This book addresses a deceptively simple question: what accounts for the global success of A Doll's House, Henrik Ibsen's most popular play? Using maps, networks, and images to explore the world history of the play's production, this question is considered from two angles: cultural transmission and adaptation. Analysing the play's transmission reveals the social, economic, and political forces that have secured its place in the canon of world drama; a comparative study of the play's 135-year production history across five continents offers new insights into theatrical adaptation. Key areas of research include the global tours of nineteenth-century actress-managers, Norway's soft diplomacy in promoting gender equality, representations of the female performing body, and the sexual vectors of social change in theatre.

This pioneering study harnesses virtual reality to uncover the history of five venues that have been 'lost' to us: London's 1590s Rose Theatre; Bergen's mid-nineteenth-century Komediehuset; Adelaide's Queen's Theatre of 1841; circus tents hosting Cantonese opera performances in Australia's goldfields in the 1850s; and the Stardust showroom in 1950s Las Vegas. Shaping some of the most enduring genres of world theatre and cultural production, each venue marks a significant cultural transformation, charted here through detailed discussion of theatrical praxis and socio-political history. Using virtual models as performance laboratories for research, Visualising Lost Theatres recreates the immersive feel of venues and reveals performance logistics for actors and audiences. Proposing a new methodology for using visualisations as a tool in theatre history, and providing 3D visualisations for the reader to consult alongside the text, this is a landmark contribution to the digital humanities.

Multimedia Histories: From the Magic Lantern to the Internet is the first book to explore in detail the vital connections between today's digital culture and an absorbing history of screen entertainments and technologies. Its range of coverage moves from the magic lantern, the stereoscope and early film to the DVD and the internet. By reaching back into the innovative media practices of the nineteenth century, Multimedia Histories outlines many of the revealing continuities between nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first century multimedia culture. Comprising some of the most important new work on multimedia culture and history by key writers in this growing field, Multimedia Histories will be an indispensable new sourcebook for the discipline. It will be an important intervention in rethinking the boundaries of Anglo-American film and media history.

This book addresses a deceptively simple question: what accounts for the global success of A Doll's House, Henrik Ibsen's most popular play? Using maps, networks, and images to explore the world history of the play's production, this question is considered from two angles: cultural transmission and adaptation. Analysing the play's transmission reveals the social, economic, and political forces that have secured its place in the canon of world drama; a comparative study of the play's 135-year production history across five continents offers new insights into theatrical adaptation. Key areas of research include the global tours of nineteenth-century actress-managers, Norway's soft diplomacy in promoting gender equality, representations of the female performing body, and the sexual vectors of social change in theatre.

Aviation extended the horizon of international touring across Asia and the Pacific in the 1950s and 1960s. Nightclubs in Hong Kong, Manila, Melbourne, Singapore, Sydney, Tokyo, and Taipei presented an international array of touring acts. This book investigates how this happened. It explores the post-war formation of the Asia Pacific region through international touring and the transformation of entertainment during the 'jet age' of aviation. Drawing on archival research across the region, Bollen investigates how touring variety forged new relations between artists, audiences, and nations. Mapping tours and tracing networks by connecting fragments, he reveals how versatile artists translated repertoire in circulation as they toured, and how entrepreneurial endeavours harnessed the production of national distinction to government agendas. He argues that touring variety on commercial circuits diversified the repertoire in regional circulation, anticipating the diversity emerging in state-sanctioned multiculturalisms, and driving the government-construction of national theatres for cultural diplomacy.

Aviation extended the horizon of international touring across Asia and the Pacific in the 1950s and 1960s. Nightclubs in Hong Kong, Manila, Melbourne, Singapore, Sydney, Tokyo, and Taipei presented an international array of touring acts. This book investigates how this happened. It explores the post-war formation of the Asia Pacific region through international touring and the transformation of entertainment during the 'jet age' of aviation. Drawing on archival research across the region, Bollen investigates how touring variety forged new relations between artists, audiences, and nations. Mapping tours and tracing networks by connecting fragments, he reveals how versatile artists translated repertoire in circulation as they toured, and how entrepreneurial endeavours harnessed the production of national distinction to government agendas. He argues that touring variety on commercial circuits diversified the repertoire in regional circulation, anticipating the diversity emerging in state-sanctioned multiculturalisms, and driving the government-construction of national theatres for cultural diplomacy.