A comprehensive anthology of women's theatre writing, spanning the history of modern and romantic theatre. This book caters to contemporary syllabi across theatre studies, covering major courses across BA degrees. No other collection of women's theatre writing exists on this scale.

A comprehensive anthology of women's theatre writing, spanning the history of modern and romantic theatre. This book caters to contemporary syllabi across theatre studies, covering major courses across BA degrees. No other collection of women's theatre writing exists on this scale.

Closet Drama: History, Theory, Form introduces the emerging field of Closet Drama Studies by featuring twelve original essays from distinguished scholars who offer fresh and illuminating perspectives on closet drama as a genre. Examining an unusual mix of historical narratives, performances, and texts from the Renaissance to the present, this collection unleashes a provocative array of theoretical concerns about the phenomenon of the closet play-a dramatic text written for reading rather than acting.

Closet Drama: History, Theory, Form introduces the emerging field of Closet Drama Studies by featuring twelve original essays from distinguished scholars who offer fresh and illuminating perspectives on closet drama as a genre. Examining an unusual mix of historical narratives, performances, and texts from the Renaissance to the present, this collection unleashes a provocative array of theoretical concerns about the phenomenon of the closet play-a dramatic text written for reading rather than acting.

First published in 2000, this collection of essays examine the extraordinary contribution of women playwrights, actors, translators, critics and managers who worked in British theatre during the romantic period. Focusing on women well known during their day but neglected for some 150 years, the volume provides a crucial perspective that revises historical narratives and reflects the rapidly changing terrain of scholarship in the complex field of romantic theatre and drama. Eleven specially commissioned essays by a distinguished team of scholars explore the role of numerous theatrical women including the eminent actress Sarah Siddons and two of the period's most prolific playwrights Elizabeth Inchbald and Joanna Baillie. The book strikes a balance between literary and theatrical approaches, showing how the period's preoccupation with categories such as text and performance, closet drama and stage, provide a key to 'uncloseting' an important group of female theatre artists.

This is the first collection of essays to examine the extraordinary contribution of women playwrights, actors, translators, critics and managers who worked in British theater during the romantic period. Focusing on women well known during their day but neglected for some 150 years, the volume provides a crucial new perspective that revises historical narratives and reflects the rapidly changing terrain of scholarship in the complex field of romantic theater and drama. Eleven specially-commissioned essays by leading scholars explore the role of Elizabeth Inchbald, Joanna Baillie, Sarah Siddons and numerous others.

The letters in this book tell two stories: my father's experience as an 18-year old Staff Sergeant in the U.S. Army between 1947 and 1948; and his mother's struggle to run a funeral business in a small North Carolina town. In the letters, Julian Carr Burroughs, Jr. is preoccupied with the girl he left behind and the morale of his family--while his mother, Ruby Morton Burroughs Sedberry, confronts her loneliness and isolation in a home that doubles as a place where bodies are embalmed and placed in caskets for their loved ones to view. These letters between mother and son paint a unique and detailed picture of the challenges faced by parents and children involved in the military right after WWII and by Southern women emerging from the Great Depression to the possibilities of a better life.

The considerable contributions of British women playwrights of the Restoration and eighteenth century, long unavailable, have now inspired numerous anthologies, editions, and modern-day productions. As these works continue to gain recognition and secure a more prominent place in college curriculums, teachers face the challenge of introducing these rediscovered works to students and explaining how they fit into the period's dramatic tradition. This volume aims to help instructors present a clearer sense of this body of work in the undergraduate and graduate classroom.

The volume opens with background essays on the history of women in theater, including the first appearance of actresses on the stage, the earliest professional women playwrights, and their relationships with critics, audiences, and the theater manager David Garrick. Contributors then focus on individual playwrights, from Aphra Behn and Mary Pix to Hannah Cowley and Elizabeth Inchbald, and explore these women's political, protofeminist, critical, and moralist agendas. Discussions of Frances Burney and Eliza Haywood, authors of both novels and plays, raise the question of genre. Comparative approaches offer ways of pairing plays in the classroom, following themes such as masquerade and cross-dressing through the works of female dramatists and those of their male counterparts. Other essays present methods for using these writers and their works in British literature and history courses, surveys of drama and theater history, and introductions to women's literature.