"Shakespeare, Theory and Performance" is an exciting collection of essays, bringing a full range of contemporary critical perspectives to bear upon the practical questions of performing Shakespeare. During recent years, a new revolution in critical theory has called into question a number of assumptions about the performance of Shakespeare which had long gone unchecked.
In this volume, contributors from theater, literary and Shakespearean studies collaborate to offer a productive rnterplay, employing a variety of discourses--including feminism, post-colonialism, and semiotics--to challenge and interrogate the practice of Shakespearean performance. Issues include implications of gender, race and class for audience response; the impact of technology on the study of performance as text; and the appropriation of Shakespeare by foreign cultures.

"Imperialism" is a trans-national and trans-historical phenomenon; it occurs neither in limited areas nor at one specific moment. In cultures from across the world theatrical performance has long been a site both for the representation and support of imperialism and resistance and rebellion against it. "Imperialism and Theatre" is a groundbreaking collection which explores the questions of why and how theater was selected within imperial cultures for the representation of the concerns of both the colonizers and the colonized.
Gathering together fifteen noted scholars and theatre practitioners, this collection spans global and historical boundaries and presents a uniquely comprehensive study of post-colonial drama. The essays engage in current theoretical issues while shifting the focus from the printed text to theatre as a cultural formation and locus of political force. A compelling and extremely timely work, "Imperialism and Theatre" reveals fascinating new dimensions to the post-colonial debate.
Contributors: Nora Alter; Sudipto Chatterjee; Mary Karen Dahl; Alan Filewood; Donald H. Frischmann; Rhonda Garelick; Helen Gilbert; Michael Hays; Loren Kruger; Josephine Lee; Robert Eric Livingston; J.S. Peters; Michael Quinn; Edward Said; Elaine Savory

The Merchant of Venice and Othello are the two Shakespeare plays which serve as touchstones for contemporary understandings and responses to notions of 'the stranger' and 'the other'. This groundbreaking collection explores the dissemination of the two plays through Europe in the first two decades of the 21st-century, tracing how productions and interpretations have reflected the changing conditions and attitudes locally and nationally. Packed with case studies of productions of each play in different countries, the volume opens vistas on the continent's turbulent history marked by the instability of allegiances and boundaries, and shifting senses of identity in a context of war, decolonization and migration. Chapters examine productions in Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Italy, France, Portugal and Germany to shed light on wide-scale European developments for the first time in English. In a final section, performance insights are offered by interviews with three directors: Karin Coonrod on directing The Merchant in Venice at the Venetian Ghetto in 2016, Plamen Markov on his 2020 Othello for the Varna Theatre (Bulgaria) and Arnaud Churin, whose Othello toured France in 2019. In drawing attention to the ways in which historical circumstances and collective memory shape and refashion performance, Shakespeare's Others in 21st-century European Performance offers a rich review of European theatrical engagements with Otherness in the productions of these two plays.

Working in partnership with the National Theatre, these new playscripts bring the theatre alive in the classroom. Each play has been carefully selected to ensure maximum impact and relevance to students, while the activities and teaching support are underpinned by National Theatre strategies so that teachers can feel confident using these approaches. Vibrant production images and the 'Making the play' section show how the play is brought to life on stage while the activities combine a focus on English skills with the play as a perfomance. Adapted by Bryony Lavery, this is an exciting new adaptation of Stevenson's classic tale of money, murder and mutiny. Young Jim Hawkins leads a quiet life at the Admiral Benbow Inn run by her Grandma. One night, fate brings Billy Bones, a large sea chest and a treasure map to their door. As Jim sets off on a voyage to find the treasure, she encounters a crew of the bloodthirstiest pirates, including the infamous Long John Silver, and she begins to wonder whether any of them will make it back alive...

Civic Performance: Pageantry and Entertainments in Early Modern London brings together a group of essays from across multiple fields of study that examine the socio-cultural, political, economic, and aesthetic dimensions of pageantry in sixteenth and seventeenth-century London. This collection engages with modern interest in the spectacle and historical performances of pageantry and entertainments, including royal entries, progresses, coronation ceremonies, Lord Mayor's Shows, and processions. Through a discussion of the extant texts, visual records, archival material, and emerging projects in the digital humanities, the chapters elucidate the forms in which the period itself recorded its public rituals, pageantry, and ephemeral entertainments. The diversity of approaches contained in these chapters reflects the collaborative nature of pageantry and civic entertainments, as well as the broad socio-cultural resonances of this form of drama, and in doing so offers a study that is multi-faceted and wide-ranging, much like civic performance itself. Ideal for scholars of Early Modern global politics, economics, and culture; literary and performance studies; print culture; and the digital humanities, Civic Performance casts a new lens on street pageantry and entertainments in the historically and culturally significant locus of Early Modern London.

'We - artists, thinkers, creators - have a responsibility to communicate the truth of the climate emergency. The world is shape-shifting and our culture must too.' This book is a guide to one hundred brilliant plays addressing the most urgent and important issue of our time: the climate crisis. The plays - drawn from around the world, written by one hundred different writers, and demonstrating a vast span of styles, genres and cast sizes - all speak to an aspect of the climate emergency. Encompassing both famous plays and lesser-known works, the selection includes recent writing that explicitly wrestles with these issues, as well as classic texts in which these resonances now ring out clearly. Each play is explored in a concise essay illuminating key themes, and highlighting its contribution to our understanding of climate issues, with sections including Resources, Energy, Migration, Responsibility, Fightback and Hope. 100 Plays to Save the World is a book to provoke as well as inspire - to start conversations, to inform debate, to challenge our thinking, and to be a launch pad for future productions. It is also an empowering resource for theatre directors, producers, teachers, youth leaders and writers looking for plays that speak to our present moment. Above all, it is a call to arms, to step up, think big, and unleash theatre's power to imagine a better future into being. The book includes a foreword by Daze Aghaji, a leading youth climate justice activist. 'This book is a kind of miracle, a thrilling compendium of plays that speak to the enormous environmental crisis of our time. Freestone and O'Hare have exquisite taste and brilliant analysis, illuminating plays I've never heard of, as well as plays I thought I knew. 100 Plays to Save the World should be required reading for everyone who believes in the power of theatre to move the world; I will certainly never plan a season again without referring to it.' Oskar Eustis, Artistic Director, The Public Theater, New York 'This book is dynamite. Through lively play analysis and accessible environmental know-how, it will galvanise theatre-makers to step up and artists to be heard. Theatre must play its part in the climate fight and this book shows us how.' Kwame Kwei-Armah, Artistic Director, Young Vic Theatre, London

This accessible and engaging text covering sketch, sitcom and comedy drama, alongside improvisation and stand-up, brings together a panoply of tools and techniques for creating short and long-form comedy narratives for live performance, TV and online. Referencing a broad range of comedy from both sides of the Atlantic, spanning several decades and including material on contemporary internet sketches, it offers all kinds of useful advice on creating comic narratives for stage and screen: using life experience as raw material; constructing comedy worlds; creating comic characters, their relationships and interactions; structuring sketches, scenes and routines; and developing and plotting stories. The book's interviewees, from the UK and the USA, feature stand-ups, sketch comics, improvisers and TV comedy producers, and include Steve Kaplan, Hollywood comedy guru and author of The Hidden Tools of Comedy, Will Hines teacher and improviser from the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre and Lucy Lumsden TV producer and former Controller of Comedy Commissioning for BBC. Written by "the ideal person to nurture new talent" (The Guardian), Creating Comedy Narratives for Stage & Screen includes material you won't find anywhere else and is a stimulating resource for comedy students and their teachers, with a range and a depth that will be appreciated by even the most eclectic and multi-hyphenated writers and performers.

"As She Likes It" is the first attempt to tackle the enduring question of how to perform those unruly women at the centre of Shakespeare's comedies. Unique among both Shakespearan and feminist studies, "As She Likes It" asks how gender politics affects the production of the comedies, and how gender is represented, both in the text and on the stage. Penny Gay takes a look at the way "Twelfth Night", "The Taming of the Shrew", "Much Ado About Nothing", "As You Like It" and "Measure for Measure" have been staged over the last half a century, when perceptions of gender roles have undergone massive changes. She also interrogates, rigorously but thoughtfully, the relationship between a male theatrical establishment and a burgeoning feminist approach to performance. Useful for practitioners and for students, "As She Likes It" offers critical reading for anyone interested in women's experience of theatre.

This major work brings together, for the first time in a single volume, all the recognized sources of Marlowe's dramatic work. Many of the forty-two texts presented here are of outstanding interest in their own right. Together they illuminate the cultural milieu which fostered Marlowe's talent, and deepen our appreciation of his dramatic methods.
* Each of the texts is accessibly presented for the modern reader and is fully annotated.
* Works in Latin or foreign vernaculars are translated, many for the first time, and modern spelling and punctuation are used throughout.
* The sources for each play are examined individually and are thoroughly edited.
Few libraries provide the range of sources contained in this one volume. The editors include texts of works such as the English Faust-Book from which Marlowe borrowed heavily, and provide substantial extracts from other books with which he was no doubt familiar.
This book is an invaluable resource for all those interested in Marlowe and the development of Elizabethan theatre.

eBook available with sample pages: 0203379837

To celebrate Mothertongue’s 21st anniversary, Collaborative Conversations weaves together the reflections of a group of artists, scholars and writers who have journeyed with the organisation over the last two decades.

Since its inception in 2000 with What the Water Gave Me, The Mothertongue Project has used participatory, integrated arts methods to create theatrical works that strive for personal and collective dialogue and healing in South Africa. In poetry, scholarly writing and transcribed oral conversations, the contributors now think and feel their way through the aspirations and achievements – and the alchemy – of The Mothertongue Project’s work.

Accompanied by photographs of performances from across the 21 years, this book provides a sense of what a Mothertongue theatre piece does: it draws audience and performers into transformative, embodied conversations.

Translation for the theatre is often considered to hold a marginal status between literary translation and adaptation for the stage. As a result, this book argues that studies of this complex activity tend to take either a textual or performative approach. After exploring the history of translation theory through these lenses, Massimiliano Morini proposes a more totalizing view of 'theatre translation' as the sum of operations required to transform one theatre act into another, and analyses three complex Western case histories in light of this all-encompassing definition. Combining theory with practice, Morini investigates how traditional ideas on translation - from Plautus and Cicero to the early 20th century - have been applied in the theatrical domain. He then compares and contrasts the inherently textual viewpoint of post-humanistic translators with the more performative approaches of contemporary theatrical practitioners, and chronicles the rise of performative views in the third millennium. Positioning itself at the intersection of past and present, as well as translation studies and theatre semiotics, Theatre Translation provides a full diachronic survey of an age-old activity and a burgeoning academic field.

This book offers a creative and practical guide for K-6 teachers on how to effectively integrate creative movement and the performing arts into the curriculum to increase student engagement, deepen learning, improve retention, and get kids moving during the school day. Chapters offer concrete ideas for integrating creative movement and theater into subjects such as math, science, literacy, and social studies. Drawing on two decades of experience, Dr. Becker outlines key skills, offers rich examples, and provides adaptable and flexible classroom tested lesson plans that align with Common Core Standards, the NGSS, C3 Social Studies Standards, and the National Core Arts Standards. Activities are grounded in arts integration, which is steadily gaining interest in school reform as an effective teaching strategy that increases student outcomes academically and socially; particularly effective for students who have traditionally been marginalized. This book will benefit practicing educators who want to invigorate their practice, pre-service teachers who want to expand their toolkit, as well as school leaders looking to employ policies that support movement and arts during the school day. Jump in and get your kids Moving Through the School Day and see how active and engaging learning can be!

This is the only book to provide an account of how popular theatre developed from the fairground booths of the eighteenth century to become a vehicle of mass entertainment in the following century. Whereas other studies offer a traditional approach to the theatres of high culture, John McCormick takes the role of impartial historian, uncovering the popular theatres of the boulevards, suburbs and fairgrounds. He focuses on the social and economic context in which vaudevilles, pantomimes and melodramas were performed, and explores the audiences who enjoyed them.

eBook available with sample pages: 0203168119

Jacobean Public Theatre recovers for the modern reader the acting, production and performance values of the public theatre of Jacobean London. It relates this drama to the popular culutre of the day and concludes with a close study of four important plays, including King Lear, which emerge in an unexpected light as the products of popular tradition.

eBook available with sample pages: 0203169166

"Not in Front of the Audience" is a pioneering and important study of a neglected terrain, examining the way in which the theatres of London and New York have reflected contemporary social and cultural attitudes to "gay men" and homosexuality. In the 1920s and 1930s the theatre represented homosexuals as either corrupt, or morally pitiful. De Jongh argues that no matter how much homosexual characters were derided and despised, by refusing to conform they endowed conventional plays with unorthodox perspectives. During the Cold War, under the influence of McCarthyism, homosexuality was perceived as not only morally reprehensible but also politically dangerous and the theatre dutifully reflected such perceptions. Until 1958, direct discussion or depiction of homosexuality was banned from the stage in Britain. But by the late 1960s the theatres of London and New York had begun to confront the issue of heterosexual prejudice and its devastating impact upon the lives of gay men and lesbians. In the wake of the AIDS epidemic, the author concludes, the representation of homosexuality in the theatre has again become an urgent and highly charged issue. This book should be of interest to unde

"Until 1958 the law in Britain forbade the public performance of any play that dealt openly with homosexuality." "Not in Front of the Audience" is a pioneering study of a neglected terrain; examining the way in which the theatres of London and New York have reflected contemporary social and cultural attitudes to homosexuals and homosexuality. In the 1920s and 30s the theatre sought to represent homosexuals as either essentially corrupt, or else morally pitiful. Paradoxically however, de Jongh argues, no matter how much homosexual characters were derided and despised, by refusing to conform they subverted conventional sexual expectations. The woman with a past, who inspired many late Victorian melodramas, sought happiness through social acceptance. The homosexual looked to a future outside the confines of a conservative heterosexual society. During the Cold War, under the influence of McCarthysism, homosexuality became perceived as not only morally reprehensible, but also politically dangerous. Only, briefly, in the late 60s did the theatres of London and New York dare to confront the issue of heterosexual prejudice and its devastating impact upon the lives of gay men and lesbians.

Frantic Assembly have had a powerful and continuing influence on the popularisation of devising practices in contemporary theatre-making. Their work blends brave and bold physical theatre with exciting new writing, and they have collaborated with some of the leading theatre-makers in the UK. The company's impact reaches throughout the world, particularly through their extensive workshop and education programmes, as well as their individual and collective impact as movement directors on landmark, internationally successful productions such as Black Watch and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. This volume reveals the background to, and work of, a major influence on twentieth and twenty-first century performance. Frantic Assembly is the first book to combine: an overview of the history of the company since its foundation in 1994 an analysis of the key ideas underpinning the company's work a critical commentary on two key productions - Hymns by Chris O'Connell (1999) and Stockholm by Bryony Lavery (2007) a detailed description of a Frantic Assembly workshop, offering an introduction to how the company 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 student.

This collection aims to map a diversity of approaches to the artform by creating a 360° view on the circus. Three sections of the book, Aesthetics, Practice, Culture, approach aesthetic developments, issues of artistic practice, and the circus’ role within society. This book consists of a collection of articles from renowned circus researchers, junior researchers, and artists. It also provides the core statements and discussions of the conference UpSideDown—Circus and Space in a graphic recording format. Hence, it allows a clear entry into the field of circus research and emphasizes the diversity of approaches that are well balanced between theoretical and artistic point of views. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of circus studies, emerging disciples of circus and performance.

Applying research into assessments of community theatre, epidemiology, and young people's shared and private stories using a wide range of methodologies, this book explores the potential efficacy of community theatre to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS in Tanzania with reference to several other comparable sites in Africa.

First published in 1992. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

In Staging Creolization, Emily Sahakian examines seven plays by Ina Cesaire, Maryse Conde, Gerty Dambury, and Simone Schwarz-Bart that premiered in the French Caribbean or in France in the 1980s and 1990s and soon thereafter traveled to the United States. Sahakian argues that these late-twentieth-century plays by French Caribbean women writers dramatize and enact creolization-the process of cultural transformation through mixing and conflict that occurred in the context of the legacies of slavery and colonialism. Sahakian here theorizes creolization as a performance-based process, dramatized by French Caribbean women's plays and enacted through their international production and reception histories. The author contends that the syncretism of the plays is not a static, fixed creole aesthetics but rather a dynamic process of creolization in motion, informed by history and based in the African-derived principle that performance is a space of creativity and transformation that connects past, present, and future.

Theatre's Heterotopias analyses performance space, using the concept of heterotopia: a location that, when apparent in performance, refers to the actual world, thus activating performance in its culture. Case studies cover site-specific and multimedia performance, and selected productions from the National Theatre of Scotland and the Globe Theatre.

Digital Shakespeares from the Global South re-directs current conversations on digital appropriations of Shakespeare away from its Anglo-American bias. The individual essays examine digital Shakespeares from South Africa, India, and Latin America, addressing questions of accessibility and the digital divide. This book will be of interest to students and academics working on Shakespeare, adaptation studies, digital humanities, and media studies. Included in this volume, the chapter on "Finding and Accessing Shakespeare Scholarship in the Global South: Digital Research and Bibliography" by Heidi Craig and Laura Estill is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.

Collective theatres are collectively organized and run performing groups, usually socially conscious and politically oriented, often aligned with the people's theatre movement. This book examines collectivization as a way of successfully challenging the hierarchy and ideology of traditional theatre and of society. It asserts that the collective process is a vibrant and accessible method of creating theatre, of representing a variety of cultures in the United States and of providing a supportive environment for the creative artist. The study offers a general theory of the process of collective creation and explores its application and results in the theatre.

Weinberg examines the process, then traces the history of collectives and the place of collective theatre in the American cultural tradition. Detailed studies of four such theatres then illustrate the way the collective process has manifested itself and describe exemplary methods and outcomes. Attention is given to the political nature of the companies in their organization and operation, to the art and politics of their plays, and to the relationship of process to production. El Teatro de la Esperanza concentrates on issues of importance to the Chicano community. The Dakota Theatre Caravan had as its major focus the problems, interests, and political awareness of rural people. The United Mime Workers, which was far from a traditional mime troupe, appealed to a general audience, but its scripts often dealt with the world of the workplace. Split Britches, a feminist collective, challenges traditional theatre's heterosexual imperative through startling performances combining narrative, vaudeville, and personal history. The final section contains a summary of the legacy of collective theatre and speculates on the theoretical and practical value of recent trends in collective creation. Assembling and analyzing a mass of fascinating detail culled from archives and interviews as well as published material, this work will be of value to theatre historians and professionals and anyone interested in the interplay of politics and the arts in society, and to those wishing to form collective theatres themselves.