In a moment of intense uncertainty surrounding the means, ends, and limits of (countering) terrorism, this study approaches the recent theatres of war through theatrical stagings of terror. Theatre on Terror: Subject Positions in British Drama charts the terrain of contemporary subjectivities both 'at home' and 'on the front line'. Beyond examining the construction and contestation of subject positions in domestic and (sub)urban settings, the book follows border-crossing figures to the shifting battlefields in Iraq and Afghanistan. What emerges through the analysis of twenty-one plays is not a dichotomy but a dialectics of 'home' and 'front', where fluid, uncontainable subjects are constantly pushing the contours of conflict. Revising the critical consensus that post-9/11 drama primarily engages with 'the real', Ariane de Waal argues that these plays navigate the complexities of the discourse - rather than the historical or social realities - of war and terrorism. British 'theatre on terror' negotiates, inflects, and participates in the discursive circulation of stories, idioms, controversies, testimonies, and pieces of (mis)information in the face of global insecurities.

This ground-breaking collection explores the assumptions behind and practices for performance implicit in the manuscripts and playtexts of the medieval and early modern eras, focusing on work which engages with performance-oriented research.

This book shows that the sounds of the early modern stage do not only signify but are also significant. Sounds are weighted with meaning, offering a complex system of allusions. Playwrights such as Jonson and Shakespeare developed increasingly experimental soundscapes, from the storms of King Lear (1605) and Pericles (1607) to the explosive laboratory of The Alchemist (1610). Yet, sound is dependent on the subjectivity of listeners; this book is conscious of the complex relationship between sound as made and sound as heard. Sound effects should not resound from scene to scene without examination, any more than a pun can be reshaped in dialogue without acknowledgement of its shifting connotations. This book listens to sound as a rhetorical device, able to penetrate the ears and persuade the mind, to influence and to affect. -- .

This book explores the themes of colonial encounters and postcolonial contests over identity, power and culture through the prism of theatre. The author examines the work of prominent Nigerian and British playwrights who came of age after the passing of the British Empire.

Since Hedda Gabler exploded on to European and American stages in the 1890s, the play and its title character have troubled and transfixed audiences, performers and critics the world over. In this Routledge Literary Sourcebook, Christopher Innes balances essential reprinted texts with clear, incisive commentary to:
*set the play within the contexts of Norwegian nationalism, the women's movement and the cultural movement of Naturalism
*examine and emphasize the links between - the performance and criticism of the play, from 1890 to the present
*offer the ideal guide to key passages in the play, showing how a knowledge of the play's contexts, performance history and critical fortunes can give rise to exciting new readings of the text
*prepare readers for further study of the play, with suggestions for reading on specific issues of interest.
No student should be without this guide as they enter the fascinating world of Hedda Gabler, Henrik Ibsen and Naturalist theater.

Designed as a complement to the sections of pre-Shakespearean and Elizabethan comedies already published in The World's Classics as part of a series of anthologies of the English drama.

This innovative collection brings together a group of leading theatre historians to identify and exemplify a variety of productive new approaches to the investigation of plays, players, playwrights, playhouses and other aspects of theatre in the long eighteenth century. Their inquiries are multi-faceted, ranging from stage censorship and anti-theatricalism to the investigation of playhouse finances, from the performance representation of Othello and Oroonoko to the political resonances of adultery comedy, and from Garrick's vocal art to the interpretation of contemporary paintings of actors and actresses.

KING. Let fame, that all hunt after in their lives, Live regist'red upon our brazen tombs, And then grace us in the disgrace of death; When, spite of cormorant devouring Time, Th' endeavour of this present breath may buy That honour which shall bate his scythe's keen edge, And make us heirs of all eternity. Therefore, brave conquerors- for so you are That war against your own affections And the huge army of the world's desires- Our late edict shall strongly stand in force: Navarre shall be the wonder of the world; Our court shall be a little Academe, Still and contemplative in living art. You three, Berowne, Dumain, and Longaville, Have sworn for three years' term to live with me My fellow-scholars, and to keep those statutes That are recorded in this schedule here. Your oaths are pass'd; and now subscribe your names, That his own hand may strike his honour down That violates the smallest branch herein. If you are arm'd to do as sworn to do, Subscribe to your deep oaths, and keep it too.

This collection brings together established scholars and new names in the field of Tudor drama studies. Through a range of traditional and theoretical approaches, the essays address the neglected early and mid-Tudor period before the rise of the 'mature' drama of Marlowe and Shakespeare in the 1590s. New Ideas for research topics and pedagogical methods are discussed in the essays, which each provide original arguments about specific texts and/or performances while also providing an advanced introduction to a concentrated area of Tudor drama studies. While the continuation of mystery play performances and morality plays through the first three-quarters of the sixteenth century have been discussed with some consistency in the academy, other types of drama (e.g. folk or school plays) have received short shrift, and critical theory has been slow in coming to this scholarship. This collection begins to fill in these deficiencies and suggest fruitful directions for a twenty-first century revival in pre-Shakespearean Tudor drama studies.

You can paint your placards 'til the cows come home, but until you have marched through this town in five inch heels and fishnets, you will never know what it is to truly be a faggot on the front line. Told against the backdrop of Dublin's burgeoning gay rights movement of the 1980s and 1990s and the contemporary LGBTQ+ community of today, Once Before I Go charts the close friendship of Lynn, Daithi, and the luminous Bernard, and sits on the exhilarating edge between comedy, tragedy and melodrama. Exploring the fragile yet resilient bonds of Irish queer lives across three decades in Dublin, London and Paris, the play steps between the early days of the AIDS crisis and today's LGBTQ+ community, living in an era of marriage equality, gender self-determination, and untransmittable HIV. At once political, joyous and heart-breaking, Once Before I Go honours the fabulous people we lost along the way, and celebrates those who fight on. This edition was published to coincide with the world premiere at Dublin's Gate Theatre in October 2021.

The history of European drama began at the festivals of Dionysus in ancient Athens, where tragedy, satyr-drama and comedy were performed. Understanding this background is vital for students of classical, literary and theatrical subjects, and Alan H. Sommerstein's accessible study is the ideal introduction.
The book begins by looking at the social and theatrical contexts and different characteristics of the three genres of ancient Greek drama. It then examines the five main dramatists whose works survive - Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes and Menander - discussing their styles, techniques and ideas, and giving short synopses of all their extant plays.

Contents:
General Editor's Preface. Acknowledgements. 1. Preliminaries: Semiotics and Poetics: The Semiotics Enterprise; How Many Semiotics?; The material. 2. Foundations: Signs in the Theatre: Prague structuralism and the theatrical sign; Typologies of the sign. 3. Theatrical Communication: Codes, Systems and the Performance Text: Elements of theatrical communication; Theatrical Systems and Codes; Theatrical competence: frame, convention and the role of the audience. 4. Dramatic Logic: The construction of the dramatic world; Dramatic action and time; Actant, dramatis persona and the dramatic model. 5. Dramatic Discourse: Dramatic Communication; Context and deixis; Universe of discourse and co-text; Speech acts; The said and the unsaid: implicatures and figures; Textuality; Towards a dramatological analysis. 6. Concluding Comments: Theatre, Drama, Semiotics: Dramatic Text/performance text; A united enterprise? Suggestions for further reading. Bibliography. Index.

This book documents how Oscar Wilde was appropriated as a fictional character by no less than thirty-two of his contemporaries. Focusing on Wilde's relationships with many of these writers, Kingston examines and critiques 'Wildean' portraits by such celebrated authors as Joseph Conrad, Arthur Conan Doyle, Henry James, George Bernard Shaw and Bram Stoker, as well as some lesser-known writers. Many fascinating, little-known biographical and literary connections are revealed. While this work will be of significant interest to scholars of Wilde, it is also written in a clear, accessible style which will appeal to the non-academic reader with a general interest in Wilde or the late Victorian period.

Ideal for student research and class discussion, this interdisciplinary casebook provides a rich variety of primary historical documents and commentary on The Crucible within the context of two relevant historical periods: the Salem witch-trials of 1692 and the "Red Scare" of the 1950s, when the play was written. The play is a testimony to the inherent dangers Miller sees in any community seized by hysteria. The Salem witch-hunts, which Miller uses to illustrate such a community, were echoed more than 250 years later in the hunt for subversives during the "Red Scare" of the 1950s. The authors provide literary and dramatic analysis of the play, comprehensive historical backgrounds, relevant documents of the periods, and questions and projects to help students in their understanding of The Crucible and the issues it raises. In a discussion of Puritan society of the seventeenth century, the authors explore the habits of many of the residents of Massachusetts Bay and specific events which seemed to make the witch-hunts of 1692 inevitable. The text of relevant documents illustrate their beliefs, combined with the disasters that contributed to community hysteria. A chapter on the Salem witch trials includes testimony, letters, and first person accounts by actual people on which Miller based his characters. A chapter on the "Red Scare" of the 1950s features testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee, case studies of blacklisted people, and an exclusive interview with a couple who were blacklisted. The authors include a chapter on witch-hunting in the 1990s in the form of testimony from preschoolers which sent child care workers to prison on charges of sexual abuse. Studentswill be able to compare and contrast witch- hunting over 300 years with the materials provided here, many of which are available in no other printed form. Each section of the casebook contains study questions, topics for research papers and class discussion, and lists of further reading for examining the issues raised by the play.

Embodied Playwriting: Improv and Acting Exercises for Writing and Devising is the first book to compile new and adapted exercises for teaching playwriting in the classroom, workshop, or studio through the lens of acting and improvisation. The book provides access to the innovative practices developed by seasoned playwriting teachers from around the world who are also actors, improv performers, and theatre directors. Borrowing from the embodied art of acting and the inventive practice of improvisation, the exercises in this book will engage readers in performance-based methods that lead to the creation of fully imagined characters, dynamic relationships, and vivid drama. Step-by-step guidelines for exercises, as well as application and coaching advice, will support successful lesson planning and classroom implementation for playwriting students at all levels, as well as individual study. Readers will also benefit from curation by editors who have experience with high-impact educational practices and are advocates for the use of varied teaching strategies to increase accessibility, inclusion, skill-building, and student success. Embodied Playwriting offers a wealth of material for teachers and students of playwriting courses, as well as playwrights who look forward to experimenting with dynamic, embodied writing practices.

Originally adapted for the stage, Peter Meineck's revised translations achieve a level of fidelity appropriate for classroom use while managing to preserve the wit and energy that led The New Yorker to judge his Clouds The best Greek drama we've ever seen anywhere," and The Times Literary Supplement to describe his Wasps as "Hugely enjoyable and very, very funny. A general Introduction, introductions to the plays, and detailed notes on staging, history, religious practice and myth combine to make this a remarkably useful teaching text.

Unique in any Western language, this is an invaluable resource for the study of one of the world's great theatrical forms. It includes essays by established experts on Kabuki as well as younger scholars now entering the field, and provides a comprehensive survey of the history of Kabuki; how it is written, produced, staged, and performed; and its place in world theater. Compiled by the editor of the influential Asian Theater Journal, the book covers four essential areas - history, performance, theaters, and plays - and includes a translation of one Kabuki play as an illustration of Kabuki techniques.

This six-volume anthology documents the history of women's drama throughout the 18th century, starting with the emergence in 1695-6 of the second generation of women dramatists in succession to Aphra Benn. Containing a representative selection of newly edited and annotated texts by leading woman dramatists of the period from 1696 to 1800, the anthology reflects the changes in Britain's global realignment in class models and perception of other peoples.

Eric Salmon contends that modern theatre is artistically endangered. This book is his evaluation of the present state of English-speaking theatre and an examination, through examples of twentieth-century plays, both good and bad, of the reasons for it. Salmon's method is critical-argumentative. He is as much concerned with staging methods and playing as with the plays themselves, though he regards the playwright as the primary artist in the theatre and the actor as an interpretor.

During the 19 years of her play-writing career, Aphra Behn had far more new plays staged than anyone else. This book is the first to examine all her theatrical work. It explains her often dominant place in the complex theatrical culture of Charles II's reign, her divided political sympathies, and her interests as a free-thinking intellectual. It also reveals her to be a brilliant theatrical practitioner who used the seen as richly and significantly as the spoken.

KENT. I thought the King had more affected the Duke of Albany than Cornwall. GLOUCESTER. It did always seem so to us; but now, in the division of the kingdom, it appears not which of the Dukes he values most, for equalities are so weigh'd that curiosity in neither can make choice of either's moiety. KENT. Is not this your son, my lord? GLOUCESTER. His breeding, sir, hath been at my charge. I have so often blush'd to acknowledge him that now I am braz'd to't.

This book offers a compelling examination of performed adaptations of Stevenson's masterpiece, "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde." Rose investigates how a single text, adapted many times in the past century, can serve to elucidate certain shifts in cultural attitudes. Providing an analysis of the relation between culture and performance, the author argues that Stevenson's adapters have infused the original story with concerns about issues of race, class, gender, and economics.

This exploration of the territory between theory and practice in contemporary theatre features essays by academics from theatre and translation studies, and delineates a new space for the discussion of translation in the theatre that is international, critical and scholarly, while rooted in experience and understanding of theatre practices.

Modern British Playwriting: The 1980s equips readers with a fresh assessment of the theatre and principle playwrights and plays from a decade when political and economic forces were changing society dramatically. It offers a broad survey of the context and of the playwrights and companies such as Complicite and DV8 that rose to prominence at this time. Alongside this it provides a detailed examination based on fresh research of four of the most significant playwrights of the era and considers the influence they had on later work. The 1980s volume features a detailed study by four scholars of the work of four of the major playwrights who came to prominence: Howard Barker (by Sarah Goldingay), Jim Cartwright (David Lane), Sarah Daniels (Jane Milling) and Timberlake Wertenbaker (Sara Freeman). Essential for students of Theatre Studies, the series of six decadal volumes provides a critical survey and study of the theatre produced from the 1950s to 2009. Each volume features a critical analysis of the work of four key playwrights besides other theatre work from that decade, together with an extensive commentary on the period. Readers will understand the works in their contexts and be presented with fresh research material and a reassessment from the perspective of the twenty-first century. This is an authoritative and stimulating reassessment of British playwriting in the 1980s.

Key Features: * Study methods * Introduction to the text * Summaries with critical notes * Themes and techniques * Textual analysis of key passages * Author biography * Historical and literary background * Modern and historical critical approaches * Chronology * Glossary of literary terms