Bøger i Studies Theatre Hist & Culture serien

Discusses the objectives of theatre studies by focusing on the communicative encounter between performer and spectator - the theatrical event. A theatrical event includes the presentation of a performance and the attention of an audience; in this sense, every performance that is watched by an audience is a theatrical event.

Provides the first in-depth study of the historic American Negro Theatre (ANT) and its lasting influence on American popular culture. Founded in 1940 in Harlem, the ANT successfully balanced expressions of African American consciousness with efforts to gain white support for the burgeoning civil rights movement.

With a focus on works by playwright Suzan-Lori Parks and visual artist Kara Walker, the book explores how, in comparison to the first wave of neo-slave narratives of the 1970s and 1980s, artists of the 1990s and early 2000s tend to approach the past from the vantage point of a liberal entanglement of fact and fiction.

Symptoms of the Self offers the first full study of the stage consumptive. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in France, Britain, and North America, tuberculosis was a leading killer. The consumptive character became a vehicle through which standards of health, beauty, and virtue were imposed; constructions of class, gender, and sexuality were debated; the boundaries of nationhood were transgressed or maintained; and an exceedingly fragile whiteness was held up as a dominant social ideal. By telling the story of tuberculosis on the transatlantic stage, Symptoms of the Self uncovers some of the wellsprings of modern Western theatrical practice--and of ideas about the self that still affect the way human beings live and die.

Feminist Rehearsals documents the early stages of feminist theatre in Argentina and Mexico, revealing how various aspects of performance culture--spectator formation, playwriting, professional acting and directing, and dramatic techniques--paralleled political activism and championed the goals of the women's rights movement.

"This book offers a fresh analytical approach to the plays of Eugene O'Neill with its attention to the engagements, weddings, and marriages so crucial to the tragic action in O'Neill's works. Specifically, the book examines the culturally-sanctioned traditions and gender roles that underscored marital life in the early 20th century and that still haunt and define love and partnership in the modern age. Analyzing and weaving in artifacts like advice columns, advertisements, theatrical reviews, and even the lived experiences of the actors who brought O'Neill's wife characters to life, Wynstra points to new ways of seeing and empathizing with those who are betrothed and new possibilities for reading marriage in literary and dramatic works. She suggests that the various ways women especially were, and still are, expected to divert from their true ambitions, desires, and selves in the service of appropriate wifely behavior is a detrimental performance and one at the crux of O'Neill's marital tragedies. Wynstra's study invites more inclusive and nuanced ways of thinking about the choices married characters must make and the roles they play both on and off the stage"--

"Beyond Ridiculous tells the story of Theatre-in-Limbo, a downtown band of actors formed in 1984 by playwright and soon-to-be drag legend Charles Busch, and director Kenneth Elliott. They performed Vampire Lesbians of Sodom at the Limbo Lounge, a raffish club in the East Village, then considered a dangerous corner of the New York City. But the next year, the show moved to the historic Provincetown Playhouse, a commercial Off-Broadway venue, and famously became the longest-running nonmusical in Off-Broadway history. From 1984 to 1991, Busch starred in eight Limbo productions, always in proud, outrageously fabulous drag. Yet ironically, Busch would eventually become a beloved grand dame of the New York theatre establishment, even including forays onto Broadway. In Beyond Ridiculous, Elliott, Limbo's director, producer, and co-founder, narrates in first-person the company's Cinderella tale of fun, heartbreak, and dishy drama. Scenes include the ecstatic opening night of Vampire Lesbians, complete with a production assistant rushing backstage with a hot-off-the-presses rave from The New York Times; encounters with Todd Rundgren, Joe Papp, and Milton Berle; but also, a thorough analysis of Busch's plays and a vivid account of the now-vanished gay New York theatrical scene of the 1980s. At the center of the book is the young Charles Busch, an unforgettable personality fighting to be seen, be heard, and express his unique style as a writer-performer in plays such as Psycho Beach Party and The Lady in Question. The tragedy of AIDS among treasured friends in the company, the struggle for mainstream acceptance of LGBTQ theatre during the reign of Reagan, and the exploration of new ways of being a gay theatre artist make the book a heartwarming, bittersweet, but ultimately joyous, ride. With queer rights under fire, remembering this inspiring moment in LGBTQ theatre history isn't just important, it's essential"--

Polish Theatre Revisited explores nineteenth-century Polish theatre through the lens of theatre audiences. Agata Luksza places special emphasis on the most engaged spectators, known as "theatremaniacs"--from what they wore, to what they bought, to what they ate. The theatre was one of the key areas where early fan cultures emerged, and theatremaniacs indulged in diverse fan practices in opposition to the forces reforming the theatre and its spectatorship.