It's 1850, and a marvellous international exhibition is being planned in Paris. The publicity agents claim that this exhibition will be so fascinating that a whale has swum all the way up the Seine to see it. Not likely? Well, Sylvie, from a small country village, decides to go and see for herself. Along the way, she tumbles through a series of crazy adventures, because everyone, but everyone , has some sort of interest in this exhibition. Especially a notorious gang of crooks that wants to steal one of the prize exhibits, the fabulous crown jewels of an Indian Raja. A lot of people end up looking for Sylvie : the gang, the cops, two fanatically comical detectives, and an assortment of larger-than-life characters. Also looking for Sylvie is her admirer, Emile, who flatly doesn't believe there is a whale, but has a very good reason to hope that there is one. Can the twinkle-eyed Captain Duval supply the necessary whale, all in the name of love? This material is free of any royalty obligation for use by schools and amateur dramatic groups. It may be produced on stage, used for play-reading, or simply read for fun.

Featuring conversations with theatre makers in the US and UK during the first 8 months of the Covid-19 lockdown, this collection reveals the innovations in digital theatre as artists, companies and theatres had to adjust to the restrictions and formulate new ways of working and reaching audiences. Besides documenting in their own words the work that was generated, this book captures the artists' dreams for a new post-Covid reality in which theatre is reimagined and issues of racial and economic injustice are addressed. With conversations grouped under 5 broad areas, a host of theatre makers candidly discuss the present and the future of theatre: * R/evolution: How should theatre evolve rather than re-set? What kind of field could this be, if the arts sector is to survive in the US and UK and if white supremacist, classist, ableist, and patriarchal structures are dismantled, and acts of regeneration and reformation occur? * What does theatre look like at the local and hyper-local level and when working with young people and communities at risk? * What are the challenges of creating work in the digital realm and/or exploring socially distanced performance in new ways? * How may theatre address social inequalities and be a place for acts of political and artistic resistance? How has the pandemic galvanised their commitments to communities, arts advocacy, use of languages on the stage and page, and considerations of the living archive? * Acts of communion with audiences, readers, fellow artists, students, and within ensembles and collectives. How do we find new ways to gather and make when liveness and the shared experience are challenged?

'This volume is a gem. Written by two experts in modern French theater, whose stated objective is to render the complexity of Genet's work exhilarating rather than intimidating, the book bears witness to the continued political relevance and artistic power of one of the most controversial and influential authors of the 20th century.' - CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title for 2012 Jean Genet's significance within twentieth-century theatre has long been understated. This timely book, the only introductory text in English to Genet's plays in production, presents an overview of an influential and controversial writer whose work prefigured many recent postmodern and post-colonial developments in theatre and performance studies. The volume offers philosophical, historical, political and aesthetic readings of Genet's plays in order to render the complexity of his theatre exhilarating, rather than intimidating. It goes on to explore ways in which different directors, designers and actors have approached his writing. A spectrum of productions spanning 60 years, from 1947 to 2007, illustrates the sheer range of theatrical styles that Genet's texts inspire. Reflecting on his early life and later political activism as well as the key plays, David Bradby and Clare Finburgh provide a comprehensive discussion of a playwright and theorist whose work caused riots in France, and whose writing represents a unique synthesis of life and art.

This book analyses the impact of HIV and AIDS on performance in the twenty-first century from an international perspective. It marks a necessary reaffirmation of the productive power of performance to respond to a public and political health crisis and act as a mode of resistance to cultural amnesia, discrimination and stigmatisation. It sets out a number of challenges and contexts for HIV and AIDS performance in the twenty-first century, including: the financial interests of the pharmaceutical industry; the unequal access to treatment and prevention technologies in the Global North and Global South; the problematic division between dominant (white, gay, urban, cis-male) and marginalised narratives of HIV; the tension between a damaging cultural amnesia and a potentially equally damaging partner 'AIDS nostalgia'; the criminalisation of HIV non-disclosure; and, sustaining and sustained by all of these, the ongoing stigmatisation of people living with HIV. This collection presents work from a vast range of contexts, grouped around four main areas: women's voices and experiences; generations, memories and temporalities; inter/national narratives; and artistic and personal reflections and interventions.

Sistershow Revisited uses the antics of a Bristol-based theatre group to tell the history of feminism in Bristol 1973-75. Based on the Heritage Lottery Funded exhibition of the same name, it contains colour photographs, archival material, original articles and commentary.

How is a Shakespearean play transformed when it is directed for the screen? In this 2004 book, Sarah Hatchuel uses literary criticism, narratology, performance history, psychoanalysis and semiotics to analyse how the plays are fundamentally altered in their screen versions. She identifies distinct strategies chosen by film directors to appropriate the plays. Instead of providing just play-by-play or film-by-film analyses, the book addresses the main issues of theatre/film aesthetics, making such theories and concepts accessible before applying them to practical cases. Her book also offers guidelines for the study of sequences in Shakespearean adaptations and includes examples from all the major films from the 1899 King John, through the adaptations by Olivier, Welles and Branagh, to Taymor's 2000 Titus and beyond. This book is aimed at scholars, teachers and students of Shakespeare and film studies, providing a clear and logical apparatus with which to examine Shakespearean screen adaptations.

THESEUS. Now, fair Hippolyta, our nuptial hour Draws on apace; four happy days bring in Another moon; but, O, methinks, how slow This old moon wanes! She lingers my desires, Like to a step-dame or a dowager, Long withering out a young man's revenue. HIPPOLYTA. Four days will quickly steep themselves in night; Four nights will quickly dream away the time; And then the moon, like to a silver bow New-bent in heaven, shall behold the night Of our solemnities.

This book is a journey into the dual territory of educational and theatrical settings. It advances the knowledge in these settings by touching upon provocative questions, by dealing with the limitations and challenging the new possibilities of theatre for young people. It is an attempt to bring intellectual rigor and some theoretical perspectives drawn from recent theatre and aesthetic theory to the field of theatre for young people.

Hyde Park (1632) is one of the best-loved comedies of James Shirley, considered to be one of the most important Caroline dramatists. The play showcases strong female characters who excel at rebuking the outlandish courtship of various suitors. Shirley's comic setting, London's Hyde Park, offers ample opportunity for witty dialogue and sport - including foot and horse races - across three love plots. This is the first critical edition of the play, including a wide-ranging introduction and extensive commentary and textual notes. Paying special attention to the culture of Caroline London and its stage, the Revels Plays edition unpicks Shirley's politics of courtship and consent while also underlining the play's dynamics of class and power. A detailed performance history traces productions from 1632, across the Restoration to the present day, including that of the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1987. A textual history of the play's first quarto determines how it was printed and what relationship Hyde Park has to other texts by Shirley from the same publishers. -- .

In this book Brian Crow and Chris Banfield provide an introduction to post-colonial theater by concentrating on the work of major dramatists from the third world and subordinated cultures in the first world. Crow and Banfield consider the plays of such writers as Wole Soyinka and Athol Fugard and his collaborators, Derek Walcott, August Wilson and Jack Davis, and Badal Sircar and Girish Karnad. Each chapter contains an informative list of primary source material and further reading about the dramatists. The book will be of interest to students and scholars of theater and cultural history.

On an April evening in 1934, on the River Arno in Florence, an air squadron, an infantry, a cavalry brigade, fifty trucks, four field and machine gun batteries, ten field radio stations, and six photoelectric units presented a piece of theatre. The mass spectacle, 18 BL involved over two thousand amateur actors and was performed before an audience of twenty thousand. 18 BL is one of eleven extraordinary essays collected together for the first time. The essays have been selected and edited from a wide range of publications dating from the 1940s to the 1990s. The authors are academics, cultural historians, and theatre practitioners - some with direct experience of the harsh conditions of Europe during the war. Each author critically assesses the function of theatre in times of world crisis, exploring themes of Fascist aesthetic propaganda in Italy and Germany, of theatre re-education programmes in the Gulags of Russia, of cultural "sustenance" for the troops at the front and interned German refugees in the UK, or cabaret shows as a currency for survival in Jewish concentration camps.

Street theatre invades a public space, shakes it up and disappears, but the memory of the disruption haunts the site for audiences who experience it. This book looks at how the dynamic interrelationship of performance, participant and place creates a politicized aesthetic of public space that enables the public to rehearse democratic practices.

In this book, David Wiles introduces ancient Greek theater to students and enthusiasts interested in knowing how the plays were performed. Theater was a ceremony bound up with fundamental activities in ancient Athenian life and Wiles explores those elements that created the theater of the time. Actors rather than writers are the book's main concern and Wiles examines how the actor used the resources of story-telling, dance, mask, song and visual action to create a large-scale event that would shape the life of the citizen community.

This book explores 'civic engagement' as a politically active encounter between institutions, individuals and art practices that addresses the public sphere on a civic level across physical and virtual spaces. Taking a multidisciplinary approach, it tracks across the overlapping discourses of politics, cultural geography and performance, investigating how and why physical and digital spaces can be analysed and utilised to develop new art forms that challenge traditional notions of how performance is political and how politics are performative. Across three sections - Politicising Communities, Applying Digital Agency and Performing Landscapes and Identities - the ten chapters and three interviews cover a wide variety of international perspectives, all informed by innovative ways of addressing the current crisis of social fragmentation through performance. Providing access to many debates on the theory and practice of new media, this book is of significance to readers from a broad set of academic disciplines, including politics, sociology, geography, and performance studies.

Magical Mischief On a midsummer night a group of mortals becomes ensnared in a magical realm by Oberon the King of Fairies and Puck his faithful servant. This delightful romp is Shakespeare's most enduring and popular play. Captain of our fairy band, Helena is here at hand, And the youth mistook by me Pleading for a lover's fee; Shall we their fond pageant see? Lord, what fools these mortals be

Play Directing: The Basics introduces theatre students to a step-by-step process for directing plays, including advice on devising. Beginning with a historical overview of directing, this book covers every aspect of the director's job from first read to closing night. Practical advice on finding plays to produce, analysing scripts, collaborating with the design team, rehearsing with actors, devising company creations, and opening a show are peppered with advice from working professionals and academic directors. A practical workbook, short exercises, helpful websites, and suggested reading encourage readers towards a deeper study of the art of directing. This book empowers high school and early college students interested in theatre and directing to find their own voice, develop a practice, and refine their process.

This collection provides an in-depth exploration of surtitling for theatre and its potential in enhancing accessibility and creativity in both the production and reception of theatrical performances. The volume collects the latest research on surtitling, which encompasses translating lyrics or sections of dialogue and projecting them on a screen. While most work has focused on opera, this book showcases how it has increasingly played a role in theatre by examining examples from well-known festivals and performances. The 11 chapters underscore how the hybrid nature and complex semiotic modes of theatrical texts, coupled with technological advancements, offer a plurality of possibilities for applying surtitling effectively across different contexts. The book calls attention to the ways in which agents in theatrical spaces need to carefully reflect on the role of surtitling in order to best serve the needs of diverse audiences and produce inclusive productions, from translators considering appropriate strategies to directors working on how to creatively employ it in performance to companies looking into all means available for successful implementation. Offering a space for interdisciplinary dialogues on surtitling in theatre, this book will be of interest to scholars in audiovisual translation, media accessibility, and theatre and performance studies.

Dramatist, theatre practitioner, novelist, and painter, August Strindberg's diverse dramatic output embodied the modernist sensibility. He was above all one of the most radical innovators of Western theatre.

This book provides an insightful assessment of Strindberg's vital contribution to the dramatic arts, while placing his creative process and experimental approach within a wider cultural context. Eszter Szalczer explores Strindberg's re-definition of drama as a fluid, constantly evolving form that profoundly influenced playwriting and theatrical production from the German Expressionists to the Theatre of the Absurd. Key productions of Strindberg's plays are analysed, examining his theatre as a living voice that continues to challenge audiences, critics, and even the most innovative directors.

August Strindberg provides an essential and accessible guide to the playwright's work and illustrates the influence of his drama on our understanding of contemporary theatre.

Were those who worked in the theatres of the Third Reich willing participants in the Nazi propaganda machine or artists independent of official ideology? To what extent did Richard Strauss and Carl Orff follow Nazi dogma? How did famous directors such as Gustaf Grudgens and Jurgen Fehling react to the new regime? Why were Shakespeare and George Bernard Shaw among the most performed dramatists of the time? And why did the Nazis sanction Jewish theatre? This is the first book in English about theater in the entire Nazi period. Based on contemporary press reports, research in German archives, and interviews with surviving playwrights, actors, and musicians, it is a much needed guide to this neglected area of European culture.

How do ideas take shape? How do concepts emerge into form? This book argues that they take shape quite literally in the human body, often appearing on stage in new styles of performance. Focusing on the historical period of modernity, Performance and Modernity: Enacting Change on the Globalizing Stage demonstrates how the unforeseen impact of economic, industrial, political, social, and psychological change was registered in bodily metaphors that took shape on stage. In new styles of performance-acting, dance, music, pageantry, avant-garde provocations, film, video and networked media-this book finds fresh evidence for how modernity has been understood and lived, both by stage actors, who, in modelling new habits, gave emerging experiences an epistemological shape, and by their audiences, who, in borrowing the strategies performers enacted, learned to adapt to a modernizing world.

This is the first book devoted to the Queen's Men, one of the major acting companies of the age of Shakespeare. The authors break new ground by showing how Elizabethan theater history can be refocused by concentrating on the company that produced the plays, rather than on the authors who wrote them. They provide a full account of the company's acting style, staging methods, touring patterns and repertoire. Their conclusions will interest Elizabethan historians as well as students and scholars of early modern theater.