The essays in this book productively conjoin the fields of performance studies and American studies. The book will appeal to international programs and research projects in American Studies, Cultural Studies, Performance Studies, and Theater Studies. The book features the documentation of the performance Border Movement... by Marina Barsy Janer and Caro Ley, and an interview with the performance artist Denise Uyehara.

In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the American theater emerged as a crucial cultural space for debates around gender stereotypes, gendered conduct, sexual desire, the politics of intimacy and domesticity, female authorship, as well as the complex intersections of gender and other markers of cultural difference, such as race, ethnicity, socioeconomic class, age, or nation. This collection explores the role of gender in the formation of American theatrical culture in this period. It features essays on well-known early American dramatists such as Susanna Rowson or Judith Sargent Murray, but also sheds light on anonymous authors and more obscure theatrical practices.