'Performing Contagious Bodies' explores live/body art and installation practices through theories of ritual and magic. Featuring discussion of a wide range of contemporary international practice, the book explores the intersections of performance studies, art history, anthropology and contemporary visual art practices.

Marilyn Monroe, Vincent van Gogh or the victims of rendition flights -- the number and variety of historical and contemporary figures represented on British stages is amazing. This book develops a new theoretical framework for the representation of real life figures on stage and examines different ways in which they can be included in performances.

"Engaging Audiences" provides an insightful introduction to spectatorship from the perspective of cognitive studies. Using performances of several plays and a wide array of scientific evidence, McConachie examines the dynamics of conscious attention, mental concepts, empathy, emotion, and culture in theatregoing. This ground-breaking study challenges many of the current theories used to understand spectators and is a valuable resource to artists and scholars interested in how and why audiences enjoy performance.

Moscow Theatres for Young People shows how the totalitarian ideology of the Soviet period shaped the practices of Soviet theatre for youth, as exemplified by the two oldest theatres for children and youth in Moscow: the Central Children's Theatre/RAMT and the Moscow Tiuz. Weaving together politics, economics, pedagogy, and aesthetics the author paints a vivid picture of the theatrical developments in Soviet/Russian theatre for young people from its inception in 1917 up to the new millennium, revealing the complex intersections between theatre and its socio-historical conditions.

This is the first of two volumes of documents that describe the growth and development of theater in the United States. This book goes from the beginnings of theater in the North American colonies up to the First World War. It is organized in three chronological sections, each with its own introduction, documents and commentary, arranged into chapters on business practice, acting, theater buildings, drama, design, and audience behavior. Written sources include records of business transactions, letters, newspaper reports, reviews, memoirs and architectural descriptions. There are also numerous pictorial items. Volume 2, scheduled for publication in late 1996, covers the period from 1915 to the present.

"Mendel's Theatre "uncovers the rich convergence of scientific theories of heredity, the American eugenics movement, and innovative modern drama from the 1890s to 1930. Obsessions with heredity played out in very different kinds of theatre in the modern period, from fairground exhibits to the plays of prominent European modern dramatists like Henrik Ibsen, August Strindberg, and George Bernard Shaw. The rise of vital American dramatists like Susan Glaspell and Eugene O'Neill took place against this backdrop and alongside the now forgotten but extremely popular eugenics movement in America at the time. "Mendel's Theatre" tells that story.

This collection of essays is impressive in its breadth, ranging over English (Shakespeare, Stoppard, Churchill, Ravenhill, Penhall), Irish (MacNamara, Johnston), American (O Neill, Stein, Kushner, Lynn), and Continental (Beckett, Weiss, Jelinek) dramatists; furthermore, many of the plays given extended treatment King Lear, The Emperor Jones, Waiting for Godot, Endgame, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, The Investigation, Top Girls, and Angels in America are frequently anthologized and/or taught. And because each of these essays was written by a different author, the range of theorists and critics drawn upon (Lyotard, Jameson, McHale, Hutcheon, Derrida, Barthes, Baudrillard, Levinas, Hassan, etc.) is so extensive as to provide a veritable overview of postmodern theory as it might usefully be applied to the theatre.

Modern international studies of world theatre and drama have begun to acknowledge the Arab world only after the contributions of Asia, Africa and Latin America. Within the Arab world, the contributions of Algeria, Tunisia, and Morocco to modern drama and to post-colonial expression remain especially neglected, a problem that this book addresses.

During the French Revolution most performances on the London stage were strictly censored, but political attitudes found indirect expression. This book looks at how British drama and popular entertainment were affected by the ideas and events of the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars. By a cultural analysis of the popular entertainment and theater performances of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries George Taylor reveals issues of ideological conflict and psychological stress.

"A forgotten yet award-winning playwright, Cal Yeomans was one of the founders of gay theatre whose work was fueled by gay liberation and extinguished by the AIDS epidemic. Exploring both sex and sexuality so candidly, he burst the boundaries of what was considered acceptable. His writings were not only manifestations of the sexual liberation of the times, but were also attempts to overcome what he had been raised to despise. Schanke's examination of Yeomans' life and legacy allows a rare exploration into the pivotal moment of gay American history between the Stonewall riots and the AIDS epidemic"--

Focusing on international social justice drama in its current local, national, and international manifestation, this interdisciplinary approach explores the relationship of contemporary dramatic forms to human rights issues. Over examines the artistic styles, goals, and thematic interests of dramatists and film directors of works of social commitment. He also considers the conditions and economics of wide audience appeal that prevent Hollywood and many independent filmmakers from effectively addressing these politically explosive issues. In contrast, differing cultures and economic concerns result in third world filmmakers and playwrights producing more comprehensive expositions of social issues. Considering a selected group of film and stage movements the author concludes with an optimistic prediction for political drama in the new century. This informed discussion will appeal to film, theatre, and cultural studies scholars.

Although the dramatic dimension to Joseph Conrad's fiction is frequently acknowledged, his own experiments in drama have traditionally been marginalized. However, in all of Conrad's plays we see a distinct effort to investigate seriously the dramatic form and some of his plays are startlingly ahead of their time. Furthermore, all of the plays are adaptations and comprise One Day More , based on Tomorrow , Laughing Anne , based on Because of the Dollars, Victory: A Drama and The Secret Agent . The creation of these reveals much about the history, theory and practice of this fascinating cultural process.

Maureen Stapleton is recognized as a leading star of stage, screen and television. Her career spans four decades during which she has received the highest acclaim for her great emotional power and versatility. A charter member of the renowned Actors Studio, Ms. Stapleton has won the top honors granted to performing artists, including the Oscar, Emmy and Tony Awards. Few actors have been so successful in all media. Maureen Stapleton: A Bio-Bibliography is the first book dedicated to the career of this consummate actress. A biographical narrative provides information on Ms. Stapleton's artistic development and significant events in her personal and professional life. A chronological summary demonstrates how effortlessly this actress has moved back and forth between stage and screen. Three comprehensive chapters, Stage Performances, Filmography, and Television Appearances, provide production information, cast lists, script synopsis, commentary and critical response. Each listing in these chapters has a separate number for cross-referencing throughout the volume. An annotated bibliography, appendix of awards and honors, and an index complete the volume. Part of Greenwood Press' ongoing series of Bio-Bibliographies in the Performing Arts, the work is a valuable resource for anyone interested in the career of this preeminent American artist.

Historical Dictionary of American Theater: Beginnings covers the history of theater as well as the literature of America from 1538 to 1880. The years covered by this volume features the rise of the popular stage in American during the colonial era and the first century of the United States of America, with an emphasis on its practitioners, including such figures as Lewis Hallam, David Douglass, Mercy Otis Warren, Edwin Forrest, Charlotte Cushman, Joseph Jefferson, Ida Aldridge, Dion Boucicault, Edwin Booth, and many others. The Historical Dictionary of American Theater: Beginnings covers the history of early American Theatre through a chronology, an introductory essay, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 1000 cross-referenced entries on actors and actresses, directors, playwrights, producers, genres, notable plays and theatres. This book is an excellent access point for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about the early American Theater.

This book illustrates how local awareness of Western cultural hegemonic entities such as Broadway and Shakespeare have been implemented within South Korean theatre in the global era. With a focus on performances that targeted global audiences, Lee explores the ways in which Korea's nationalistic desires for global visibility are projected on stage.

Digital Theatre is a rich and varied art form evolving between performing bodies gathered together in shared space and the ever-expanding flexible reach of the digital technology that shapes our world. This book explores live theatre performances which incorporate video projection, animation, motion capture and triggering, telematics and multisite performance, robotics, VR, and AR. Through examples from practitioners like George Coates, the Gertrude Stein Repertory Theatre, Troika Ranch, David Saltz, Mark Reaney, The Builder's Association, and ArtGrid, a picture emerges of how and why digital technology can be used to effectively create theatre productions matching the storytelling and expressive needs of today's artists and audiences. It also examines how theatre roles such as director, actor, playwright, costumes, and set are altered, and how ideas of body, place, and community are expanded.

According to Sir Peter Hall, "The theatre's been dying for two thousand years, and I'm sure will continue to." In the meantime, Hall and other leading figures of the stage have continued to influence theater productions throughout the world. In this collection of interviews, twenty-seven theater artists explore issues of theater theory and practice, illuminated by their wide range of perspectives. From traditional attitudes toward theatre to more avant-garde approaches, every facet of stage performance is addressed. Taken as a whole, these interviews reveal both the strength and extraordinary mutability of theater, as expressed by some of the most honored and well-regarded names of the stage, including Julie Harris, Quentin Crisp, Spalding Gray, Martin Sherman, Karen Finley, Eddie Izzard, Alan Ayckbourn, Robert Brustein, Uta Hagen, John Lahr, Stephen Daldry, and Edward Albee.

The digital broadcasting of performances to cinemas, or 'livecasting', burst onto the world scene in 2006. This book explores the reasons for its rise by examining the aesthetics of filming theatre and opera performances, as well as exploring who the audiences are and what they want.

Embodying Difference: Scripting Social Images of the Female Body in Latina Theatre explores contemporary theatrical productions by Latina dramatists in the United States and focuses on the effects that neoliberal politics, global market strategies, gender formation, and racial and ethnic marginalization have had on Latinas. Through the analysis of select plays by dramatists Nao Bustamante, Coco Fusco, Anne Garcia-Romero, Josefina Lopez, Cherrie Moraga, Linda Nieves-Powell, Dolores Prida, and Milcha Sanchez-Scott, Embodying Difference shows how the bodies of Latinas are represented on stage in order to create an image of Latina consolidation. The performances of a dynamic female body challenge assumptions about ethno-racial expressions, exoticized "otherness," and political correctness as this book explores often uneasy sites of representations of the body including phenotype, sexuality, obesity, and the body as a political marker. Drawing on the theoretical framework of difference, including differing gender voices, performances, and performative acts, Embodying Difference examines social images of the Latina body as a means of understanding and rearticulating Latina subjectivity through an expression of difference. By means of a gradual realization and self-acclamation of their own images, Latinas can learn to embody notions of self that endorse their curvaceous, sexualized, and oversized bodies that have historically been marked and marketed by their "brownness."

It is no coincidence that many of the most celebrated female performers throughout both the 19th and 20th centuries - women widely considered to represent the spirit of their times - were Jewish. Mock traces a lineage that stretches from the first international stage stars, Rachel of the Comedie-Francaise and Sarah Bernhardt, to stars of film and television such as Barbra Streisand, Bette Midler and Roseanne. In a unique enquiry, this book embraces issues of gender, sexuality, race, class and nationality through the figure of the Jewish woman to show how a very specific marginal identity has transformed mainstream cultures.

Traditions of folk drama exist throughout the world, ranging from simple forms that involve few people, rudimentary texts, and crude performance practices, to complex forms involving entire towns, highly elaborated texts, and performance practices that have developed over hundreds of years. Yet folk drama lacks, to this day, a full-length study from the perspectives of either folkloristics or drama studies. This work seeks to fill that lack by undertaking a bi-disciplinary study of the idea of folk drama, drawing on examples from around the world, including Yangge (China), Ta'ziyeh (Iran), Bhavai (India), Karagoz (Turkey), Apidan (Nigeria), and the Mummers' Play (England). It examines the meanings of "folk" and "drama," the significance of ritual and performance in folk drama, the frequently encountered problem of Eurocentric bias, the conventional tripartite division of drama into elite, popular, and folk categories, the need for a methodology capable of describing all aspects of folk drama performance, and the taxonomic place of folk drama in both folkloristics and drama studies. On the basis of this examination, Rethinking Folk Drama establishes a new basis for understanding the ubiquity and variety of folk drama.

Justice, Women, and Power in English Renaissance Drama is a collection of essays that explores the relationship of gender and justice as represented in English Renaissance drama. Many of the essays are concerned with interrogating the ways that women relied upon and/or reacted to the legal (and overarching political) systems in early modern England. Other essays examine issues involving the role of narrative, evidence, and gendered expectations about justice in the plays of this time period. An implicit concern of these essays is whether women were empowered or disempowered in this interaction with the legal/political system.

The careers, directing accomplishments, ideas, and techniques of six distinguished directors of the European stage--each considered a master of the art--are surveyed in depth by author Samuel L. Leiter in this groundbreaking study. Konstantin Stanislavsky, Vsevolod Meyerhold, Max Reinhardt, Jacques Copeau, Bertolt Brecht, and Jean-Louis Barrault, representative of the broad spectrum of directorial art as it has developed in this century, are examined in six exhaustively detailed, yet compact chapters. In Leiter's informative introduction, salient aspects of the director's art exemplified by these innovators are identified and examined: choice of repertory from the intellectually provocative to the escapist; stylistic attitudes toward production from Stanislavsky's "spiritual naturalism" to Meyerhold's biomechanics and constructivism; rehearsal methods from the dictatorial to the openly collaborative; and a continuing fascination with the shape and function of the performance space. Many of the directors emerge as multifaceted hommes de theatre--writing, directing, acting, designing sets and lighting, and producing. The theoretical writings of the majority of these great directors have become the foundation for Western theatre thought in our time. Each chapter contains capsule descriptions of the landmark productions of the individual director and the volume concludes with a section of brief chronologies for each person and a select bibliography. A single director is the subject of each of the six chapters, which are organized into numerous subsections that discuss the individual's career, his overarching conceptions of theatre art and directing, and finally his actual working methods.Almost every chapter has information on a director's repertory, major productions, theoretical concerns, techniques of working with actors, playwrights, designers, and composers, casting methods, production preparations, and rehearsal processes. Taken as a whole, these chapters reveal the wide divergence of directorial styles and techniques and the multiplicity of approaches open to exponents of the art. The separate chronologies and select bibliography are especially helpful. Students of stage directing and their teachers, active professionals in the field, and literate general readers who seek a broader understanding of twentieth century theatre and stage direction will find this a handy and invaluable resources. This work could be profitably used as a text or supplementary reading for classes in stage directing and is a companion to Leiter's From Belasco to Brook: Representative Directors of the English-Speaking Stage (Greenwood Press, 1991).

This book explores the intersection between apophaticism - negative theology - and performance. While apophaticism in literature and critical theory may have had its heyday in the heady debates about negative theology and deconstruction in the 1990s, negative ways of knowing and speaking have continued to structure conversations in theatre and performance studies around issues of embodiment, the non- and post-human, objects, archives, the ethics of otherness in intercultural research, and the unreadable and inaccessible in the work of minority artists. A great part of the history of apophaticism lies in mystic literature. With the rise of the New Age movement, which claimed historical mysticism as part of its genealogy, apophaticism has often been sidelined as spirituality rather than serious study. This book argues that the apophatic continues to exert a strong influence on the discourse and culture of Western literature and especially performance, and that by reassessing this ancient form of negative epistemology, artists, scholars, students, and teachers alike can more deeply engage forms of unknowing through what cannot be said and cannot be represented in language, on the stage, and in every aspect of social life.

Directing for Community Theatre is a primer for the amateur director working in community theatre. With an emphasis on preparedness, this book gives the amateur director the tools and techniques needed to effectively work on a community theatre production. Covering play analysis, blocking, staging, communication, and working with actors, designers, and other theatre personnel, this how-to book is designed to have the community theatre director up and running quickly, with full knowledge of how to direct a show. The book also contains sample forms and guidelines, including acting analysis, character analysis, rehearsal schedule, audition form, prop list, and blocking pans. Directing for Community Theatre is written for the community theatre participant who is interested, or already cast, in the role of the director.