This book foregrounds some of the ways in which women playwrights
from across a range of contexts and working in a variety of forms
and styles are illuminating the contemporary world while also
contributing to its reshaping as they reflect, rethink, and
reimagine it through their work for the stage. The book is framed
by a substantial introduction that sets forth the critical vision
and structure of the book as a whole, and an afterword that points
toward emerging currents in and expansions of the contemporary
field of playwriting by women on the cusp of the third decade of
the twenty-first century. Within this frame, the twenty-eight
chapters that form the main body of the book, each focusing on a
single play of critical significance, together constitute a
multi-faceted, inevitably partial, yet nonetheless integral picture
of the work of women playwrights since 2000 as they engage with
some of the most pressing issues of our time. Some of these issues
include the continuing oppression of and violence against women,
people of color, LGBTQ+ people, and ethnic minorities; the ongoing
processes of decolonization; the consequences of neoliberal
capitalism; the devastation and enduring trauma of war; global
migration and the refugee crisis; the turn to right-wing populism;
and the impact of climate change, including environmental disaster
and species extinction. The book is structured into seven sections:
Replaying the Canon; Representing Histories; Staging Lives;
Re-imagining Family; Navigating Communities; Articulating
Intersections; and New World Order(s). These sections group
clusters of plays according to the broad critical actions they
perform or, in the case of the final section, the new world orders
that they capture through their stagings of the seeming impasse of
the politically and environmentally catastrophic global present
moment. There are many other points of resonance among and across
the plays, but this seven-part structure foregrounds the broader
actions that drive the plays, both in the Aristotelian
dramaturgical sense and in the larger sense of the critical
interventions that the plays creatively enact. In this way, the
seven-part structure establishes correspondences across the great
diversity of dramatic material represented in the book while at the
same time identifying key methods of critical approach and areas of
focus that align the book's contributors across this diversity. The
structure of the book thus parallels what the playwrights
themselves are doing, but also how the contributors are approaching
their work. Plays featured in the book are from Canada, Australia,
South Africa, the US, the UK, France, Argentina, New Zealand,
Syria, Brazil, Italy, and Austria; the playwrights include Margaret
Atwood, Leah Purcell, YaEl Farber, Paula Vogel, Adrienne Kennedy,
Suzan-Lori Parks, debbie tucker green, Lisa Loomer, HElEne Cixous,
Anna Deavere Smith, Lola Arias, Lisa Kron and Jeanine Tesori, Marie
Clements, Quiara AlegrIa Hudes, Alia Bano, Holly Hughes, Whiti
Hereaka, Julia Cho, Liwaa Yazji, Grace PassO, Dominique Morisseau,
Emma Dante, Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig, Lynn Nottage, Elfriede Jelinek,
Caryl Churchill, Colleen Murphy, and Lucy Kirkwood. Encompassing
several generations of playwrights and scholars, ranging from the
most senior to mid-career to emerging voices, the book will be
essential reading for established researchers, a valuable learning
resource for students at all levels, and a useful and accessible
guide for theatre practitioners and interested theatre-goers.
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