Gwendolen Bishop is a name that appears in the margins of my recent account of the English avant-garde theatre. Prior to that she barely made it even into the margins, and then often with some rather significant indecision as to how actually to spell her name. The aim of this essay is to retrieve her from the margins and bring her more centrally into view. In doing so I consciously weave together her

Reading the news about theatre in Germany during the past few years, it is hard to avoid the impression that something new is happening: a theatre culture that long emphasized politics now just as often emphasizes ethics. There were the 2022 protests in Munich over claimed anti-Semitism in the play Vögel (Birds of a Kind) by Wajdi Mouawad, which led the Metropoltheater to cancel its planned production

How much is enough? The relevance of this question comes from individual expectations regarding value. What is value and how does it manifest through our daily interactions? There is a qualitative difference between the concept of value and individual and collective values. Is there such a thing as a common good when it comes to either? Values are a social construct formed through a process of analysis

Emanating beyond the confines of academia, the poignant narrative of the renowned Turkish thespian Afife Jale has garnered widespread recognition within Türkiye. Amid a pantheon of successors, her tale stands as the most profoundly heartrending. It has been immortalized through theatrical productions and cinematic adaptations. Despite the widespread familiarity with her story, the enigmatic underpinnings

One of the world's most enduring and successful cultural diplomacy organizations, the British Council (BC) has played a prominent role in promoting and exporting British theatre, literature, and language across the globe since its founding in 1934. A key component of the BC's self-proclaimed remit of “forging links between Britain and other countries through cultural exchange,” the organization's Drama

Mexican theatre company Teatro de Ciertos Habitantes are world-renowned for their intensive laboratory processes leading up to unique, interdisciplinary performances that defy expected theatrical conventions. Their piece El Gallo (2009) is a poignant example of this company's capacity for innovation and social action. Here, actors are transformed into opera singers in a piece that is sung – in an entirely

This article considers the Okinawan aesthetic of Kumiodori and the role of absence in making a performance. There are two case studies of Kumiodori performances selected for this article, both written by the maker of this theatre style – Tamagusuku Chōkun. I watched both performances of Kōkō no Maki and Nidō Tekiuchi in the National Theatre in Okinawa. I discuss the concept of absence, described as

Censorship in Iranian theatre sometimes prevents artists from staging some of the scenes in their plays. Among these are scenes involving embracing, kissing, raping and so on, or scenes containing ideological or political themes. Occasionally, after omitting such scenes, theatre directors try to find suitable alternatives and create a similar effect. The present research, with an analytical–descriptive

The two related notions of honour and reputation are closely associated with the social status of individuals (male or female), particularly in a society governed by traditional, patriarchal moral values. However, writing about honour and reputation in Iraq (and in the Middle East in general) means talking about women's chastity and their sexual morality specifically. Eclipsing honour and societal

This essay seeks to lay out the process that went into the making of Dark Things, which I co-directed with Deepan Sivaraman based on Ari Sitas's oratorio on the Silk Road, by repurposing the production notes of the performance, which opened in Delhi on 18 April 2018 at the Ambedkar University Delhi and later played at the International Festival of Kerala in January 2019. Both the method and the form

World-renowned New Theatre Quarterly celebrates its fifty years of publication and its 200th issue, this being the last under the editorship of Maria Shevtsova. Simon Trussler, founder of Theatre Quarterly in 1971 (which closed for lack of funding in 1981) always considered New Theatre Quarterly, established with Cambridge University Press in 1985 – and with Clive Barker as co-editor – to be simply

This is the third in a trilogy of articles for NTQ addressed to the ‘noises off’ supplied by Shakespeare’s earliest co-stars: the baited bears that competed for trade, fame, and patronage for the duration of his career as an actor-playwright. ‘Shakespeare and the Three Bears’ (NTQ 106, May 2011) sketched this context, exposing as a canard, via a mistakenly omitted comma, that there ever was a bear

Edward Gordon Craig was a controversial and iconoclastic figure in the early twentieth-century British theatre. Underpinning his work as a director, designer, and essayist was a desire to secure obedience and loyalty from the people with whom he worked and to ensure that he was the unquestioned authority. Nowhere was this ambition clearer than in his School for the Art of the Theatre, which he ran

Whereas the earliest farces deal with human appetites on the most basic level, by the mid-nineteenth century these had been sublimated and incorporated into a newly mechanical format. Inaugurated by Eugène Labiche, and perfected by Alfred Hennequin and Georges Feydeau, these masterpieces of clockwork ingenuity would appear to be the inspiration for Henri Bergson’s theory of comedy. This article explores

This overview presents kunqu’s historical journey, suggesting its future trends on European stages. Over the decades, kunqu has grown from traditional performances to avant-garde adaptations, including notable versions of The Peony Pavilion by Peter Sellars and also Chen Shizheng, which fostered intercultural dialogue. Key performances by troupes and artists have modernized kunqu, as exemplified by

This article analyzes three contemporary plays by trans and gender-non-conforming artists from the United States that engage with forest fires and queer ecology. These three plays – MJ Kaufman’s Sagittarius Ponderosa, Agnes Borinsky’s The Trees, and Kari Barclay’s How to Live in a House on Fire – tie wildfire to colonial histories of fire suppression and imagine a just climate transition as linked

Laween is among several Palestinian theatre cooperatives established over the last decade, which have not received sufficient attention from theatre scholars. Born out of the struggle of living under Israeli apartheid, the repression of the Palestinian Authority, and alienation from NGO theatres, whose work has been depoliticized by reliance on foreign funding, the emergence of these theatre cooperatives

The Hi PerformanCZ visitor programmes, hosted regularly by the Czech Arts and Theatre Institute since 2018, have invited international theatre professionals, from directors and promoters to critics, to immerse themselves in the variety of theatre on the contemporary Czech stage. Showcased performances, themed in programmes dedicated to theatre for children and young people, puppet theatre, and text-based

Emil Boroghină founded the Shakespeare Festival in Craiova in 1994 with the longer-term intention of making it an international festival of significant, indeed world, standing. This article, written in honour of Boroghină and dedicated to him, offers an overview of the Festival’s programming and related details from its triennial period to its present biennial existence. It draws particular attention

Your time has come to flyYou have no borders—El Vez, “Órale,” sung to the tune of “Bridge over Troubled Waters”With brightly colored papel picado (cut paper banners), tissue flowers, and Latin American flags festooning the performance area at San Francisco's Z Space, David Herrera Performance Company's September 2023 event, ÓRALE!, promised fun and festivity. On its surface, the performance resembled

In 2010 film and theatre historian David Mayer urged researchers to look to early film for evidence of continuing traditions of Victorian pantomime, arguing its “audiences tolerated, even enjoyed, the same sight-gags and hackneyed routines that amused their Victorian ancestors.” This article is a response to his challenge and in the process explores wider interconnections. The harlequinade was the

In the summer of 1944, Black modern dancer Pearl Primus searched for authenticity. Over the past year, she had achieved critical success for her modern dance choreography that protested racial injustice in the South, informed by a leftist political mission. However, she thought something was missing. She explained to Dance Magazine, “I had done dances about sharecroppers and lynchings without ever

Since its publication in 2005, Anne Bogart and Tina Landau's The Viewpoints Book: A Practical Guide to Viewpoints and Composition has provided the received narrative not only for the ways that Viewpoints training is practiced, but also for its history. In their opening chapter, the authors crucially acknowledge that they did not invent this method of training: In 1979, Anne met choreographer Mary Overlie

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Editorial Comment:Abolition and Performance Ariel Nereson [A]bolition has to be the way to relate to one another. So, not a tool to implement, but a posture and a way of life. —Ashon Crawley1 Theatre, dance, and performance studies offer many methodological tools for understanding practice and interpreting theories embedded in and arising

Abstract: John Brown is a figure so intensely contested as to embody diametrically opposed meanings according to the varied contexts in which his image has been activated. At times hailed as the man who started the US Civil War, Brown has been variously described as a righteous abolitionist, a religious zealot, a gifted orator, a formidable military strategist, a self-appointed white savior, and a

Abstract: Taking the popular podcast series Violation as its point of departure, this article examines the dramaturgy within the parole system, its affective politics, and its performative speech acts to consider its role in the perpetuation of mass incarceration in the United States. By training an eye on the affective economy of parole hearings, this article explores the retributive turn in the criminal

Abstract: In Atlanta, South River (Weelaunee) Forest is the proposed home of the $90 million Public Safety Training Center, also known as "Cop City." On June 5, 2023, when the Atlanta City Council opened the floor for public comment on Cop City, hundreds of people voiced their opposition for nearly fifteen hours, frequently using humor as a tactic of resistance. What are the radical political potentials

Abstract: This article explores how the police state choreographs active shooter drills as "performances of protection," or embodied actions framed around an anticipatory threat. During these scenarios, choreographic imperatives—or movement directives in response to specific cues—become tools for directing bodies through public space to preempt crisis. While these measures protect students, teachers

Abstract: Two plays focusing on the postincarceration experiences of sex offenders opened in 2018: Life Jacket Theatre Company's America Is Hard to See and Bruce Norris's Downstate. Both plays ask spectators to recognize the humanity of sex offenders while also keeping in mind the harm they caused. The questions at the heart of these plays are ultimately about ethics and space: how close do we as a

Abstract: Black theatremakers have utilized performance to imagine and stage an alternative place where policing is abolished. They usurp the normative theatrical apparatuses to enact countergeographies that become meaningful ways to resist social control. In so doing, they inhabit (and push other artists and audiences to inhabit) theatre differently through transforming the geography of the theatre

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Reviewed by: Vanessa in Bedby Diana Grisanti Gina M. Di Salvo VANESSA IN BED. By Diana Grisanti. Directed by Pirronne Yousefzadeh. Audible Theater. Digital audio production released 09 23, 2023. Downloaded 02 10, 2024. Finally, a comedy about dead mothers, millennial flailing, and the legacy of colonial wealth that spans from an abortion

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Reviewed by: The Jungle Book Reimaginedby Tariq Jordan Alexandra A. Rego THE JUNGLE BOOK REIMAGINED. By Tariq Jordan. Directed and choreographed by Akram Khan. Music by Jocelyn Pook. Animation by YeastCulture ( Adam Smith and Nick Hillel). Akram Khan Company, Rose Theater, Lincoln Center. 11 18, 2023. The Jungle Book Reimaginedpremiered

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Reviewed by: The Theatre of Christopher Durang by Miriam M. Chirico Amy S. Osatinski THE THEATRE OF CHRISTOPHER DURANG. By Miriam M. Chirico. Methuen Drama Critical Companions. London: Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2020; pp. 234. Christopher Durang's works have opened on Broadway, and he's won the Tony Award for Best Play and been nominated

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Reviewed by: Latinx Shakespeares: Staging U.S. Intracultural Theater by Carla Della Gatta Guillermo Avilés-Rodríguez LATINX SHAKESPEARES: STAGING U.S. INTRACULTURAL THEATER. By Carla Della Gatta. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2023; pp. 265. For too long, a decidedly multicultural Shakespearean analysis that foregrounds European

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Reviewed by: Performing Copyright: Law, Theatre and Authorship by Luke McDonagh, and: Owning Performance | Performing Ownership: Literary Property and The Eighteenth-Century British Stage by Jane Wessel, and: Copyright and the Value of Performance, 1770–1911 by Derek Miller, and: Negotiating Copyright in the American Theatre: 1856–1951

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Reviewed by: Staging Haiti in Nineteenth-Century America: Revolution, Race and Popular Performance by Peter P. Reed Guo Shuyu STAGING HAITI IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA: REVOLUTION, RACE AND POPULAR PERFORMANCE. By Peter P. Reed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022; pp. 231. Peter P. Reed's new and prodigious volume, Staging Haiti

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Reviewed by: Theatre Blogging: The Emergence of a Critical Culture by Megan Vaughan Kevin J. Wetmore Jr. THEATRE BLOGGING: THE EMERGENCE OF A CRITICAL CULTURE. By Megan Vaughan. London: Methuen Drama, 2020; pp. 280. Hiya. I'm Kevin. Thanks for reading this review. I figured if I was gonna review a book on theatre blogging that reproduced

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Decarcerating the University:A Roundtable Discussion Courtney Erin Colligan (bio), Aaron Moore Ellis (bio), Nicholas Fesette (bio), Donatella Galella (bio), Megan E. Geigner (bio), Lindsay Livingston (bio), Ariel Nereson, Leticia L. Ridley (bio), and Misty Saribal (bio) This roundtable discussion took place on Zoom on June 6, 2024, and

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: 8 to abolition to infinity (8 => abolition => ∞) Aaron Moore Ellis (bio) How do I hold a systemic analysis and approach when each system I am critical of is peopled, in part, by the same flawed and complex individuals that I love? This question always leads me to self-reflection. If I can see the ways I am perpetuating systemic oppressions

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Consent Pedagogies:Classroom Lessons from Intimacy Practice Lindsay Brandon Hunter (bio) In 2023, I took part in a conversation gathered under the title "Decarcerating the Field: Building Abolitionist Networks of Care at ATHE" at the Association for Theatre in Higher Education conference in Austin, Texas. Where others entered that conversation

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Looking at/for Disappearing John Brown Ben Spatz (bio), SAJ (bio), Eero Laine (bio), Michelle Liu Carriger (bio), and Henry Bial (bio) Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 1. John Brown BBQ in Queens, New York City, https://www.johnbrownbbq.net. (Photo: Eero Laine.) In the mid-nineteenth century, John Brown (1800-59) riveted

Mundo Quinta is a documentary theatre creation programme for adolescents in Madrid, launched by Espacio Abierto Quinta de los Molinos and directed by the theatre company Cross Border Project. This publicly funded programme started in 2018 and is currently celebrating its sixth season. Each season takes place during the academic year and culminates in the premiere of a new play. This article combines

In theatre criticism, the lines between professional and amateur have softened considerably since the turn of the twenty-first century, with much attention – academic and journalistic – given to the impact of amateur theatre criticism on theatre-making and marketing, on newspapers, and on theatre scholarship. So far, however, the voices and perspectives of amateur critics themselves have largely been

This article demonstrates how the Enlightenment model of sentiment and sympathy is performed in embodied gestures of affective empathy-building, cross-cultural fraternity, and concern for human rights in three Romantic Regency tragedies: Pizarro (1799) by the Romantic dramatist August von Kotzebue, adapted from the German by the Irish dramatist Richard Brinsley Sheridan; Remorse (1813) by the English

In this interview, which took place in Birmingham on 16 February 2023, Hakan Gültekin talks to playwright David Edgar about his theatre universe and the current state of British theatre. Edgar has long championed the social and economic rights of playwrights, and here suggests that the lack of long-term and sustained support from British theatres has created what he calls ‘Primark playwrights’. His

As a prominent figure in the contemporary Iranian theatre scene, Chista Yasrebi uses her plays to call for female liberation in the country while navigating the existing political constraints, including censorship. Her 1996 play Rahil, for example, acts as a political allegory through its narrative of the titular woman’s desire for transcendence within the patriarchal realm of Persian mysticism. In

The evolution of the colour of Othello’s skin-tone is a surprisingly accurate cultural barometer of attitudes towards race in the eyes of scholars. A significant portion of the critical literature is focused upon the Moor’s complexion as one of the main variables within the play. Yet the fact that the script has itself become a variable, and not a constant, has been neglected. This text’s transformation

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Prologue Julia C. Hernández A Suelta State of Mind A stroll down early eighteenth-century Seville’s short but bustling Calle de Génova, a long-disappeared market street that had linked the Plaza de El Salvador and the Plaza de San Francisco since the city’s Castilian conquest in 1248, would bring the comedia enthusiast to the heart of

Abstract: Despite the derivative plotlines, crude characterizations, and prioritization of performance over posterity for which scholars have criticized his Cuatro comedias, Lope de Rueda (1505?–65?) received great acclaim among contemporaries. To reconcile this disconnect between abiding popular acclaim in the late sixteenth century and critical dismissals in literary histories, this article draws

Abstract: An examination of the layered, dual meanings of the term maravilla in El semejante a sí mismo shows the hand of Juan Ruiz de Alarcón navigating his own criollo identity. The double meanings of maravilla reflect a conflict between the inclination to adopt the dominant views and rhetoric of the Spanish Empire and the counterbalancing impulse to undermine this colonial agenda. This article observes

Abstract: This article examines the connections of El gran teatro del mundo with heterodox intellectual traditions that the Spanish Inquisition targeted for scrutiny or censorship. While many critics have considered El gran teatro del mundo a prominent example of Calderón de la Barca’s Catholic orthodoxy, this study ponders discursive elements that link the auto sacramental to Neoplatonic natural philosophy

Abstract: Pedro Calderón de la Barca and the philosopher Baruch Spinoza manifested, each in their own way, that profound interest in the intricacies of the human being that was so characteristic of early modern mentalities. The playwright and philosopher each delved into the exploration of passions and affections, construed as being in constant conflict with reason. These pages analyze the common ties

Abstract: This article examines an almost completely unexplored element in Jerónimo de Cáncer’s comic interludes (entremeses)—the music. Through analysis of his own works as well as comparative examinations of Cáncer’s theatrical practice with those of other dramaturgs who cultivated the entremés genre, including Pedro Calderón de la Barca and Luis Quiñones de Benavente, we find Cáncer at the forefront

Abstract: Szilvia Szmuk-Tanenbaum, lifelong bibliophile and the creator of the Comedias Suelta USA website, welcomed Associate Editor Julia Hernández into her book-filled Upper East Side apartment in New York City. In their conversation, Szmuk-Tanenbaum discussed her journey as a scholar and librarian; her inspiration for developing online bibliographic databases; her service to the Bulletin of the

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Reviewed by: The Diva’s Gift to the Shakespearean Stage: Agency, Theatricality, and the Innamorata by Pamela Allen Brown David J. Amelang Pamela Allen Brown. The Diva’s Gift to the Shakespearean Stage: Agency, Theatricality, and the Innamorata. OXFORD UP, 2021. 302 PP. “‘FOR WHAT Is A PLAY WITHOUT A WOMAN IN IT?’” The epigraph that launches

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Reviewed by: Poesía y música en la Roma barroca. El cancionero español Corsini 625 by Patrizia Botta Sebastián León Patrizia Botta, coordinadora. Poesía y música en la Roma barroca. El cancionero español Corsini 625. LIGUORI EDITORE, 2023. 532 PP. EL LLAMADO CANCIONERO CORSINI 625 es un manuscrito copiado en Roma a principios del siglo

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Reviewed by: The Routledge Hispanic Studies Companion to Early Modern Spanish Literature and Culture ed. by Rodrigo Cacho Casal and Caroline Egan Richard Rabone Rodrigo Cacho Casal and Caroline Egan, editors. The Routledge Hispanic Studies Companion to Early Modern Spanish Literature and Culture. ROUTLEDGE, 2022. 639 PP. THE GENRE OF THE

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Reviewed by: Entremeses by Miguel de Cervantes Javier Rubiera Miguel de Cervantes. Entremeses. Edición de Adrián J. Sáez. CÁTEDRA, 2020. 296 PP. LOS OCHO ENTREMESES PUBLICADOS POR CERVANTES en 1615 reciben nueva edición en Cátedra, que desde 1982 tenía en su colección de Letras Hispánicas la realizada desde una orientación bien diferente

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Reviewed by: La Araucana by Alonso de Ercilla Imogen Choi Alonso de Ercilla. La Araucana. Edited by Luis Gómez Canseco. REAL ACADEMIA ESPAÑOLA–ESPASA, 2022. 1488 PP. WHILE ALWAYS A PROMINENT TITLE OF THE GOLDEN AGE canon, La Araucana has been the object of a steady growth in scholarship over recent decades, which shows no signs of abating

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Reviewed by: Dramaturgas del Siglo de Oro. Guía completa by Juana Escabias Victoria Jane Rasbridge Juana Escabias. Dramaturgas del Siglo de Oro. Guía completa. EDICIONES ANTÍGONA, 2022. 170 PP. IN COMEDIA STUDIES THERE HAS LONG BEEN an imbalance in favor of the work of male dramatists, but in recent decades there has been a concerted effort