13 minute read
Theatre History & Criticism
Cabaret
William Grange, University of Nebraska, USA Where did cabaret come from? What has it got to do with pre-war Berlin, decadent society and Nazis? Is cabaret a primary vehicle for exploring the range of sexual practices and alternative sexual identities? William Grange gathers into one place for the fi rst time the range of practices now associated with the form of cabaret. Arranged chronologically and featuring case studies of practice from Berlin, the UK, Canada, Australia, the United States, South Africa and Singapore, this book guides readers through cabaret's golden age in the 1920s to the present day.
UK August 2021 • US August 2021 • 192 pages • 8 bw illus PB 9781350140257 • £14.99 / $19.95 • HB 9781350140264 • £45.00 / $61.00 ePub 9781350140271 • £13.49 / $17.24 ePdf 9781350140288 • £13.49 / $17.24 Series: Forms of Drama • Methuen Drama
Satire
Joel Schechter, San Francisco State University, USA How has satire been used by theatre artists and what have its targets been? How has its form and function changed in different ages? Joel Schechter reconsiders the entertainment, political dissent and comic social commentary created by innovative writers and directors since this theatrical form took the stage in ancient Athens. Arranged chronologically, it reveals how writers and artists from Aristophanes to the 18th-century plays of John Gay and Henry Fielding, to the creations of Joan Littlewood, Bertolt Brecht, Vsevelod Meyerhold, Erika Mann, Brendan Behan and Dario Fo, have all prompted audiences to laugh at corruption, greed, injustice and abusive authority.
UK August 2021 • US August 2021 • 192 pages • 8 bw illus PB 9781350140073 • £14.99 / $19.95 • HB 9781350140080 • £45.00 / $61.00 ePub 9781350140097 • £13.49 / $17.24 ePdf 9781350140103 • £13.49 / $17.24 Series: Forms of Drama • Methuen Drama
Pageant
Joan FitzPatrick Dean, University of MissouriKansas City, USA Grounded in theatre history, this is the fi rst guide to explore pageantry as a dramatic form. Featuring case study examples from the middle ages, early 20th century and the 2012 Olympic Opening Ceremony, it equips students with a thorough understanding of the dramatic form. Theatrical pageants are intimately connected with power. The case studies provide examples of the ways in which pageants have been used to advocate for women’s suffrage and the expansion of the franchise and in more recent times to create traditions to promote the culture and values of nations.
UK August 2021 • US August 2021 • 192 pages • 8 bw illus PB 9781350144514 • £14.99 / $19.95 • HB 9781350144521 • £45.00 / $61.00 ePub 9781350144538 • £13.49 / $17.24 ePdf 9781350144545 • £13.49 / $17.24 Series: Forms of Drama • Methuen Drama
Tragicomedy
Brean Hammond, University of Nottingham, UK This short authoritative book provides an overview of the origins, characteristics and changing status of tragicomedy from the 17th century to the present. Case studies explore some of the key English and Irish playwrights associated with the form - including John Marston, Ben Jonson, William Shakespeare and John Dryden, and 20th century dramatists Pinter and Beckett, besides the infl uence of Italian, Spanish and French playwrights. Hammond charts the changing use of the form and how having always been a religious form, in the 20th century it is revived to serve the needs of audiences who have lost their political, moral and religious bearings.
UK August 2021 • US August 2021 • 160 pages • 8 bw illus PB 9781350144309 • £14.99 / $19.95 • HB 9781350144316 • £45.00 / $61.00 ePub 9781350144323 • £13.49 / $17.24 ePdf 9781350144330 • £13.49 / $17.24 Series: Forms of Drama • Methuen Drama
John Lutterbie, Stony Brook University, USA and Nicola Shaughnessy, University of Kent, UK
Performance, Medicine and the Human
Alex Mermikides, Guildhall School of Music & Drama, London, UK This book explores parallels between performance and medicine. Its rationale is that performance and medicine share a number of concerns including questions of corporeality, subjectivity, identity and embodiment; and both individual and social responses to health, illness and the advances of biomedical knowledge and technologies. Above all, though, performance and medicine share an engagement with the human, at a time when the ‘concept of the human’ is ‘exploded’ (Braidotti, 2013).The study is illustrated with fi rst-hand accounts of hospital wards, operating theatre, laboratories, rehearsal rooms, theatre auditoria and stages.
UK August 2021 • US August 2021 • 224 pages PB 9781350235991 • £28.99 / $39.95 Previously published in HB 9781350022157 ePub 9781350022164 • £67.50 / $83.76 ePdf 9781350022171 • £67.50 / $83.76 Series: Performance and Science: Interdisciplinary Dialogues • Methuen Drama
Performing Specimens
Contemporary Performance And Biomedical Display
Gianna Bouchard, University of Birmingham, UK Through an examination of selected performance and theatre works that turn the performer’s body or another’s body into a specimen, this book maps out the relations between these performative acts and medical practices of collecting, storing and showing specimens in a variety of modes and contexts. Moving from an examination of the medical and historical contexts of specimen display in the museum and the anatomy theatre to contemporary performance, the book engages with examples from live art, bio-art, popular culture and theatre since the year 2000.
UK July 2021 • US July 2021 • 192 pages • 5 bw illus PB 9781350228153 • £28.99 / $39.95 Previously published in HB 9781350035676 ePub 9781350035683 • £67.50 / $83.76 ePdf 9781350035690 • £67.50 / $83.76 Series: Performance and Science: Interdisciplinary Dialogues • Methuen Drama
Drag Histories, Herstories and Hairstories
Drag in a Changing Scene Volume 2
Edited by Mark Edward, Edge Hill University, UK & Stephen Farrier, The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, University of London, UK This book not only examines drag histories, but also what drag does with history, how it enacts or tells stories about remembering and the past. It features work about the USA, UK and Ireland, Japan, Australia, Brazil and Barbados, through contributions from an international assortment of performers, academics and writers. The book allows the reader to engage with a range of archive research including photographic explorations of ageing drag queens; ethnicity and drag; queering ballet through drag; and many more besides.
Mediatized Dramaturgy
The Evolution of Plays in the Media Age
Seda Ilter, Birkbeck College, University of London, UK Media technologies and their socio-cultural repercussions have increasingly infl uenced British theatre, particularly since the ubiquitous prevalence of digital technologies from the 1990s onwards. This study explores the ways in which plays have evolved in relation to the socio-cultural and cognitive conditions of a mediatized age, and how text as a literary form and the basis for live performance can respond to these conditions and open up new possibilities for performance. The study also combines theatre and media theory through the innovative concept of ‘mediatized dramaturgy’.
UK January 2021 • US January 2021 • 256 pages • 15 bw illus HB 9781350104365 • £85.00 / $115.00 ePub 9781350104372 • £76.50 / $94.85 ePdf 9781350104389 • £76.50 / $94.85 Series: Methuen Drama Engage • Methuen Drama UK August 2021 • US August 2021 • 272 pages • 10 bw illus HB 9781350031159 • £85.00 / $115.00 ePub 9781350031166 • £76.50 / $94.85 ePdf 9781350031173 • £76.50 / $94.85 Series: Methuen Drama Engage • Methuen Drama
Theatres of Contagion
Edited by Fintan Walsh, Birkbeck, University of London, UK This book responds to the current political and cultural climate by investigating theatre’s status as a contagious cultural practice, questioning its role in the spread or control of medical, psychological and emotional conditions and phenomena. Observing a diverse range of practices, essays consider how this contagion is understood to happen and operate, its real and imagined effects, and how these have been a source of pleasure and anxiety for theatre makers, audiences and various authorities.
UK March 2021 • US March 2021 • 232 pages • 7 bw illus PB 9781350215511 • £28.99 / $39.95 Previously published in HB 9781350085985 ePub 9781350085992 • £67.50 / $83.76 ePdf 9781350086005 • £67.50 / $83.76 Series: Methuen Drama Engage • Methuen Drama
The Theatre of Simon Stephens
Jacqueline Bolton, University of Lincoln, UK Focusing on issues of theatricality and the effect of plays in performance, this critical companion surveys the work of Simon Stephens. Stephens's award-winning plays feature prominently in the repertoires of theatres across Europe. His collaborations with a variety of artists and practitioners have produced a dramaturgically diverse body of theatre. Bolton's coverage of his work, from 1998's Bluebird to Carmen Disruption in 2015, contextualizes Stephens's oeuvre through his embrace of European aesthetics and processes, and explores the impact of this upon attitudes towards the function of writing and the role of the audience in live performance.
UK July 2021 • US July 2021 • 272 pages HB 9781474238649 • £80.00 / $110.00 ePub 9781474238656 • £72.00 / $89.92 ePdf 9781474238663 • £72.00 / $89.92 Series: Critical Companions • Methuen Drama
Brenda Murphy, University of Connecticut, USA and Julia Listengarten, University of Central Florida, USA
Modern American Drama: Playwriting 2000-2009
Voices, Documents, New Interpretations
Julia Listengarten, University of Central Florida, USA & Cindy Rosenthal, Hofstra University, New York, USA The major playwrights and their plays to receive in-depth coverage in this volume include: Theresa Rebeck: Omnium Gatherum (2003), Mauritius (2007), and The Understudy (2008); Sarah Ruhl: Eurydice (2003), Clean House (2004), and In the Next Room (or the Vibrator Play) (2009); Lynn Nottage: Intimate Apparel (2003), Fabulation or Re-Education of Undine (2004), and Ruined (2008); Charles Mee: Big Love (2000), Wintertime (2005), and Hotel Cassiopeia (2006).
UK February 2021 • US February 2021 • 312 pages PB 9781350215498 • £28.99 / $39.95 Previously published in HB 9781472571472 ePub 9781350024755 • £26.09 / $33.25 ePdf 9781350024762 • £26.09 / $33.25 Series: Decades of Modern American Drama: Playwriting from the 1930s to 2009 • Methuen Drama
Modern American Drama: Playwriting in the 1990s
Voices, Documents, New Interpretations
Sharon Friedman, Gallatin School, New York University, USA & Cheryl Black, University of Missouri, Coumbia, USA The major playwrights and their plays to receive in-depth coverage in this volume include: Tony Kushner: Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes, Part One and Part Two, Slavs! Thinking About the Longstanding Problems of Virtue and Happiness and A Dybbuk, or Between Two Worlds; Paula Vogel: Baltimore Waltz, The Mineola Twins and How I Learned to Drive; Suzan-Lori Parks: The Death of the Last Black Man in the Whole Entire World, The America Play and Venus; Terrence McNally: Lips Together, Teeth Apart, Love! Valour! Compassion! and Corpus Christi.
UK February 2021 • US February 2021 • 336 pages PB 9781350215467 • £28.99 / $39.95 Previously published in HB 9781472572479 ePub 9781350153660 • £26.09 / $33.25 ePdf 9781350153653 • £26.09 / $33.25 Series: Decades of Modern American Drama: Playwriting from the 1930s to 2009 • Methuen Drama
Modern American Drama: Playwriting in the 1980s
Voices, Documents, New Interpretations
Sandra G. Shannon, Howard University, Washington, USA The major playwrights and their plays to receive indepth coverage in this volume include: David Mamet: Edmond (1982), Glengarry Glen Ross (1984), Speedthe-Plow (1988) and Oleanna (1992); David Henry Hwang: Family Devotions (1981), The Sound of a Voice (1983) and M. Butterfl y (1988); Maria Irene Fornès: The Danube (1982), Mud (1983) and The Conduct of Life (1985); August Wilson: Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (1984), Joe Turner’s Come and Gone (1984) and Fences (1987).
UK February 2021 • US February 2021 • 256 pages PB 9781350204539 • £28.99 / $39.95 Previously published in HB 9781472572462 ePub 9781350153646 • £26.09 / $33.25 ePdf 9781350153639 • £26.09 / $33.25 Series: Decades of Modern American Drama: Playwriting from the 1930s to 2009 • Methuen Drama
Modern American Drama: Playwriting in the 1970s
Voices, Documents, New Interpretations
Michael Vanden Heuvel, University of WisconsinMadison, USA The major playwrights and their works covered in this volume include: David Rabe: The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel; Sticks and Bones; and Streamers; Sam Shepard: Buried Child; Curse of the Starving Class; and True West; Ntozake Shange: For colored girls who have considered suicide when the rainbow is enuf; Boogie-Woogie Landscapes; and Spell #7; Richard Foreman: Vertical Mobility; Rhoda in Potatoland; and Madness and Tranquility (My Head Was a Sledgehammer).
UK February 2021 • US February 2021 • 304 pages PB 9781350215474 • £28.99 / $39.95 Previously published in HB 9781472571755 ePub 9781350022607 • £26.09 / $33.25 ePdf 9781350022591 • £26.09 / $33.25 Series: Decades of Modern American Drama: Playwriting from the 1930s to 2009 • Methuen Drama
Modern American Drama: Playwriting in the 1960s
Voices, Documents, New Interpretations
Mike Sell, Indiana University of Pennsylvania, USA The major playwrights and their plays to receive in-depth coverage in this volume include: Edward Albee: The American Dream (1960), Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1962), A Delicate Balance(1966) and Tiny Alice (1964 ); Amiri Baraka: Dutchman (1964), The Slave (1964) and Slaveship (1967); Adrienne Kennedy: Funnyhouse of a Negro (1964), Cities in Bezique (The Owl Answers and A Beast’s Story, 1969), and A Rat’s Mass (1967); JeanClaude van Itallie: American Hurrah (1966), The Serpent (1968) and War (1963).
UK February 2021 • US February 2021 • 344 pages PB 9781350204546 • £28.99 / $39.95 Previously published in HB 9781472572202 ePub 9781350153622 • £26.09 / $33.25 ePdf 9781350153615 • £26.09 / $33.25 Series: Decades of Modern American Drama: Playwriting from the 1930s to 2009 • Methuen Drama
Modern American Drama: Playwriting in the 1950s
Voices, Documents, New Interpretations
Susan C. W. Abbotson, Rhode Island College, USA The major writers and their works to receive indepth coverage in this volume include: William Inge: Picnic, Bus Stop and The Dark at the Top of the Stairs; Stephen Sondheim, Arthur Laurents and Jerome Robbins: West Side Story and Gypsy; Alice Childress: Just a Little Simple, Gold Through the Trees and Trouble in Mind; Jerome Lawrence and Robert Lee: Inherit the Wind, Auntie Mame and The Gang's All Here.
UK February 2021 • US February 2021 • 328 pages PB 9781350215504 • £28.99 / $39.95 Previously published in HB 9781472571427 ePub 9781350014626 • £26.09 / $33.25 ePdf 9781350014619 • £26.09 / $33.25 Series: Decades of Modern American Drama: Playwriting from the 1930s to 2009 • Methuen Drama
Modern American Drama: Playwriting in the 1940s
Voices, Documents, New Interpretations
Felicia Hardison Londré, University of MissouriKansas City, USA The major playwrights and their works covered in this volume include: Eugene O’Neill: The Iceman Cometh, A Moon for the Misbegotten, Long Day’s Journey Into Night and A Touch of the Poet; Tennessee Williams: The Glass Menagerie, A Streetcar Named Desire and Summer and Smoke; Arthur Miller: All My Sons, Death of a Salesman and The Crucible; Thornton Wilder: Our Town, The Skin of Our Teeth and The Merchant of Yonkers.
UK February 2021 • US February 2021 • 328 pages PB 9781350215450 • £28.99 / $39.95 Previously published in HB 9781472571861 ePub 9781350017498 • £26.09 / $33.25 ePdf 9781350017481 • £26.09 / $33.25 Series: Decades of Modern American Drama: Playwriting from the 1930s to 2009 • Methuen Drama
Modern American Drama: Playwriting in the 1930s
Voices, Documents, New Interpretations
Anne Fletcher, Southern Illinois University Carbondale, USA The Decades of Modern American Drama series provides a comprehensive survey and study of the theatre produced in each decade from the 1930s to 2009. The major playwrights and their works to receive in-depth coverage in this volume include: Clifford Odets: Waiting for Lefty, Awake and Sing! and Golden Boy; Lillian Hellman: The Children’s Hour, The Little Foxes and Days to Come ; Langston Hughes: Mulatto, Mule Bone (with Zora Neale Hurston) and Little Ham; Gertrude Stein: Doctor Faustus Lights the Lights, Four Saints in Three Acts and Listen to Me.
UK February 2021 • US February 2021 • 336 pages PB 9781350215481 • £28.99 / $39.95 Previously published in HB 9781472571878 ePub 9781350153592 • £26.09 / $33.25 ePdf 9781350153608 • £26.09 / $33.25 Series: Decades of Modern American Drama: Playwriting from the 1930s to 2009 • Methuen Drama
