief history of the end of the world as seen through the eyes of theatre. It examines a wide range of plays, from Euripides and Bhasa, to medieval mystery cycles, through Shakespeare, Pushkin, Ibsen, Chekhov, Brecht, and Samuel Beckett, to Caryl Churchill's Far Away, Tony Kushner's Slavs!, and Anne Washburn's Mr. Burns, A Post-Electric Play. Through analyzing these alongside contemporary thinkers, this study helps guide and galvanize the reader in grappling with the climate crisis. Kulick divides this litany of theatrical cataclysms into four distinct historical phases: the Ancients, including Euripides and Bhasa, the legendary Sanskrit dramatist; the Age of Belief, with the anonymous authors of the medieval mystery cycles, Shakespeare, and Pushkin; the Moderns, with Ibsen, Chekhov, Brecht, Beckett, and Bond; and, finally, the way the world might end now, encompassing Caryl Churchill, Tony Kushner, and Anne Washburn. In tandem with the insights gleaned from these playwrights, the book draws upon the work of contemporary scientists, ecologists, and ethicists to further tease out the philosophical implications of such plays and their relevance to our own troubled times. In the end, Kulick shows how each of these ages and their respective authors have something essential to say, not only about humanity's potential end, but, more importantly, about the possibility for our collective continuance"
"The first anthology of youth plays from Gaza and the wider Palestinian region, this timely collection ties together nineteen plays produced by Theatre Day Productions, one of the foremost community theatres in the Middle East. Written by playwright Jackie Lubeck, this collection responds to the siege on Gaza and the Israeli military operations from 2009 to 2014, reflecting how Gazan youth deal with trauma, loss and urban destruction. In the nineteen plays within this anthology, the reader and theatrical producer witnesses experiences of a forgotten youth, besieged by a silent international community and a brutal wall. The plays are arranged into five different thematic series, which include family entanglements, loss and the fundamental goodness and resourcefulness of human beings"
William Shakespeare is widely regarded as one of the greatest writers of the Western world and most certainly its greatest playwright. His actual relationship to Western civilization has not, however, been thoroughly investigated. At a time when that civilization, as well as its premier dramatist, is subjected to severe and increasing criticism for both its supposed crimes against the rest of the world and its fundamental principles, a reassessment of the culture of the West is overdue. Shakespeare and the Idea of Western Civilization offers an unprecedented account of how the playwright draws upon his civilization's unique culture and illuminates its basic features. Rather than a treatment of all the works, R.V. Young focuses on how some of Shakespeare's best and most well-known plays dramatize the West's conception of social institutions and historical developments such as love and marriage, ethnic and racial prejudice, political order, colonialism, and religion. Shakespeare and the Idea of Western Civilization provides a spirited defense of the West and its greatest poet at a time when both are the object of virulent academic and political hostility.
"Reclaiming Greek Drama for Diverse Communities features the work of Native-American, African-American, Asian-American, Latinx, and LGBTQ theatre artists who engage with social justice issues in seven adaptations of Sophocles' Antigone, Euripides' Trojan Women, Hippolytus, Bacchae, Alcestis, and Aristophanes' Frogs, as well as a work inspired by the myth of the Fates. Performed between 1989 and 2017 in small theatres across the US, these works raise awareness about the trafficking of Native American women, marriage equality, gender justice, women's empowerment, the social stigma surrounding HIV, immigration policy, and the plight of undocumented workers. The accompanying interviews provide a fascinating insight into the plays, the artists' inspiration for them, and the importance of studying classics in the college classroom. Readers will benefit from an introduction that lays out practical ways to teach the adaptations, ideas for assignments, and the contextualization of the works within the history of classical reception. Serving as a key resource on incorporating diversity into the teaching of canonical texts for Classics, English, Drama and Theatre Studies students, this anthology is the first to present the work of a range of contemporary theatre artists who utilise ancient Greek source material to explore social, political, and economic issues affecting a variety of underrepresented communities in the US"
"In this richly illustrated and information-packed celebration of Broadway set design, Tony Award-winning designer Derek McLane explores the craft while reflecting on some of the greatest stage productions of the past few decades. Together with other leading set design and theatre talents, McLane invites us into the immersive and exhilarating experience of building the striking visual worlds that have brought so many of our favorite stories to life. Discover how designers generate innovative ideas, research period and place, solve staging challenges, and collaborate with directors, projectionists, costume designers, and other artists to capture the essence of a show in powerful scenic design. With co-writer Eila Mell, McLane and contributors discuss Moulin Rouge!, Hamilton, Hadestown, Beautiful, and many more of the most iconic productions of our generation. Among the Broadway luminaries who contribute are John Lee Beatty, Danny Burstein, Cameron Crowe, Ethan Hawke, Moisés Kaufman, Carole King, Kenny Leon, Santo Loquasto, Kathleen Marshall, Lynn Nottage, David Rabe, Ruben Santiago-Hudson, Wallace Shawn, John Leguizamo, and Robin Wagner. Filled with personal sketches and photographs fromthe artists' archives, this stunningly designed book is truly a behind-the-scenes journey that theatre fans will love"
"Shakespeare is at the heart of the British theatrical tradition, but the contribution of Ira Aldridge and the Shakespearean performers of African, Afro-Caribbean and Asian heritage who came after him is not widely known. Telling the story for the first time of how Shakespearean theatre was integrated from the 1960s to the twenty-first century, this is a timely and important account of that contribution. Drawing extensively on empirical evidence from the British Black and Asian Shakespeare Performance Database and featuring interviews with many performers, the book chronicles important productions that led to ground-breaking castings of Black and Asian actors in substantial Shakespearean roles including: Zakes Mokae (Cry Freedom) as one of three Black Witches in William Gaskill's production of Macbeth, Royal Court Theatre, London, 1966; Norman Beaton as Angelo in Michael Rudman's 1981 Measure for Measure at the National Theatre, the first majority Black Shakespearean cast at the National Theatre; [and] Adrian Lester as Henry V in Nicholas Hytner's 2003 production. Detailing the earliest recorded castings of Black and Asian performers in Shakespeare's roles, this illuminating account illustrates the various ways in which Black and Asian actors have been integrated into contemporary Shakespearean productions. With first-hand accounts from key performers including Joseph Marcell, Adrian Lester, Noma Dumezweni, Rakie Ayola, Ray Fearon, Paterson Joseph, Lucian Msamati and many more, this book is an invaluable history of black and Asian Shakespeareans that highlights the gains these actors have made and the challenges still faced in pursuing a career in classical theatre"
"Presented here are two witty and perceptive dramas which are sympathetic and honest explorations of the conflict between the individualism of Western culture and the social traditions of Africa. In Dilemma of a Ghost (1965), Ato returns to Ghana from his studies in North America with a sophisticated black American wife. But their hopes of a happy marriage and of combining the sweetness and loveliest things in Africa and America are soon shown to have been built on an unstable foundation. In Anowa (1970), her second play, Ama Ata Aidoo borrows heavily from the heritage of oral literature for the structure, the language, the themes and the characters of the play. Set in the late 1800s it describes some of the earlier encounters of African societies with Western traders. Aidoo portrays a crucial historical moment in Ghanaian history through the personal tragedy of Anowa and Kofi Ako"
"How does the world of theatre and the performing arts intersect with the climate and environmental crisis? This timely book is the first comprehensive account of the sector's response to the defining issue of our time. The book documents a sector in transition and presents theatre professionals, practitioners and organizations with a synthesis of information, knowledge and expertise to guide them to their own endorsement of sustainable thinking and practice. It is illustrated with inspiring case studies and interviews, from London's National Theatre, to Sydney Theatre Company, to the G̲teborg Opera and the American Repertory Theatre. These foreground the work of pioneering institutions and individual practitioners whose artistic ingenuity, creative activism and sense of public mission have given shape, content and purpose to what we can now call 'sustainable theatre'. Spanning almost three decades, the book approaches the topic from multiple angles and through an international perspective, recording how climate and environmental concerns have been expressed in cultural policy, arts leadership and organizational ethics; in the greening of infrastructure and daily operations; in the individual and institutional practice of sustainable theatre-making; in performing arts education; and in touring practices and international collaboration. It investigates, too, how the climate crisis influences theatre as a story-teller - on stage and beyond. Written by a leading expert in the field of culture and environmental sustainability and distilling many years of research and hands-on experience, Sustainable Theatre: Theory, Context, Practice is intended to be relevant and useful to professionals involved in the theatre and performing arts sector in many different capacities: from policy-makers, arts leaders and managers to administrators, technicians, artists, scholars and educators"
"Featuring contributions from over eighty cast members, creatives, crew and audience members, Out for Blood pieces together the surprising, hilarious and often moving inside story of Carrie: The Musical to discover how this 'horror of a Broadway musical' lived, died and was subsequently resurrected as a mainstream succcess story. In 1988, following the success of its production of Les Miserables and in the wake of the commercial success of mega-musicals such as Cats, The Phantom of the Opera and Chess, the Royal Shakespeare Company agreed to co-produce a musical based on Stephen King's Carrie, written by the team behind Fame. The result was one of Broadway's most infamous disasters. Plagued by technical problems, on-stage chaos and a critical savaging, Carrie would soon become the by-word for musical theatreflops. But thanks to the efforts of a vocal army of fans and the impact of bootleg trading and emerging online communities, the show reinvented itself as a mainstream success story with thousands of productions wordlwide. Bringing together memories, archival material and contemporary reports, Out for Blood dives into the origins and development of this infamous show and examines how a promising entertainment product can swiftly gain a notorious reputation, what makes or breaks a Broadway show, and how even the most unlikely of musicals can find its place in the hearts of fans around the world"
"Cracking Up archives and analyzes Black feminist stand-up comedy in the United States over the past sixty years. Looking closely at the work of Jackie Moms' Mabley, Mo'Nique, Wanda Sykes, Sasheer Zamata, Sam Jay, Phoebe Robinson, Jessica Williams, and Michelle Buteau, this book shows how Black feminist comedy and the laughter it ignites are vital components of feminist, queer, and anti-racist protest. Cracking Up frames theatre and live performance as an important platform from which to examine citizenship in the United States, articulate Black feminist political thought, and subvert structures of power. Author Katelyn Hale Wood interprets these artists not as tokens in their white/male dominated field, but as part of a continuous history of Black feminist performance and presence in the United States. Broadly, the book also champions comedic performance and theatre history as imperative contexts for advancing historical studies of race, gender, and sexuality. From the comedy routines popular on Black vaudeville circuits to stand-up on contemporary social media platforms, Cracking Up excavates an overlooked history of Black women who made the art of joke-telling a key part of radical performance and political engagement"
"No Harm Done contains the text of three short plays, each an exploration of some aspect of a disease. They are: Closer and Closer Apart, Alzheimer's Disease; Fade to Light, Stargardt, a form of blindness; and The Last Dance, Parkinson Disease. The first section of the book contains the plays themselves and Stickland's introductions to them, supplemented by commentaries by experts in the medical field. The second section is a guide to playwriting based on teachings the author has been engaged in for decades. This section also includes a how-to approach to writing a play for a specific cause or event. The book will be of interest not only to theatre practitioners and students of playwriting, but to students and professionals (doctors, caregivers, therapists, etc.) in the medical field as well"
"In this, the first book to focus on the original cast members of the classic Gilbert and Sullivan comic operas, world-renowned musical theater expert Kurt Gänzl provides a concise history of the writing and production of each opera, vividly colored by the often little-known life stories of these early performers. Meticulously researched and lavishly illustrated with rare photographs, Gilbert and Sullivan: The Players and the Plays delves into the professional and personal lives of the British and American actors and singers who created the celebrated "famous fourteen" Gilbert and Sullivan operas
"Stand-up comedians have a long history of walking a careful line between serious and playful engagement with social issues: Lenny Bruce questioned the symbolic valence of racial slurs, Dick Gregory took time away from the stage to speak alongside Martin Luther King Jr., and-more recently-Tig Notaro challenged popular notions of damaged or abject bodies. Taking a Stand: Contemporary US Stand-Up Comedians as Public Intellectuals draws together essays that contribute to the analysis of the stand-up-comedian-as-public intellectual since the 1980s. The chapters explore stand-up comedians as contributors to and shapers of public discourse via their live performances, podcasts, social media presence, and political activism. Each chapter highlights a stand-up comedian and their ongoing discussion of a cultural issue or expression of a political ideology/standpoint: Lisa Lampanelli's use of problematic postracial humor, Aziz Ansari's merging of sociology and technology, or Maria Bamford's emphasis on mental health, to name just a few. Taking a Stand offers a starting point for understanding the work stand-up comedians do as well as its reach beyond the stage"
A man falls in love with America and leaves his wife and children for love and adventure with American Sam.
"The book presents a systematic method of interpreting Shakespeare film adaptations based on their cinematic genres. Its approach is both scholarly and reader-friendly, and its subject is fundamentally interdisciplinary, combining the findings of Shakespeare scholarship with film and media studies, particularly genre theory. The book is organised into six large chapters, discussing films that form broad generic groups. Part I looks at three genres from the classical Hollywood era (western, melodrama and gangster-noir), while Part II deals with three contemporary blockbuster genres (teen film, undead horror and biopic). Beside a few better-known examples of mainstream cinema, the volume also highlights the Shakespearean elements in several nearly forgotten films, bringing them back to critical attention"
"Despite its global popularity, rap has received little scholarly attention in terms of its poetic features, perhaps because rap is so demonstrative and powerful, or because poetry scholars have been slow to recognize rap's poetic worth, or uncertainty about its legitimacy as a form of poetry. Rhymes in the Flow systematically analyzes the poetics (rap beats, rhythms, rhymes, verse and song structures) of some 6,000 lines of rap lyrics to provide new insights on rap artistry and performance. While most scholarship on rap has focused on its historical and cultural dimensions, Rhymes in the Flow traces rap's deepest roots and stylistic evolution-from Anglo-Saxon poetry to Lil Wayne-and contextualizes its complex poetics. The book is a collaboration between two rap poetry aficionados separated in age by fifty years. Poetry professor Macklin Smith and Aurko Joshi discovered at the University of Michigan their shared passion for the sounds and beats of hip hop and have been collaborating ever since. Through their efforts, Rhymes in the Flow shows how rap, at times disparaged as an art form, is in fact a more complex and complicated, versatile and nuanced genre than has been previously appreciated"
"With an ageing, childless monarch, lingering divisions due to the Reformation, and the threat of foreign enemies, Shakespeare's England was fraught with unparalleled anxiety and complicated problems. In this monumental work, Peter Lake reveals, more than any previous critic, the extent to which Shakespeare's plays speak to the depth and sophistication of Elizabethan political culture and the Elizabethan imagination. Lake reveals the complex ways in which Shakespeare's major plays engaged with the events of his day, particularly regarding the uncertain royal succession, theological and doctrinal debates, and virtue and virtù in politics. Through his plays, Lake demonstrates, Shakespeare was boldly in conversation with his audience about a range of contemporary issues. This remarkable literary and historical analysis pulls the curtain back on what Shakespeare was really telling his audience and what his plays tell us today about the times in which they were written"
"The title of William Shakespeare's As You Like It holds a double meaning that teasingly suggests the play can please all tastes. But is that possible? With his subversive updating of the Bard's classic, Indigenous creator and cultural provocateur Cliff Cardinal seeks to find out. The show exults in bawdy humour, difficult subject matter, and raw emotion; Cardinal is not one to hold back when it comes to challenging delicate sensibilities"
This 4 volume collection of primary sources examines literary and cultural criticism over the long 19th century. This volumes explore the subjects of life-writing, drama criticism, the periodical press, and criticism written by women. This collection will be of great interest to students of literary history
This electronic version has been made available under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-ND) open access license. This book is about science in theatre and performance. It explores how theatre and performance engage with emerging scientific themes from artificial intelligence to genetics and climate change. The book covers a wide range of performance forms from Broadway musicals to educational theatre, from Somali drama to grime videos. It features work by pioneering companies including Gob Squad, Headlong Theatre and Theatre of Debate as well as offering fresh analysis of global blockbusters such as Wicked and Urinetown. The book offers detailed description and analysis of theatre and performance practices as well as broader commentary on the politics of theatre as public engagement with science. Science in performance is essential reading for researchers, students and practitioners working between science and the arts within fields such as theatre and performance studies, science communication, interdisciplinary arts and health humanities.
"It's 1623. Shakespeare's editors John Heminges and Henry Condell have finally finished assembling the Bard's Complete Works. But what to do with the surplus materials? Especially the unused women's speeches? Shakespeare's Other Women puts a spotlight on the women in Shakespeare who deserved to have more stage time, or even plays of their own. Featuring a large cast of women who inhabit dozens of strong female characters drawn from Shakespeare, history, and mythology, Scott Kaiser's newest play offers 36 terrific new speeches that Shakespeare might have written for women, but didn't"
"When she was fifteen years old, Heidi Schreck started traveling the country, taking part in constitutional debates to earn money for her college tuition. Decades later, in ... [this play], she traces the effect that the Constitution has had on four generations of women in her family, deftly examining how the United States' founding principles are inextricably linked with our personal lives
"Drawing on interview material from more than 20 leading stage managers from the UK, USA and Australia this book situates the contemporary practice of stage management within its historical and social contexts. Questioning the notions of the invisible stage manager and a linear production process, it argues for a broader conception of stage management lying at the intersections of administration, management and artistry. It places stage management practice within, and introduces its practitioners to, key theories of fields as diverse as performance studies, semiotics, phenomenology, distributed cognition, management and scenography, and demonstrates how stage managers embed these in their practice"
"Where Women Go is a series of three short one-acts for a diverse cast of women of various ages. Tina Howe’s eccentric plays explore the humor and absurdity of women's daily lives as they visit the dermatologist, eat at Subway and go shopping. To the Dermatologist (7f, 1m voice, Comedy) -- It’s 2021 at Your Reflections Dermatology office, and Zilla learns that the growth on her legs is lichen planus, a type of algae that develops into something more akin to spices and vegetables. One year later, the dermatology office, now transformed into 'Spicy Zilla’s Café,' is selling Zilla’s leg spices by the bottle. To the Dermatologist explores the relationship between patients, their partners, health care staff and diagnosis. To Subway (5f, Comedy) -- Hannah, a regular at her local Subway sandwich shop, brings her reluctant friend Clara to Subway for the first time. Eager employees Pudding and Sal greet them enthusiastically, but things go awry when actress Alida Valli enters, playing the zither. Finally, Clara settles on her order: a combo of Black Forest eel, rotisserie-style canary and raw eagle legs with a sprinkling of mule ears on the side. Shopping (8f, 2m, Comedy) -- At Ed Singh's clothing stand on the Upper West Side in 2022 at the height of the COVID pandemic, seven women shop and fight over gloves, earmuffs and other winter wear. Suddenly, a man crashes into the shop wearing a parachute, and everyone finds themselves in heaven"
"Dance on the American Musical Theatre Stage: A History chronicles the development of dance, with an emphasis on musicals and the Broadway stage, in the United States from its colonial beginnings to performances of the present day. This book explores the fascinating tug-and-pull between the European classical, folk and social dance imports and America's indigenous dance forms as they met and collided on the popular musical theatre stage. The historical background influenced a specific musical theatre movement vocabulary and a unique choreographic approach that is recognizable today as Broadway style dancing. Throughout the book, a cultural context is woven into the history to reveal how the competing values within American culture, and its attempts as a nation to define and redefine itself, played out through developments in dance on the musical theatre stage. This book is central to the conversation on how dance influences and reflects society, and will be of interest to students and scholars of Musical Theatre, Theatre Studies, Dance and Cultural History"
"The making of Belfast's first all-female football team.This is the untold story of the Belfast women who stepped onto a pitch in society-shocking shorts and footie boots, a ball at their feet and a point to prove. They were the suffragettes of soccer. Rebels with a ball, who kept kicking their way through the outraged defence of a male-dominated game to raise thousands for those returning from war. Set in Belfast 1917-1921 in a city divided by war but still united by sport, the play chronicles the courage and determination of those girls.This original Belfast story based on true events will resonate with the history of the city and chime with the recent equality movements across the sports industry and the cultural sector. This ambitious, large-scale play features an impressive eleven strong female ensemble with live music creating the heartbeat of the city at the time"
"A vibrant collection of short plays bringing Irish history and culture alive through an extraordinary collage of documents, songs, poems, and texts In Nine Irish Plays for Voices award-winning poet Eamon Grennan delves deep into key Irish subjects-big, small, literary, historical, political, biographical-and illuminates them for today's audiences and readers. These short plays draw from original material centering on important moments in Irish history and the formation of the Irish Republic, such as the Great Famine and the Easter Rising; the lives of Irish literary figures like Yeats, Joyce, and Lady Gregory; and the crucial and life-changing condition of emigration. The rhythmic, musical, and vivid language of Grennan's plays incorporates traditional song lyrics, lines of Irish poetry, and letters and speeches of the time. The result is a dramatic collage that tells a story through the voices of characters contemporary to the period of the play's subject. By presenting subjects through the dramatic rendering of the human voice, the plays facilitate a close, intimate relationship between players and the audience, creating an incredibly powerful connection to the past. Historical moments and literary figures that might seem remote to the present-day reader or audience become immediate and emotionally compelling. One of the plays, Ferry, is drawn entirely from the author's imagination. It puts unnamed characters who come from the world of twentieth century Ireland on a boat to the underworld with the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. On their journey the five strangers, played by two voices, tell stories about their lives, raising the question of how language both captures and transforms lived experience. Addressing the Great Famine, Hunger uses documentary evidence to give audiences a dramatic feel for what has been a silent and traumatic element in Irish history. NORAMOLLYANNALIVIALUCIA: The Muse and Mr. Joyce is a one-woman piece that depicts James Joyce's wife as an older woman sharing her memories and snippets from the works of her husband. Also included in this rich volume is the author's adaptation of Synge's Aran Islands, as well as Emigration Road, History! Reading the Easter Rising, The Muse and Mr. Yeats, The Loves of Lady Gregory, and Peig: An Ordinary Life"
"This book explores musicalizations of Arthurian legend as filtered through specific versions of the tale as told by Mark Twain, T.H. White, and Monty Python. For centuries, Arthurian legend with its tales of Camelot, romance, and chivalry has captured imaginations throughout Europe and the Americas. In the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, musical versions of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table have abounded in the United States, shaping the legend for American audiences through song. The ever-shifting, age-old tale of King Arthur and his world is one which thrives on adaptation for its survival. New generations tell the story in their own ways, updating or enhancing the relevance for a fresh audience. Taking a case study approach, this work foregrounds the role of music in selected Arthurian adaptations, examining six stage and film musicals. It considers how musical versions in twentieth and twenty-first century popular culture interpret the legend of King Arthur, contending that music guides the audience to understand this well-known tale and its characters in new and unexpected ways. All of the productions considered include an overtly modern perspective on the legend, intruding and even commenting on the tale of King Arthur. Shifting from an idealistic utopia to a silly place, the myriad notions of Camelot offer a look at the importance of myth in American popular culture"
"In the early 1900s, three small-town midwestern playwrights helped shepherd American theatre into the modern era. Together, they created the renowned Provincetown Players collective, which not only launched many careers but also had the power to affect US social, cultural, and political beliefs. The philosophical and political orientations of Floyd Dell, George Cram Cook, and Susan Glaspell generated a theatre practice marked by experimentalism, collaboration, leftist cultural critique, rebellion, liberation, and community engagement. In Three Midwestern Playwrights, Marcia Noe situates the origin of the Provincetown aesthetic in Davenport, Iowa, a Mississippi River town. All three playwrights recognized that radical politics sometimes begat radical chic, and several of their plays satirize the faddish elements of the progressive political, social, and cultural movements they were active in. Three Midwestern Playwrights brings the players to life and deftly illustrates how Dell, Cook, and Glaspell joined early 20th-century midwestern radicalism with East Coast avant-garde drama, resulting in a fresh and energetic contribution to American theatre"
"This engaging book introduces the burgeoning and interdisciplinary field of cultural performance, offering ethnographic approaches to performance as well as looking at the aesthetics of experience and performance theory. Featuring case studies from a rich cross-section of academics, chapters explore performances from regions as far flung as Bhutan, Ethiopia, Ghana, Indonesia, Ireland, New Zealand and the USA. With cultural performances as varied as Catholic rituals, Maori ceremonies, Monster Truck rallies, musicals, theatre and singing performances, this fascinating text compares performance as art and performance as cultural expression. Ideal for students of performance or ethnography, this unique collection presents a clear framework for studying the themes, methodologies and developments of cultural performance"
"Nearly all accounts of American theater history for two centuries have focused, justifiably, on the landmark names, productions, and theaters of New York, Boston, and Philadelphia. As a result, the history of theater on the American frontier consists mainly of regional studies with only a limited scope. Moreover, many scholars of frontier theater have relied on the recollections of actor-managers Noah Ludlow and Sol Smith, the former muddled in his chronology and disdainful of his competitors, and the latter more interested in relating humorous anecdotes than factual accounts. Thomas A. Bogar's Theater on the American Frontier provides an overdue, comprehensive, balanced treatment of the accomplishments of figures in the transmontane West, most of whom migrated there from careers of mixed success in the East. From its origins at the close of the 1700s in Pittsburgh, New Orleans, and Louisville, frontier theater grew by the close of the 1800s to encompass more than a dozen centers of vibrant theatrical activity, including Cincinnati, St. Louis, Natchez, Lexington, Nashville, Mobile, San Francisco, Sacramento, Detroit, and Chicago. In addition to Ludlow and Smith, Bogar explains the formidable accomplishments of Luke Usher and his nephew Noble Luke Usher, James Douglass, William and Sophia Turner, the Samuel Drake family, notably Fanny Denny Drake, Joshua Collins and William Jones, James Caldwell, and Sarah Kirby Stark. Their audiences -- mainly pioneers struggling with the hardships of establishing a life in the backcountry -- enjoyed the comedies of George Colman the Younger and John O'Keeffe, thrilling melodramas, and even the tragedies of William Shakespeare. Enacting leads in these were daring actors who ventured into this challenging and unfamiliar territory, including Thomas Abthorpe Cooper, Junius Brutus Booth, and the young Edwin Forrest and Edwin Booth. Bogar's study is a history of professional drama in the American hinterlands and life on the nation's early frontier. It is certain to be of interest to historians and general readers interested in the origins and development of American theater"
Seventeenth- and eighteenth-century French theatrical works created an uneasy dialogue with the often-blistering depictions of marriage in contemporary writings by literary women. For over a century, composers and librettists attempted to silence such anti-traditionalist views through dramas that ridicule, banish, or, even more violently, silence and subjugate female characters who resist marriage. These dramas portray independent-minded women as agents ofchaos who deploy their sexuality to destabilize class demarcations, or to destroy families and at times the monarchy itself. Coquettes, Wives, and Widows: Gender Politics in French Baroque Opera and Theater shows how dramatists wrested narratives away from women and weaponized those narratives in a defense of the status quo. It examines a wide range of works of different types: from Jean-Philippe Rameau's Platée, ou Junon jalouse and André Campra's Aréthuse, ou la Vengeance de l'Amour to representative works from the Comédie Française, the Comédie Italienne, and the fairgound theaters. Each theater offered denigrating portraits of independent womenas dissolute, obstinate, and extremist. The operas and other theatrical works explored in Coquettes, Wives, and Widows reveal who (in the view of many at the time) should exercise authority to make choices aboutwomen's lives. They also give evidence of widespread fears about how society might change if it were to grant women themselves that responsibility"
"From the composers who pounded the pavement selling their music in Tin Pan Alley at the turn of the twentieth century; to the lyricists who broke new ground writing shows during the Great Depression; to the book writers who penned protest musicals fighting for social justice during the 1970s; to those who are revitalizing the landscape of American theatre today, Women Writing Musicals: The Legacy that the History Books Left Out is the first-ever book to tell the story of over 300 inspiring women who wrote Broadway and Off-Broadway musicals. Author Jennifer Ashley Tepper offers here the definitive book on this topic, covering prolific and celebrated Broadway writers like Betty Comden and Jeanine Tesori, women who have written musicals but gained fame elsewhere like Dolly Parton and Sara Bareilles, and dramatists you've never heard of -- but definitely should have. Among the gems shared here are the stories of Clara Driscoll, who saved the Alamo and also wrote a Broadway musical; Micki Grant, whose mega-hit musical about the Black experience made her the first woman to write book, music, and lyrics for a Broadway show; Ma̕ra Grever, who made her Broadway debut at age 56 and who was the first Mexican female composer to achieve international success; and the first all-female writing team for a Broadway musical, in 1922: Annelu Burns, Anna Wynne O'Ryan, Madelyn Sheppard, and Helen S. Woodruff. This treasure trove of tales about women who wrote musicals will make you look at theatre in a whole new way"
"This is the first book to examine how the concept and disagreements around 'post-truth' have been explored in the world of theater and performance. This ranges from the plays of Caryl Churchill, Anne Washburn, and David Henry Hwang, to the inherent theatricality of press conferences, interviews and protests that embrace the confusion created by 'post-truth' to muddy issues and deflect blame, to theatrical performance, where the nature of truth is challenged through staged visuals which run counter to what the audience hears, provoking a debate about where the truth actually lies. With contributions by scholars from around the world, Theater in a Post-Truth World considers a wide array of examples from American and British drama and politics, Australian theater, and the work of performance artist Marina Abramovic. Together these provide a glimpse into how the theater in its many forms provides a venue to raise critical awareness and encourage critical thinking about the ubiquity of 'post-truth'"
"Artemisia Gentileschi was one of the most celebrated female painters of the seventeenth century, yet her name was all but lost for centuries. Assaulted and publicly shamed at just seventeen, Gentileschi lived her life on her own terms as an artist, a mother, and a lover. Artemisia was a modern woman before her time; Artemisia is a play that celebrates her artistry, courage, and humanity"
"Explores consent as a principle to guide practices and policies in university level performing arts education. Describes structural power dynamics present in educational spaces and tools for defusing them. Adapts the protocols foundational to intimacy training to apply to classroom and rehearsal spaces across performing arts. This includes opening lines of communication, actively discussing personal boundaries and modeling behavior that respects those boundaries. Additionally, the book uses experiential reflections to address the real-world challenges that teachers face as they work to reshape their teaching habits and processes to include consent practices"
"As the half-blood son of a Greek god, Percy Jackson has newly-discovered powers he can't control, a destiny he doesn't want, and a mythology textbook's worth of monsters on his trail. When Zeus's master lightning bolt is stolen and Percy becomes the prime suspect, he has to find and return the bolt to prove his innocence and prevent a war between the gods. But to succeed on his quest, Percy will have to do more than catch the thief. He must travel to the Underworld and back; solve the riddle of the Oracle, which warns him of betrayal by a friend; and come to terms with the father who abandoned him"
"A Primer on Theatre and Aesthetics explores the philosophy of arts from the Ancient Greeks to our contemporary world. What began as a debate in a monoculture eventually mushroomed into a vision for aesthetic diversity and inclusion as declarative statements receded in importance and subjective perceptions became fundamental. Studies in aesthetics often focus on music or the visual arts whereas this volume explores the nexus between philosophical perspectives and theatre. The purpose for theatre is wholeness (catharsis) and philosophy is the guide for that analysis"
"2020 was a year in which global politics radically shifted, catalyzed by the Covid-19 pandemic and the #BlackLivesMatter movement. This book is a response to that year, asking was it a moment or is it a movement and what fundamental changes within the arts industry need to come out of this time? The book includes 20 interviews with some of the most pioneering black cultural leaders from a wide range of senior executive positions in the arts within the UK, US and Africa. It documents the sea of change in arts leadership post the height of the#Blacklivesmatter movement, the pressure on organisations to confront and change their racial and ethnic make-up, and shines a light on the guiding ambitions, strategic plans and visions for the future to support the ongoing decolonization of arts organisations across the world. Learn from those who have walked the walk to support your vision for the future"
Commemorating over 75 years of Broadway greatness with never-before told stories, rare photos from the American Theatre Wings' archives, and interviews with major honorees like Lin-Manuel Miranda, Patti LuPone, and Hugh Jackman, The Tony Awards is the official, authorized guide to Broadway's biggest night. The Tony Awards: A Celebration of Excellence in Theatre pays tribute to the magic that happens when the curtain goes up and Broadway's best and brightest step onto center stage. Supported by the American Theatre Wing, the arts organization that founded the Tony Awards in 1947 and continues to produce the Tony Awards live telecast each year, author Eila Mell has interviewed a cavalcade of past and present Tony winners, including actors, producers, writers, costume designers, and many many others. Their voices fill the pages of this book with fascinating, behind-the-scenes stories about what it's like to win the theatre world's highest honor"
"Luis Valdez studies the life and work of this Chicano playwright, director, performer, and producer along with the implications of his legacy for Chicana/o/x communities and for all who engage with his work. Valdez's work broadened the scope of theatre and arts in the Chicano community and his formation of El Teatro Campesino brought together students and farmworkers. This volume highlights his professional work and writings. It offers a unique investigation of Luis Valdez, his life, his oeuvre and his contributions to the theatre in the United States and beyond. This book combines: an in-depth biographical overview of Valdez's life and career, focusing on defining experiences that set his trajectory into motion; an exploration of Valdez's key writings -- the 1973 epic poem Pensamiento Serpentino and the unpublished lecture The Power of Zero which articulate his philosophy of the Theatre of the Sphere; a stylistic analysis of his key works, including Soldado Razo and Zoot Suit as well as their critical reception; a selection of improvisation and dance-based warm-ups, embodiment exercises, and an acto writing practicum adapted to experiment with Valdez's works. As a first step towards critical understanding, and as an initial exploration before going on to further, primary research, Routledge Performance Practitioners offer unbeatable value for today's students"
"Published alongside The Japan Foundation, this collection features five creative and bold plays by some of Japan's most prolific writers of contemporary theatre. Translated into English for the first time, these texts explore a wide range of themes from dystopian ideas of the future to touching domestic tragedies. Brought together in one volume, introduced by the authors and The Japan Foundation, this collection offers English language readers an unprecedented look at some of Japan's finest works of contemporary drama by writers from across the country"
"Fifty Key Figures in Latin American and Latinx Theatre is a critical introduction to the most influential and innovative theatre practitioners in the Americas, all of whom have been pioneers in changing the field. The chosen artists bridge political, racial, gender, class, and geographical divides that have traditionally restricted and misrepresented our understanding of Latin American and Latinx theatre while at the same time offering a space to discuss contested nationalities and histories. Each entry considers the artist's or collective's body of work in its historical, cultural, and political context and provides a brief biography and suggestions for further reading. Covering artists from the present day to the 1960s - the emergence of a modern theatre that was concerned with LatinX and Latin American themes rather than mirroring a European approach. A deep and enriching resource for the classroom and individual study, this is the first book that any student of LatinX and Latin American theatre should read"-
"The Routledge Companion to Theatre and Performance Historiography sets the agenda for inclusive and wide-ranging approaches to writing history, embracing the diverse perspectives of the twenty-first century and Critical Media History. Written by an international team of authors whose expertise spans a multitude of historical periods and cultures, this collection of fascinating essays poses the central question: 'what is specific to the historiography of the performative?' The study of theatre, in conjunction with the wider sphere of performance, involves an array of multi-faceted methods for collecting evidence, interpreting sources and creating meaning. Reflecting on issues of recording - from early modern musical scores, through VHS-technology to latest digital procedures - and on what is missing from records or oblique in practices, the contributors convey how theatre and performance history is integral to social and cultural relations. This expertly curated collection repositions theatre and performance history and is essential reading for Theatre and Performance Studies students or those interested in social and cultural history more generally"
"This book is a brief history of the end of the world as seen through the eyes of theatre. It examines a wide range of plays, from Euripides and Bhasa, to medieval mystery cycles, through Shakespeare, Pushkin, Ibsen, Chekhov, Brecht, and Samuel Beckett, to Caryl Churchill's Far Away, Tony Kushner's Slavs!, and Anne Washburn's Mr. Burns, A Post-Electric Play. Through analyzing these alongside contemporary thinkers, this study helps guide and galvanize the reader in grappling with the climate crisis. Kulick divides this litany of theatrical cataclysms into four distinct historical phases: the Ancients, including Euripides and Bhasa, the legendary Sanskrit dramatist; the Age of Belief, with the anonymous authors of the medieval mystery cycles, Shakespeare, and Pushkin; the Moderns, with Ibsen, Chekhov, Brecht, Beckett, and Bond; and, finally, the way the world might end now, encompassing Caryl Churchill, Tony Kushner, and Anne Washburn. In tandem with the insights gleaned from these playwrights, the book draws upon the work of contemporary scientists, ecologists, and ethicists to further tease out the philosophical implications of such plays and their relevance to our own troubled times. In the end, Kulick shows how each of these ages and their respective authors have something essential to say, not only about humanity's potential end, but, more importantly, about the possibility for our collective continuance"
"The first anthology of youth plays from Gaza and the wider Palestinian region, this timely collection ties together nineteen plays produced by Theatre Day Productions, one of the foremost community theatres in the Middle East. Written by playwright Jackie Lubeck, this collection responds to the siege on Gaza and the Israeli military operations from 2009 to 2014, reflecting how Gazan youth deal with trauma, loss and urban destruction. In the nineteen plays within this anthology, the reader and theatrical producer witnesses experiences of a forgotten youth, besieged by a silent international community and a brutal wall. The plays are arranged into five different thematic series, which include family entanglements, loss and the fundamental goodness and resourcefulness of human beings"
William Shakespeare is widely regarded as one of the greatest writers of the Western world and most certainly its greatest playwright. His actual relationship to Western civilization has not, however, been thoroughly investigated. At a time when that civilization, as well as its premier dramatist, is subjected to severe and increasing criticism for both its supposed crimes against the rest of the world and its fundamental principles, a reassessment of the culture of the West is overdue. Shakespeare and the Idea of Western Civilization offers an unprecedented account of how the playwright draws upon his civilization's unique culture and illuminates its basic features. Rather than a treatment of all the works, R.V. Young focuses on how some of Shakespeare's best and most well-known plays dramatize the West's conception of social institutions and historical developments such as love and marriage, ethnic and racial prejudice, political order, colonialism, and religion. Shakespeare and the Idea of Western Civilization provides a spirited defense of the West and its greatest poet at a time when both are the object of virulent academic and political hostility.
"Reclaiming Greek Drama for Diverse Communities features the work of Native-American, African-American, Asian-American, Latinx, and LGBTQ theatre artists who engage with social justice issues in seven adaptations of Sophocles' Antigone, Euripides' Trojan Women, Hippolytus, Bacchae, Alcestis, and Aristophanes' Frogs, as well as a work inspired by the myth of the Fates. Performed between 1989 and 2017 in small theatres across the US, these works raise awareness about the trafficking of Native American women, marriage equality, gender justice, women's empowerment, the social stigma surrounding HIV, immigration policy, and the plight of undocumented workers. The accompanying interviews provide a fascinating insight into the plays, the artists' inspiration for them, and the importance of studying classics in the college classroom. Readers will benefit from an introduction that lays out practical ways to teach the adaptations, ideas for assignments, and the contextualization of the works within the history of classical reception. Serving as a key resource on incorporating diversity into the teaching of canonical texts for Classics, English, Drama and Theatre Studies students, this anthology is the first to present the work of a range of contemporary theatre artists who utilise ancient Greek source material to explore social, political, and economic issues affecting a variety of underrepresented communities in the US"
"In this richly illustrated and information-packed celebration of Broadway set design, Tony Award-winning designer Derek McLane explores the craft while reflecting on some of the greatest stage productions of the past few decades. Together with other leading set design and theatre talents, McLane invites us into the immersive and exhilarating experience of building the striking visual worlds that have brought so many of our favorite stories to life. Discover how designers generate innovative ideas, research period and place, solve staging challenges, and collaborate with directors, projectionists, costume designers, and other artists to capture the essence of a show in powerful scenic design. With co-writer Eila Mell, McLane and contributors discuss Moulin Rouge!, Hamilton, Hadestown, Beautiful, and many more of the most iconic productions of our generation. Among the Broadway luminaries who contribute are John Lee Beatty, Danny Burstein, Cameron Crowe, Ethan Hawke, Moisés Kaufman, Carole King, Kenny Leon, Santo Loquasto, Kathleen Marshall, Lynn Nottage, David Rabe, Ruben Santiago-Hudson, Wallace Shawn, John Leguizamo, and Robin Wagner. Filled with personal sketches and photographs fromthe artists' archives, this stunningly designed book is truly a behind-the-scenes journey that theatre fans will love"
"Shakespeare is at the heart of the British theatrical tradition, but the contribution of Ira Aldridge and the Shakespearean performers of African, Afro-Caribbean and Asian heritage who came after him is not widely known. Telling the story for the first time of how Shakespearean theatre was integrated from the 1960s to the twenty-first century, this is a timely and important account of that contribution. Drawing extensively on empirical evidence from the British Black and Asian Shakespeare Performance Database and featuring interviews with many performers, the book chronicles important productions that led to ground-breaking castings of Black and Asian actors in substantial Shakespearean roles including: Zakes Mokae (Cry Freedom) as one of three Black Witches in William Gaskill's production of Macbeth, Royal Court Theatre, London, 1966; Norman Beaton as Angelo in Michael Rudman's 1981 Measure for Measure at the National Theatre, the first majority Black Shakespearean cast at the National Theatre; [and] Adrian Lester as Henry V in Nicholas Hytner's 2003 production. Detailing the earliest recorded castings of Black and Asian performers in Shakespeare's roles, this illuminating account illustrates the various ways in which Black and Asian actors have been integrated into contemporary Shakespearean productions. With first-hand accounts from key performers including Joseph Marcell, Adrian Lester, Noma Dumezweni, Rakie Ayola, Ray Fearon, Paterson Joseph, Lucian Msamati and many more, this book is an invaluable history of black and Asian Shakespeareans that highlights the gains these actors have made and the challenges still faced in pursuing a career in classical theatre"
"Presented here are two witty and perceptive dramas which are sympathetic and honest explorations of the conflict between the individualism of Western culture and the social traditions of Africa. In Dilemma of a Ghost (1965), Ato returns to Ghana from his studies in North America with a sophisticated black American wife. But their hopes of a happy marriage and of combining the sweetness and loveliest things in Africa and America are soon shown to have been built on an unstable foundation. In Anowa (1970), her second play, Ama Ata Aidoo borrows heavily from the heritage of oral literature for the structure, the language, the themes and the characters of the play. Set in the late 1800s it describes some of the earlier encounters of African societies with Western traders. Aidoo portrays a crucial historical moment in Ghanaian history through the personal tragedy of Anowa and Kofi Ako"
"How does the world of theatre and the performing arts intersect with the climate and environmental crisis? This timely book is the first comprehensive account of the sector's response to the defining issue of our time. The book documents a sector in transition and presents theatre professionals, practitioners and organizations with a synthesis of information, knowledge and expertise to guide them to their own endorsement of sustainable thinking and practice. It is illustrated with inspiring case studies and interviews, from London's National Theatre, to Sydney Theatre Company, to the G̲teborg Opera and the American Repertory Theatre. These foreground the work of pioneering institutions and individual practitioners whose artistic ingenuity, creative activism and sense of public mission have given shape, content and purpose to what we can now call 'sustainable theatre'. Spanning almost three decades, the book approaches the topic from multiple angles and through an international perspective, recording how climate and environmental concerns have been expressed in cultural policy, arts leadership and organizational ethics; in the greening of infrastructure and daily operations; in the individual and institutional practice of sustainable theatre-making; in performing arts education; and in touring practices and international collaboration. It investigates, too, how the climate crisis influences theatre as a story-teller - on stage and beyond. Written by a leading expert in the field of culture and environmental sustainability and distilling many years of research and hands-on experience, Sustainable Theatre: Theory, Context, Practice is intended to be relevant and useful to professionals involved in the theatre and performing arts sector in many different capacities: from policy-makers, arts leaders and managers to administrators, technicians, artists, scholars and educators"
"Featuring contributions from over eighty cast members, creatives, crew and audience members, Out for Blood pieces together the surprising, hilarious and often moving inside story of Carrie: The Musical to discover how this 'horror of a Broadway musical' lived, died and was subsequently resurrected as a mainstream succcess story. In 1988, following the success of its production of Les Miserables and in the wake of the commercial success of mega-musicals such as Cats, The Phantom of the Opera and Chess, the Royal Shakespeare Company agreed to co-produce a musical based on Stephen King's Carrie, written by the team behind Fame. The result was one of Broadway's most infamous disasters. Plagued by technical problems, on-stage chaos and a critical savaging, Carrie would soon become the by-word for musical theatreflops. But thanks to the efforts of a vocal army of fans and the impact of bootleg trading and emerging online communities, the show reinvented itself as a mainstream success story with thousands of productions wordlwide. Bringing together memories, archival material and contemporary reports, Out for Blood dives into the origins and development of this infamous show and examines how a promising entertainment product can swiftly gain a notorious reputation, what makes or breaks a Broadway show, and how even the most unlikely of musicals can find its place in the hearts of fans around the world"
"Cracking Up archives and analyzes Black feminist stand-up comedy in the United States over the past sixty years. Looking closely at the work of Jackie Moms' Mabley, Mo'Nique, Wanda Sykes, Sasheer Zamata, Sam Jay, Phoebe Robinson, Jessica Williams, and Michelle Buteau, this book shows how Black feminist comedy and the laughter it ignites are vital components of feminist, queer, and anti-racist protest. Cracking Up frames theatre and live performance as an important platform from which to examine citizenship in the United States, articulate Black feminist political thought, and subvert structures of power. Author Katelyn Hale Wood interprets these artists not as tokens in their white/male dominated field, but as part of a continuous history of Black feminist performance and presence in the United States. Broadly, the book also champions comedic performance and theatre history as imperative contexts for advancing historical studies of race, gender, and sexuality. From the comedy routines popular on Black vaudeville circuits to stand-up on contemporary social media platforms, Cracking Up excavates an overlooked history of Black women who made the art of joke-telling a key part of radical performance and political engagement"
"No Harm Done contains the text of three short plays, each an exploration of some aspect of a disease. They are: Closer and Closer Apart, Alzheimer's Disease; Fade to Light, Stargardt, a form of blindness; and The Last Dance, Parkinson Disease. The first section of the book contains the plays themselves and Stickland's introductions to them, supplemented by commentaries by experts in the medical field. The second section is a guide to playwriting based on teachings the author has been engaged in for decades. This section also includes a how-to approach to writing a play for a specific cause or event. The book will be of interest not only to theatre practitioners and students of playwriting, but to students and professionals (doctors, caregivers, therapists, etc.) in the medical field as well"
"In this, the first book to focus on the original cast members of the classic Gilbert and Sullivan comic operas, world-renowned musical theater expert Kurt Gänzl provides a concise history of the writing and production of each opera, vividly colored by the often little-known life stories of these early performers. Meticulously researched and lavishly illustrated with rare photographs, Gilbert and Sullivan: The Players and the Plays delves into the professional and personal lives of the British and American actors and singers who created the celebrated "famous fourteen" Gilbert and Sullivan operas
"Stand-up comedians have a long history of walking a careful line between serious and playful engagement with social issues: Lenny Bruce questioned the symbolic valence of racial slurs, Dick Gregory took time away from the stage to speak alongside Martin Luther King Jr., and-more recently-Tig Notaro challenged popular notions of damaged or abject bodies. Taking a Stand: Contemporary US Stand-Up Comedians as Public Intellectuals draws together essays that contribute to the analysis of the stand-up-comedian-as-public intellectual since the 1980s. The chapters explore stand-up comedians as contributors to and shapers of public discourse via their live performances, podcasts, social media presence, and political activism. Each chapter highlights a stand-up comedian and their ongoing discussion of a cultural issue or expression of a political ideology/standpoint: Lisa Lampanelli's use of problematic postracial humor, Aziz Ansari's merging of sociology and technology, or Maria Bamford's emphasis on mental health, to name just a few. Taking a Stand offers a starting point for understanding the work stand-up comedians do as well as its reach beyond the stage"
A man falls in love with America and leaves his wife and children for love and adventure with American Sam.
"The book presents a systematic method of interpreting Shakespeare film adaptations based on their cinematic genres. Its approach is both scholarly and reader-friendly, and its subject is fundamentally interdisciplinary, combining the findings of Shakespeare scholarship with film and media studies, particularly genre theory. The book is organised into six large chapters, discussing films that form broad generic groups. Part I looks at three genres from the classical Hollywood era (western, melodrama and gangster-noir), while Part II deals with three contemporary blockbuster genres (teen film, undead horror and biopic). Beside a few better-known examples of mainstream cinema, the volume also highlights the Shakespearean elements in several nearly forgotten films, bringing them back to critical attention"
"Despite its global popularity, rap has received little scholarly attention in terms of its poetic features, perhaps because rap is so demonstrative and powerful, or because poetry scholars have been slow to recognize rap's poetic worth, or uncertainty about its legitimacy as a form of poetry. Rhymes in the Flow systematically analyzes the poetics (rap beats, rhythms, rhymes, verse and song structures) of some 6,000 lines of rap lyrics to provide new insights on rap artistry and performance. While most scholarship on rap has focused on its historical and cultural dimensions, Rhymes in the Flow traces rap's deepest roots and stylistic evolution-from Anglo-Saxon poetry to Lil Wayne-and contextualizes its complex poetics. The book is a collaboration between two rap poetry aficionados separated in age by fifty years. Poetry professor Macklin Smith and Aurko Joshi discovered at the University of Michigan their shared passion for the sounds and beats of hip hop and have been collaborating ever since. Through their efforts, Rhymes in the Flow shows how rap, at times disparaged as an art form, is in fact a more complex and complicated, versatile and nuanced genre than has been previously appreciated"
"With an ageing, childless monarch, lingering divisions due to the Reformation, and the threat of foreign enemies, Shakespeare's England was fraught with unparalleled anxiety and complicated problems. In this monumental work, Peter Lake reveals, more than any previous critic, the extent to which Shakespeare's plays speak to the depth and sophistication of Elizabethan political culture and the Elizabethan imagination. Lake reveals the complex ways in which Shakespeare's major plays engaged with the events of his day, particularly regarding the uncertain royal succession, theological and doctrinal debates, and virtue and virtù in politics. Through his plays, Lake demonstrates, Shakespeare was boldly in conversation with his audience about a range of contemporary issues. This remarkable literary and historical analysis pulls the curtain back on what Shakespeare was really telling his audience and what his plays tell us today about the times in which they were written"
"The title of William Shakespeare's As You Like It holds a double meaning that teasingly suggests the play can please all tastes. But is that possible? With his subversive updating of the Bard's classic, Indigenous creator and cultural provocateur Cliff Cardinal seeks to find out. The show exults in bawdy humour, difficult subject matter, and raw emotion; Cardinal is not one to hold back when it comes to challenging delicate sensibilities"
This 4 volume collection of primary sources examines literary and cultural criticism over the long 19th century. This volumes explore the subjects of life-writing, drama criticism, the periodical press, and criticism written by women. This collection will be of great interest to students of literary history
This electronic version has been made available under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-ND) open access license. This book is about science in theatre and performance. It explores how theatre and performance engage with emerging scientific themes from artificial intelligence to genetics and climate change. The book covers a wide range of performance forms from Broadway musicals to educational theatre, from Somali drama to grime videos. It features work by pioneering companies including Gob Squad, Headlong Theatre and Theatre of Debate as well as offering fresh analysis of global blockbusters such as Wicked and Urinetown. The book offers detailed description and analysis of theatre and performance practices as well as broader commentary on the politics of theatre as public engagement with science. Science in performance is essential reading for researchers, students and practitioners working between science and the arts within fields such as theatre and performance studies, science communication, interdisciplinary arts and health humanities.
"It's 1623. Shakespeare's editors John Heminges and Henry Condell have finally finished assembling the Bard's Complete Works. But what to do with the surplus materials? Especially the unused women's speeches? Shakespeare's Other Women puts a spotlight on the women in Shakespeare who deserved to have more stage time, or even plays of their own. Featuring a large cast of women who inhabit dozens of strong female characters drawn from Shakespeare, history, and mythology, Scott Kaiser's newest play offers 36 terrific new speeches that Shakespeare might have written for women, but didn't"
"When she was fifteen years old, Heidi Schreck started traveling the country, taking part in constitutional debates to earn money for her college tuition. Decades later, in ... [this play], she traces the effect that the Constitution has had on four generations of women in her family, deftly examining how the United States' founding principles are inextricably linked with our personal lives
"Drawing on interview material from more than 20 leading stage managers from the UK, USA and Australia this book situates the contemporary practice of stage management within its historical and social contexts. Questioning the notions of the invisible stage manager and a linear production process, it argues for a broader conception of stage management lying at the intersections of administration, management and artistry. It places stage management practice within, and introduces its practitioners to, key theories of fields as diverse as performance studies, semiotics, phenomenology, distributed cognition, management and scenography, and demonstrates how stage managers embed these in their practice"
"Where Women Go is a series of three short one-acts for a diverse cast of women of various ages. Tina Howe’s eccentric plays explore the humor and absurdity of women's daily lives as they visit the dermatologist, eat at Subway and go shopping. To the Dermatologist (7f, 1m voice, Comedy) -- It’s 2021 at Your Reflections Dermatology office, and Zilla learns that the growth on her legs is lichen planus, a type of algae that develops into something more akin to spices and vegetables. One year later, the dermatology office, now transformed into 'Spicy Zilla’s Café,' is selling Zilla’s leg spices by the bottle. To the Dermatologist explores the relationship between patients, their partners, health care staff and diagnosis. To Subway (5f, Comedy) -- Hannah, a regular at her local Subway sandwich shop, brings her reluctant friend Clara to Subway for the first time. Eager employees Pudding and Sal greet them enthusiastically, but things go awry when actress Alida Valli enters, playing the zither. Finally, Clara settles on her order: a combo of Black Forest eel, rotisserie-style canary and raw eagle legs with a sprinkling of mule ears on the side. Shopping (8f, 2m, Comedy) -- At Ed Singh's clothing stand on the Upper West Side in 2022 at the height of the COVID pandemic, seven women shop and fight over gloves, earmuffs and other winter wear. Suddenly, a man crashes into the shop wearing a parachute, and everyone finds themselves in heaven"
"Dance on the American Musical Theatre Stage: A History chronicles the development of dance, with an emphasis on musicals and the Broadway stage, in the United States from its colonial beginnings to performances of the present day. This book explores the fascinating tug-and-pull between the European classical, folk and social dance imports and America's indigenous dance forms as they met and collided on the popular musical theatre stage. The historical background influenced a specific musical theatre movement vocabulary and a unique choreographic approach that is recognizable today as Broadway style dancing. Throughout the book, a cultural context is woven into the history to reveal how the competing values within American culture, and its attempts as a nation to define and redefine itself, played out through developments in dance on the musical theatre stage. This book is central to the conversation on how dance influences and reflects society, and will be of interest to students and scholars of Musical Theatre, Theatre Studies, Dance and Cultural History"
"The making of Belfast's first all-female football team.This is the untold story of the Belfast women who stepped onto a pitch in society-shocking shorts and footie boots, a ball at their feet and a point to prove. They were the suffragettes of soccer. Rebels with a ball, who kept kicking their way through the outraged defence of a male-dominated game to raise thousands for those returning from war. Set in Belfast 1917-1921 in a city divided by war but still united by sport, the play chronicles the courage and determination of those girls.This original Belfast story based on true events will resonate with the history of the city and chime with the recent equality movements across the sports industry and the cultural sector. This ambitious, large-scale play features an impressive eleven strong female ensemble with live music creating the heartbeat of the city at the time"
"A vibrant collection of short plays bringing Irish history and culture alive through an extraordinary collage of documents, songs, poems, and texts In Nine Irish Plays for Voices award-winning poet Eamon Grennan delves deep into key Irish subjects-big, small, literary, historical, political, biographical-and illuminates them for today's audiences and readers. These short plays draw from original material centering on important moments in Irish history and the formation of the Irish Republic, such as the Great Famine and the Easter Rising; the lives of Irish literary figures like Yeats, Joyce, and Lady Gregory; and the crucial and life-changing condition of emigration. The rhythmic, musical, and vivid language of Grennan's plays incorporates traditional song lyrics, lines of Irish poetry, and letters and speeches of the time. The result is a dramatic collage that tells a story through the voices of characters contemporary to the period of the play's subject. By presenting subjects through the dramatic rendering of the human voice, the plays facilitate a close, intimate relationship between players and the audience, creating an incredibly powerful connection to the past. Historical moments and literary figures that might seem remote to the present-day reader or audience become immediate and emotionally compelling. One of the plays, Ferry, is drawn entirely from the author's imagination. It puts unnamed characters who come from the world of twentieth century Ireland on a boat to the underworld with the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. On their journey the five strangers, played by two voices, tell stories about their lives, raising the question of how language both captures and transforms lived experience. Addressing the Great Famine, Hunger uses documentary evidence to give audiences a dramatic feel for what has been a silent and traumatic element in Irish history. NORAMOLLYANNALIVIALUCIA: The Muse and Mr. Joyce is a one-woman piece that depicts James Joyce's wife as an older woman sharing her memories and snippets from the works of her husband. Also included in this rich volume is the author's adaptation of Synge's Aran Islands, as well as Emigration Road, History! Reading the Easter Rising, The Muse and Mr. Yeats, The Loves of Lady Gregory, and Peig: An Ordinary Life"
"This book explores musicalizations of Arthurian legend as filtered through specific versions of the tale as told by Mark Twain, T.H. White, and Monty Python. For centuries, Arthurian legend with its tales of Camelot, romance, and chivalry has captured imaginations throughout Europe and the Americas. In the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, musical versions of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table have abounded in the United States, shaping the legend for American audiences through song. The ever-shifting, age-old tale of King Arthur and his world is one which thrives on adaptation for its survival. New generations tell the story in their own ways, updating or enhancing the relevance for a fresh audience. Taking a case study approach, this work foregrounds the role of music in selected Arthurian adaptations, examining six stage and film musicals. It considers how musical versions in twentieth and twenty-first century popular culture interpret the legend of King Arthur, contending that music guides the audience to understand this well-known tale and its characters in new and unexpected ways. All of the productions considered include an overtly modern perspective on the legend, intruding and even commenting on the tale of King Arthur. Shifting from an idealistic utopia to a silly place, the myriad notions of Camelot offer a look at the importance of myth in American popular culture"
"In the early 1900s, three small-town midwestern playwrights helped shepherd American theatre into the modern era. Together, they created the renowned Provincetown Players collective, which not only launched many careers but also had the power to affect US social, cultural, and political beliefs. The philosophical and political orientations of Floyd Dell, George Cram Cook, and Susan Glaspell generated a theatre practice marked by experimentalism, collaboration, leftist cultural critique, rebellion, liberation, and community engagement. In Three Midwestern Playwrights, Marcia Noe situates the origin of the Provincetown aesthetic in Davenport, Iowa, a Mississippi River town. All three playwrights recognized that radical politics sometimes begat radical chic, and several of their plays satirize the faddish elements of the progressive political, social, and cultural movements they were active in. Three Midwestern Playwrights brings the players to life and deftly illustrates how Dell, Cook, and Glaspell joined early 20th-century midwestern radicalism with East Coast avant-garde drama, resulting in a fresh and energetic contribution to American theatre"
"This engaging book introduces the burgeoning and interdisciplinary field of cultural performance, offering ethnographic approaches to performance as well as looking at the aesthetics of experience and performance theory. Featuring case studies from a rich cross-section of academics, chapters explore performances from regions as far flung as Bhutan, Ethiopia, Ghana, Indonesia, Ireland, New Zealand and the USA. With cultural performances as varied as Catholic rituals, Maori ceremonies, Monster Truck rallies, musicals, theatre and singing performances, this fascinating text compares performance as art and performance as cultural expression. Ideal for students of performance or ethnography, this unique collection presents a clear framework for studying the themes, methodologies and developments of cultural performance"
"Nearly all accounts of American theater history for two centuries have focused, justifiably, on the landmark names, productions, and theaters of New York, Boston, and Philadelphia. As a result, the history of theater on the American frontier consists mainly of regional studies with only a limited scope. Moreover, many scholars of frontier theater have relied on the recollections of actor-managers Noah Ludlow and Sol Smith, the former muddled in his chronology and disdainful of his competitors, and the latter more interested in relating humorous anecdotes than factual accounts. Thomas A. Bogar's Theater on the American Frontier provides an overdue, comprehensive, balanced treatment of the accomplishments of figures in the transmontane West, most of whom migrated there from careers of mixed success in the East. From its origins at the close of the 1700s in Pittsburgh, New Orleans, and Louisville, frontier theater grew by the close of the 1800s to encompass more than a dozen centers of vibrant theatrical activity, including Cincinnati, St. Louis, Natchez, Lexington, Nashville, Mobile, San Francisco, Sacramento, Detroit, and Chicago. In addition to Ludlow and Smith, Bogar explains the formidable accomplishments of Luke Usher and his nephew Noble Luke Usher, James Douglass, William and Sophia Turner, the Samuel Drake family, notably Fanny Denny Drake, Joshua Collins and William Jones, James Caldwell, and Sarah Kirby Stark. Their audiences -- mainly pioneers struggling with the hardships of establishing a life in the backcountry -- enjoyed the comedies of George Colman the Younger and John O'Keeffe, thrilling melodramas, and even the tragedies of William Shakespeare. Enacting leads in these were daring actors who ventured into this challenging and unfamiliar territory, including Thomas Abthorpe Cooper, Junius Brutus Booth, and the young Edwin Forrest and Edwin Booth. Bogar's study is a history of professional drama in the American hinterlands and life on the nation's early frontier. It is certain to be of interest to historians and general readers interested in the origins and development of American theater"
Seventeenth- and eighteenth-century French theatrical works created an uneasy dialogue with the often-blistering depictions of marriage in contemporary writings by literary women. For over a century, composers and librettists attempted to silence such anti-traditionalist views through dramas that ridicule, banish, or, even more violently, silence and subjugate female characters who resist marriage. These dramas portray independent-minded women as agents ofchaos who deploy their sexuality to destabilize class demarcations, or to destroy families and at times the monarchy itself. Coquettes, Wives, and Widows: Gender Politics in French Baroque Opera and Theater shows how dramatists wrested narratives away from women and weaponized those narratives in a defense of the status quo. It examines a wide range of works of different types: from Jean-Philippe Rameau's Platée, ou Junon jalouse and André Campra's Aréthuse, ou la Vengeance de l'Amour to representative works from the Comédie Française, the Comédie Italienne, and the fairgound theaters. Each theater offered denigrating portraits of independent womenas dissolute, obstinate, and extremist. The operas and other theatrical works explored in Coquettes, Wives, and Widows reveal who (in the view of many at the time) should exercise authority to make choices aboutwomen's lives. They also give evidence of widespread fears about how society might change if it were to grant women themselves that responsibility"
"From the composers who pounded the pavement selling their music in Tin Pan Alley at the turn of the twentieth century; to the lyricists who broke new ground writing shows during the Great Depression; to the book writers who penned protest musicals fighting for social justice during the 1970s; to those who are revitalizing the landscape of American theatre today, Women Writing Musicals: The Legacy that the History Books Left Out is the first-ever book to tell the story of over 300 inspiring women who wrote Broadway and Off-Broadway musicals. Author Jennifer Ashley Tepper offers here the definitive book on this topic, covering prolific and celebrated Broadway writers like Betty Comden and Jeanine Tesori, women who have written musicals but gained fame elsewhere like Dolly Parton and Sara Bareilles, and dramatists you've never heard of -- but definitely should have. Among the gems shared here are the stories of Clara Driscoll, who saved the Alamo and also wrote a Broadway musical; Micki Grant, whose mega-hit musical about the Black experience made her the first woman to write book, music, and lyrics for a Broadway show; Ma̕ra Grever, who made her Broadway debut at age 56 and who was the first Mexican female composer to achieve international success; and the first all-female writing team for a Broadway musical, in 1922: Annelu Burns, Anna Wynne O'Ryan, Madelyn Sheppard, and Helen S. Woodruff. This treasure trove of tales about women who wrote musicals will make you look at theatre in a whole new way"
"This is the first book to examine how the concept and disagreements around 'post-truth' have been explored in the world of theater and performance. This ranges from the plays of Caryl Churchill, Anne Washburn, and David Henry Hwang, to the inherent theatricality of press conferences, interviews and protests that embrace the confusion created by 'post-truth' to muddy issues and deflect blame, to theatrical performance, where the nature of truth is challenged through staged visuals which run counter to what the audience hears, provoking a debate about where the truth actually lies. With contributions by scholars from around the world, Theater in a Post-Truth World considers a wide array of examples from American and British drama and politics, Australian theater, and the work of performance artist Marina Abramovic. Together these provide a glimpse into how the theater in its many forms provides a venue to raise critical awareness and encourage critical thinking about the ubiquity of 'post-truth'"
"Artemisia Gentileschi was one of the most celebrated female painters of the seventeenth century, yet her name was all but lost for centuries. Assaulted and publicly shamed at just seventeen, Gentileschi lived her life on her own terms as an artist, a mother, and a lover. Artemisia was a modern woman before her time; Artemisia is a play that celebrates her artistry, courage, and humanity"
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The Thornton Wilder Encyclopedia by Thomas S. Hischak
Encyclopedia of Hair: A Cultural History by Victoria Sherrow
The Complete Book of 2010s Broadway Musicals by Dan Dietz
The Arden research handbook of Shakespeare and textual studies by Lukas Erne (editor)
The Encyclopedia of LGBTQIA+ Portrayals in American Film by Erica Joan Dymond (Editor); Salvador Jiménez Murguía (Editor)
Historical Dictionary of African American Theater (2nd edition) by Anthony D. Hill
The A to Z of African American Theater (1st edition) by Anthony D. Hill; Douglas Q. Barnett
Play Index