Slapstick comedy has a long and lively history from Greek Theatre to the present day. This book explores the ways in which comic pain and comic violence are performed within slapstick to make the audience laugh. It draws examples from theatre, television and film on both sides of the Atlantic.

This collection of essays investigates the way Africa has been portrayed on the London stage from the 1950s to the present. It focuses on whether - and, if so, to what extent - the Africa that emerges from the London scene is subject to stereotype, and/or in which ways the reception of audiences and critics have contributed to an understanding of the continent and its arts. The collection, divided into two parts, brings together well-established academics and emerging scholars, as well as playwrights, directors and performers currently active in London. With a focus on Wole Soyinka, Athol Fugard, Bola Agbaje, Biyi Bandele, and Dipo Agboluaje, amongst others, the volume examines the work of key companies such as Tiata Fahodzi and Talawa, as well as newer companies Two Gents, Iroko Theatre and Spora Stories. Interviews with Rotimi Babatunde, Ade Solanke and Dipo Agboluaje on the contemporary London scene are also included.

This is the first book to view Shakespeare's plays from the prospect of the premodern death arts, not only the ars moriendi tradition but also the plurality of cultural expressions of memento mori, funeral rituals, commemorative activities, and rhetorical techniques and strategies fundamental to the performance of the work of dying, death, and the dead. The volume is divided into two sections: first, critically nuanced examinations of Shakespeare's corpus and then, second, of Hamlet exclusively as the ultimate proving ground of the death arts in practice. This book revitalizes discussion around key and enduring themes of mortality by reframing Shakespeare's plays within a newly conceptualized historical category that posits a cultural divide-at once epistemological and phenomenological-between premodernity and the Enlightenment.

What was the role of mousike, the realm of the Muses, in Greek life? More wide-ranging in its implications than the English 'music', mousike lay at the heart of Greek culture, and was often indeed synonymous with culture. In its commonest form, it represented for the Greeks a seamless complex of music, poetic word, and physical movement, encompassing a vast array of performances - from small-scale entertainment in the private home to elaborate performances involving the entire community. Yet the history of the field, particularly in anglophone scholarship, has been hitherto narrowly conceived, and the broader cultural significance of mousike largely ignored. Focusing mainly on classical Athens these new and specially commissioned essays analyse the theory and practice of musical performance in a variety of social contexts and demonstrate the centrality of mousike to the values and ideology of the polis. The so-called 'new musical revolution' in late fifth-century Athens receives serious treatment in this volume for the first time. A major theme of the book is the musical and mousike dimension of Greek religion, rarely analysed in its own right. The ethical and philosophical aspects of Athenian mousike are another central concern, with the figure of the dancing philosopher as an emblem of music's role in intellectual life. The book as a whole provides an integrated cultural analysis of central aspects of Greek mousike, which will be of interest to classical scholars, to cultural historians, and to anyone concerned with understanding the power of music as a cultural phenomenon.

Renaissance Drama in Action is a fascinating exploration of Renaissance theatre practice and staging. Covering questions of contemporary playhouse design, verse and language, staging and rehearsal practices, and acting styles, Martin White relates the characteristics of Renaissance theatre to the issues involved in staging the plays today.
This refreshingly accessible volume:
* examines the history of the plays on the English stage from the seventeenth century to the present day
* explores questions arising from reconstructions, with particular reference to the new Globe Theatre
* includes interviews with, and draws on the work and experience of modern theatre practitioners including Harriet Walter, Matthew Warchus, Trevor Nunn, Stephen Jeffreys, Adrian Noble and Helen Mirren
* includes discussions of familiar plays such as The Duchess of Malfi and 'Tis Pity She's A Whore, as well as many lesser known play-texts
Renaissance Drama in Action offers undergraduates and A-level students an invaluable guide to the characteristics of Elizabethan and Jacobean drama, and its relationship to contemporary theatre and staging.

Includes case studies and other practical insights leveraging author expertise Increased coverage of arts start-ups and entrepreneurship Applicable across the arts, some competing texts focus on a particular area such as music or theatre

Brings together a cohesive and coherent account of the dramaturgy of sound in three key contemporary performance genres. Written for contemporary performance scholars and upper level students, using case studies and clear genre delineations. Moves existing scholarship in this area forward by drawing on a wealth of supplementary material tied to its research funding, including a full dataset, interview footage and a podcast.

Shakespeare's plays were immensely popular in their own day - so why do we refuse to think of them as mass entertainment? In Pleasing Everyone, author Jeffrey Knapp opens our eyes to the uncanny resemblance between Renaissance drama and the incontrovertibly mass medium of Golden-Age Hollywood cinema. Through fascinating explorations of such famous plays as Hamlet, The Roaring Girl, and The Alchemist, and such celebrated films as Citizen Kane, The Jazz Singer, and City Lights, Knapp challenges some of our most basic assumptions about the relationship between art and mass audiences. Above all, Knapp encourages us to resist the prejudice that mass entertainment necessarily simplifies and cheapens whatever it touches. As Knapp shows, it was instead the ceaseless pressure to please everyone that helped generate the astonishing richness and complexity of Renaissance drama as well as of Hollywood film.

Please note this is a 'Palgrave to Order' title (PTO). Stock of this book requires shipment from an overseas supplier. It will be delivered to you within 12 weeks. This study rediscovers the lives and notable accomplishments of five prominent, yet historically neglected women dramatists of the Progressive Era: Martha Morton, Madeleine Lucette Ryley, Evelyn Greenleaf Sutherland, Beulah Marie Dix, and Rida Johnson Young.

While remapping the region by examining enduring historical and cultural connections, this study discusses multiple traditions and practices of theatre and performance in five South Asian countries within their specific political and socio-cultural contexts.

Auditioners often complain of seeing the same speeches over and over again. Director, Simon Dunmore, has seen well over ten thousand audition speeches performed, and has drawn on his experience to select and edit a new collection of fascinating, fresh and unusual audition speeches from Shakespeare's plays. This book brings together fifty speeches for women from plays frequently ignored such as Coriolanus, Pericles and Love's Labours Lost. It also includes good, but over-looked speeches from the more popular plays such as Diana from All's Well That Ends Well, Perdita from The Winter's Tale and Hero from Much Ado About Nothing. Each speech is accompanied by a character description, brief explanation of the context, and notes on obscure words, phrases and references - all written from the viewpoint of the auditioning actor.

In this book, Shannon Rose Riley provides a critically rich investigation of representations of Cuba and Haiti in US culture in order to analyze their significance not only to the emergence of empire but especially to the reconfiguration of US racial structures along increasingly biracial lines. Based on impressive research and with extensive analysis of various textual and performance forms including a largely unique set of skits, plays, songs, cultural performances and other popular amusements, Riley shows that Cuba and Haiti were particularly meaningful to the ways that people in the US re-imagined themselves as black or white and that racial positions were renegotiated through what she calls acts of palimpsest: marking and unmarking, racing and erasing difference. Riley's book demands a reassessment of the importance of the occupations of Cuba and Haiti to US culture, challenging conventional understandings of performance, empire, and race at the turn of the twentieth century.

From the celebrated and award winning composer, Dave Malloy comes Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812, an electropop opera based on a scandalous slice of Leo Tolstoy's War & Peace. Young and impulsive, Natasha Rostova arrives in Moscow to await the return of her fiance from the front lines. When she falls under the spell of the roguish Anatole, it is up to Pierre, a family friend in the middle of an existential crisis, to pick up the pieces of her shattered reputation. Following a critica

In this book, world-renowned theatre artist Pamela Howard OBE shows how her life has always been part of the art of making theatre. Part memoir, part a personal account of artistic creation, it is a work of art in its own right. Its 12 chapters, accompanied by original drawings, offer insights into Pamela Howard's creative world and the journey through life of a celebrated artist, ranging from her early life and influences, to her time at art college and the inspiration she gained from travelling the world. Following the trajectory of her life, the 12 'dreams' are poised between memory and history and give an account of an artist's growth, resilience, working patterns, and life-changing encounters with remarkable personalities and artists, as well as the practical side of working in the theatre, in visual arts and in education. Her art tells unexpected stories of little-noticed people and emigre communities, and makes performance for diverse audiences from the unique experience of one's own life. Pamela Howard's dreams have led her to work across the globe and teach and inspire several generations of theatre makers, scenographers, designers and visual artists. The Art of Making Theatre passes on that inspiration afresh and demonstrates that being an artist is not a one-off project but a way of life.

Theater critic Jerry Tallmer, remarking on Joseph Papp's death on October 31, 1991, said, He was a guy from Brooklyn who had a passion for Shakespeare and a passion for people. He was able to combine the two like no one else ever did. Barbara Horn, documenting Papp's career, declares it to have been inextricably tied to that of the New York Shakespeare Festival, which Papp founded in 1954, serving as its artistic leader for 37 years, and which survives him. His dream of producing free Shakespeare in the Park was expanded into the largest arts institution in the United States, combining Shakespeare with innovative contemporary theater performed at his nonprofit Public Theater as well as in New York City parks and schools. Papp produced some 450 plays, directing over 40. He nurtured some of the greatest playwriting talents, including Vaclav Havel, David Mamet, David Rabe, David Henry Hwang, John Guare, and Tina Howe, and provided opportunities for fledgling actors, among them George C. Scott, Colleen Dewhurst, James Earl Jones, Al Pacino, Kevin Kline, Raul Julia, Meryl Streep, and William Hurt. Public Theater plays such as Hair, A Chorus Line, and That Championship Season became huge hits on Broadway. Papp's productions, most with the New York Shakespeare Festival, are thoroughly documented, with credits, runs, synopses, and review commentary in this reference guide, which also includes a chronology of Papp's life and career, a biographical sketch, an annotated bibliography of works by and about Papp, and appendixes on film and television credits, related activities, and awards. Indexes of authors of bibliographic works, of playwrights and playtitles, and of production crew and cast complete the work.

"Stage Directions" covers half a lifetime and the whole range of Frayn's theatrical writing, right up to a new piece about his latest play, "Afterlife". It is also a reflection on his path into theatre: the 'doubtful beginnings' of his childhood, his subsequent scorn as a young man and, surprisingly late in life, his reluctant conversion. Whatever subjects he tackles, from the exploration of the atomic nucleus to the mechanics of farce, Michael Frayn is never less than fascinating, delightfully funny and charming. This book encapsulates a lifetime's work and is guaranteed to be a firm favourite with his legions of fans around the world.

This book is a provocative new study of global feminist activism that opposes neoliberal regimes across several sites including Asia, Australia, Canada, Europe, Latin America and the United States. The feminist performative acts featured in the book contest the aggressive unravelling of collectively won gains in gender, sexual and racial equality, the appearance of new planes of discrimination, and the social consequences of political economies based on free market ideology. The investigations of affect theory follow the circulation of intensities - of political impingements on bodies, subjective and symbolic violence, and the shock of dispossession - within and beyond individuals to the social and political sphere. Affect is a helpful matrix for discussing the volatile interactivity between performer and spectator, whether live or technologically mediated. Contending that there is no activism without affect, the collection brings back to the table the activist and hopeful potential of feminism.

Post-Colonial Drama is the first full-length study to address the ways in which performance has been instrumental in resisting the continuing effects of imperialism. It brings to bear the latest theoretical approaches from post-colonial and performance studies to a range of plays from Australia, Africa, Canada, New Zealand, the Caribbean and other former colonial regions. Some of the major topics discussed in Post-Colonial Drama include:
* the interactions of post-colonial and performance theories
* the post-colonial re-stagings of language and history
* the specific enactments of ritual and carnival
* the theatrical citations of the post-colonial body
Post-Colonial Drama combines a rich intersection of theoretical approaches with close attention to a wide range of performance texts.

The Routledge Companion to Performance Philosophy is a volume of especially commissioned critical essays, conversations, collaborative, creative and performative writing mapping the key contexts, debates, methods, discourses and practices in this developing field. Firstly, the collection offers new insights on the fundamental question of how thinking happens: where, when, how and by whom philosophy is performed. Secondly, it provides a plurality of new accounts of performance and performativity - as the production of ideas, bodies and knowledges - in the arts and beyond. Comprising texts written by international artists, philosophers and scholars from multiple disciplines, the essays engage with questions of how performance thinks and how thought is performed in a wide range of philosophies and performances, from the ancient to the contemporary. Concepts and practices from diverse geographical regions and cultural traditions are analysed to draw conclusions about how performance operates across art, philosophy and everyday life. The collection both contributes to and critiques the philosophy of music, dance, theatre and performance, exploring the idea of a philosophy from the arts. It is crucial reading material for those interested in the hierarchy of the relationship between philosophy and the arts, advancing debates on philosophical method, and the relation between Performance and Philosophy more broadly.

This Play Guide is specifically written for A Level students who are studying Our Country's Good as part of the AQA A Level Drama & Theatre specification. It provides structured support for Component 1: Section A - Drama and theatre. This book is divided into three sections: 1) How to explore a text for A level Drama and Theatre, with vocabulary-building sections on acting, directing and design; 2) An extended exploration of the play to enrich students' understanding and response to the text; 3) Targeted examination preparation to improve writing and test-taking skills. - Fully supports the written examination and helps students develop their key knowledge and understanding of key A Level drama & theatre skills. - Knowledge and understanding of the play are developed with a synopsis, character and scene studies, contextual and practical exploration. - Includes a wide range of practical drama tasks, activities, and research and revision exercises. - Advice on how to interpret and prepare for exam questions with examples of effective responses.

Since the 1990s, Palestinian theatrical activities in the West Bank have expanded exponentially. As well as local productions, Palestinian theatre-makers have presented their work to international audiences on a scale unprecedented in Palestinian history. This book explores the histories of the five major theatre companies currently working in the West Bank: Al-Kasaba Theatre, Ashtar Theatre, Al-Harah Theatre, The Freedom Theatre and Al-Rowwad. Taking the first intifada (1987-93) as his point of departure, and drawing on original fieldwork and interviews with Palestinian practitioners, Gabriel Varghese introduces the term 'abject counterpublics' to explore how theatre-makers contest Zionist discourse and Israeli state practices. By foregrounding Palestinian voices, and placing theories of abjection and counterpublic formation in conversation with each other, Varghese argues that theatre in the West Bank has been regulated by processes of colonial abjection and, yet, it is an important site for resisting Zionism's discourse of erasure and Israeli settler-colonialism and apartheid. Palestinian Theatre in the West Bank: Our Human Faces is the first major account of Palestinian theatre covering the last three decades.

This book investigates the role of arts practitioners in cultural policy-making, challenging the perception that arts practitioners have little or no involvement in policy and seeking to discover the extent and form of their engagement. Examining the subject through a case-study of playwriting policy in England since 1945, and paying particular attention to playwrights' organisations and their history of self-directed activity, the book explores practitioners' participation in cultural policy-making, encompassing both "invited" and "uninvited" interventions that also weave together policy activity and creative practice. It discusses why their involvement matters, and argues that arts practitioners and their organisations can be understood as participants in civil society whose policy activity contributes to the maintenance and enlargement of democratic practices and values.

Non-representational Theory explores a range of ideas which have recently engaged geographers and have led to the development of an alternative approach to the conception, practice, and production of geographic knowledge. Non-representational Theory refers to a key body of work that has emerged in geography over the past two and a half decades that emphasizes the importance of practice, embodiment, materiality, and process to the ongoing formation of social life. This title offers the first sole-authored, accessible introduction to this work and its impact on geography. Without being prescriptive the text provides a general explanation of what Non-representational Theory is. This includes discussion of the disciplinary context it emerged from, the key ideas and themes that characterise work associated with Non-representational Theory, and the theoretical points of reference that inspires it. The book then explores a series of conjunctions of 'Non-representational Theory and...', taking an area of geographic enquiry and exploring the impact Non-representational Theory has had on how it is researched and understood. This includes the relationships between Non-representational Theory and Practice, Affect, Materiality, Landscape, Performance, and Methods. Critiques of Non-representational Theory are also broached, including reflections on issues on identity, power, and difference. The text draws together the work of a range of established and emerging scholars working on the development of non-representational theories, allowing scholars from geography and other disciplines to access and assess the animating potential of such work. This volume is essential reading for undergraduates and post-graduate students interested in the social, cultural, and political geographies of everyday living.