A fascinating anthology that brings together in one volume many of the important articles written about Brecht between 1957 and 1997. The collection explores a wide range of viewpoints about Brecht's theatre theories and practice, as well as including three plays not otherwise easily available in English: "The Beggar or the Dead Dog," "Baden Lehrstuck" and "The Seven Deadly Sins of the Lower Middle Class," This unique compendium covers all the key areas including: the development of Brecht's aesthetic theories, the relationship of Epic theatre to orthodox dramatic theatre, Brecht's collaborations with Kurt Weill, Paul Dessau, and Max Frisch, and Brecht's influence on a variety of cultures and contexts including England, Italy, Moscow, and Japan.
Contributors: Lee Baxandall, Eric Bentley, Henry Bial, Hans-Joachim Bunge, Paul Dessau, Martin Esslin, Henry Glade, Barclay Goldsmith, Mordecai Gorelik, Karen Laughlin, Carol Martin, W. Stuart McDowell, Erica Munk, Jean-Paul Sartre, Ernst Schumacher, Diana Taylor, Tadashi Uchino, Carl Weber, and Kurt Weill.

Bertolt Brecht is one of the most prolific and influential writer-directors of the twentieth century. This fascinating anthology brings together in one volume many of the most important articles written about Brecht between 1957 and 1997. The collection explores a wide range of viewpoints about Brecht's theatre theories and practice, as well as including three plays not otherwise available in English: The Beggar or The Dead Dog, Baden Lehrstuck and The Seven Deadly Sins of the Lower Middle Class.
Editors Martin and Bial have brought together a unique compendium which covers all the key areas including:
* the development of Brecht's aesthetic theories
* the relationship of Epic theatre to orthodox dramatic theatre
* Brecht's collaboration with Kurt Weill, Paul Dessau and Max Frisch
* Brecht's influence on a variety of cultures and contexts including England, Italy , Moscow and Japan.
Together these essays are an ideal companion to Brecht's plays, and provide an invaluable reconsideration of Brecht's work.
Contributors include: Werner Hecht, Mordecai Gorelik, Eric Bentley, Jean-Paul Sartre, Kurt Weill, Ernst Bloch, Darko Suvin, Carl Weber, Paul Dessau, Denis Calandra, W. Stuart McDowell, Ernst Schmacher, Hans-Joachim Bunge, Martin Esslin, Artuto Lazzari, Tadashi Uchino, Diana Taylor, Elin Diamond, and Lee Baxandall.

Whether we regard it as the collected inscriptions of an earlier oral tradition or as the divinely authored source text of liturgical ritual, the Bible can be understood as a sacred performance text, a framework for an instructional theater that performs the shared moral and ethical values of a community. It's not surprising, then, that playwrights have turned to the Bible as a source for theatrical adaptation. Biblical texts have inspired more than 100 Broadway plays and musicals, ranging from early spectacles like Ben-Hur (1899) to more familiar works such as Godspell and Jesus Christ Superstar. What happens when a culture's most sacred text enters its most commercial performance venue? Playing God focuses on eleven financially and/or critically successful productions, as well as a few notable Broadway flops that highlight the difficulties in adapting the Old and New Testaments for the stage. The book is informed by both performance studies and theater history, combining analysis of play-scripts with archival research into the actual circumstances of production and reception. Biblical plays, Henry Bial argues, balance religious and commercial considerations through a complex blend of spectacle, authenticity, sincerity, and irony. Though there is no magic formula for a successful adaptation, these four analytical lenses help explain why some biblical plays thrive while others have not.

""Theater Historiography: Critical Interventions" is an important collection. The essays on theater history are models of meticulous research engaged through rigorous theorizing and analysis; they often yield striking new insights into subjects we might think we already know well. Other essays provide new perspectives on how to approach theater and performance, and are passionate calls to reconsider how we engage objects of study. The larger cultural contexts and analyses in the section 'Theatre History's Discipline' should prove invaluable for furthering important conversations about the field."
---Rhonda Blair, Southern Methodist University

"In this exciting collection, theater historiography becomes a veritable hotbed in which theater history and performance studies productively, even seamlessly, intertwine. These richly diverse yet cogently edited essays incisively address the dynamic methodological, political, and pedagogical challenges of reading past performances in the present. Contributors honor their teachers with fresh interventions and a critically engaged passion for doing theater history that will inspire both established and emerging generations of scholars."
---Kim Marra, University of Iowa

"Redraws 'theater history' in fiercely imaginative, inspired, and provocative ways."
---Harley Erdman, University of Massachusetts

"A major collection that brings together new voices in the field . . . its range and breadth are impressive, and its usefulness in the classroom undeniable."
---Ric Knowles, University of Guelph

How should theater history be practiced? Some scholars have argued that the emerging discipline of performance studies should replace theater history altogether, while traditional theater historians have sometimes rejected performance studies analyses as unsatisfactorily diffuse and less than rigorous. "Theater Historiography: Critical Interventions" draws freely on the methods and terminologies of both disciplines, showing that the critical intersection between theater history and performance studies is both desirable and inevitable. The book's original essays, based on innovative and compelling research by 23 contributors, probe key methodological questions about interdisciplinarity, postcolonialism, the archive, and digital technology.

Henry Bial is Associate Professor of Theater at the University of Kansas.

Scott Magelssen is Associate Professor of Theater and Film at Bowling Green State University.