Focusing on contemporary English theatre, this book asks a series of questions: How has theatre contributed to understandings of the North-South divide? What have theatrical treatments of riots offered to wider debates about their causes and consequences? Has theatre been able to intervene in the social unease around Gypsy and Traveller communities? How has theatre challenged white privilege and the persistent denigration of black citizens? In approaching these questions, this book argues that the nation is blighted by a number of internal rifts that pit people against each other in ways that cast particular groups as threats to the nation, as unruly or demeaned citizens - as 'social abjects'. It interrogates how those divisions are generated and circulated in public discourse and how theatre offers up counter-hegemonic and resistant practices that question and challenge negative stigmatization, but also how theatre can contribute to the recirculation of problematic cultural imaginaries.

Unprecedented in its comprehensiveness, The Moscow Art Theatre fills a large gap in our knowledge of Stanislavsky and his theatre. Worrall focuses in particular detail on four of The Moscow Art Theatre's best-known productions:
* Tolstoy's Tsar Fedor Ioannovich
* Gorky's The Lower Depths
* Chekov's The Cherry Orchard
* Turgenev's A Month in the Country

eBook available with sample pages: 0203114434

"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.

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 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.

eBook available with sample pages: 020342106X

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...

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.

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.

The political events of "annus mirabilis" 1989 marked a rare turning point in world history, but the significance of the year for German literary history is unique. As the 40-year-old German Democratic Republic ceased to exist, so too did the special circumstances which had fostered a literature separate from and in competition with that of the Federal Republic of Germany. A new period of literary history was delimited almost overnight: Germany Democratic Republic literature now was something to be examined as a whole, cultural movement. At the same time, the literary traditions of the German Democratic Republic have continued to influence the contemporary cultural scene, often in ways that are only gradually becoming clear.
The essays, memoirs, and plays collected in this special issue of Contemporary Theatre Review represent an early attempt to assess and reassess one of the German Democratic Republic's richest cultural domains: its theatre. Contributors include David W. Robinson, C

"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

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.

"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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

"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.

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

"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

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. What does it mean to have a home? What makes a home home? In this verbatim play, Nadia Fall combines real testimonials with song and music to bring to life the often unheard voices of those people who have nowhere to call home. Focusing on a hostel in inner-city London, Fall introduces the people who are living there and through them explores one of the most pressing contemporary social issues, homelessness amongst young people.

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.

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.

A Working Costume Designer's Guide to Fit explores the concept of fit in theatrical costumes - what it is, how to assess it, and how to achieve it. Being able to assess whether a costume fits or not is a learned skill, which takes practice as well as information about what the fit standards are for different types of garments. Filled with detailed step-by-step illustrations, this book provides all the knowledge readers will need in order to achieve the perfect fit for their costumes, including: How costumes can support actors onstage when they fit correctly. How to take measurements and how to assess them. How to conduct a fitting and what materials are needed. How to resolve a number of issues that may arise during a fitting. How to fit a mock-up test garment in preparation for building a costume from scratch. How to adjust a garment or mock-up to fit better. Chapters 8-14 also explore different categories of garments and discuss how to check them against the wearer's measurements before trying them on, what the standards of fit are for each category, and how to fit an existing garment. This is an essential guide for students of Costume Design courses and professional costume designers of any experience level.