Theatre History Studies articles from January 1 2007

Theatre History Studies archives from January 1 2007

The Copeland Opera House.(in Shullsburg, Wisconsin)
January 1, 2007... The scholarship of American popular theatre of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries has focused almost exclusively on theatre in New York and other larger U.S. cities. By comparison, very little has been written about the...

The masculine transformations of "Genial" John McCullough.
January 1, 2007... The Irish-born "Genial" John McCullough (1832-85) began his theatrical success as a protege of the United States' first great star, Edwin Forrest, whose passionate bombast marked a uniquely American style. While McCullough's imitation of...

The Master and the Mademoiselle: gender secrets in plain sight in Antebellum performance.(Critical essay)
January 1, 2007... On February 25, 1860, the New York Clipper ran a piece about the circus performer known as Ella Zoyara: "He was unfortunate enough to lose her balance while performing his bare back act, and before she could recover himself, down she went,...

The diasporic imagination: Introduction to Essays by Peter Reed, Adrienne C. Macki, and Christina S. McMahon.
January 1, 2007... During 2004 and 2005 I had the great privilege and pleasure of working with an exciting group of scholars interested in exploring the concept and boundaries of the diasporic imagination. The three essays that follow grew out of a year-long...

"There was no resisting John Canoe": circum-Atlantic transracial performance.(Critical essay)
January 1, 2007... John-Canoe is considered not merely as a person of material consequence, but one whose presence is absolutely indispensable.... There was no resisting John Canoe. --MATTHEW GREGORY LEWIS, Journal of a Residence among the Negroes in the...

"Talking B(l)ack": construction of gender and race in the Plays of Eulalie Spence.(Critical essay)
January 1, 2007... Every dialect, every language, is a way of thinking. To speak means to assume a culture. --FRANTZ FANON, Black Skin, White Masks Although Eulalie Spence was writing at the same time as other prominent black playwrights and authors,...

Embodying diaspora: ambivalence and utopia in contemporary Cape Verdean theatre.(Critical essay)
January 1, 2007... In September 2004, the Cape Verdean theatre group Dionisios performed Urn suco natural for the country's annual Mindelact International Theatre Festival. The piece commingled a traditional Cape Verdean dance form, batuque, with Western ballet,...

The Cambridge Companion to Edward Albee.(Book review)
January 1, 2007... The Cambridge Companion to Edward Albee. Edited by Stephen Bottoms. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2005. 290 pp. $25.99 paperback. Stretching My Mind. By Edward Albee. New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers, 2005. 294 pp. $25.00...

No Applause--Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous.(Book review)
January 1, 2007... No Applause--Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous. By Tray S. D. New York: Faber and Faber, 2005. 328 pp. $25.00 cloth. Enthusiasm and humor can do a lot to enliven the dustiest historical subject. This book has...

Bernard Shaw: A Life.(Book review)
January 1, 2007... Bernard Shaw: A Life. By A. M. Gibbs. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2005. 554 pp. $39.95 cloth. Bernard Shaw was not only one of the most prolific and controversial playwrights of the modern era but also one of the most...

Theatre for Children: Fifteen Classical Plays.(Book review)
January 1, 2007... Theatre for Children: Fifteen Classical Plays. Edited by Coleman A. Jennings. New York: St. Martin's Press, 2005. xxxii + 512 pp. $29.95 cloth. In Theatre for Children: Fifteen Classic Plays, editor Coleman A. Jennings has assembled...

Laboring to Play: Home Entertainment and the Spectacle of Middle-Class Cultural Life, 1850-1920.(The Most American Thing in America: Circuit Chautauqua as Performance)(Book review)
January 1, 2007... Laboring to Play: Home Entertainment and the Spectacle of Middle-Class Cultural Life, 1850-1920. By Melanie Dawson. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2005. x + 257 pp. $39.75 cloth. The Most American Thing in America: Circuit...

Expressionism and Modernism in the American Theatre: Bodies, Voices, Words.(Book review)
January 1, 2007... Expressionism and Modernism in the American Theatre: Bodies, Voices, Words. By Julia A. Walker. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. 312 pp. $75.00 cloth. Among recent historical studies of modernism in the American theatre, Julia...

High Drama: Colorado's Historic Theatres.(Book review)
January 1, 2007... High Drama: Colorado's Historic Theatres. By Daniel and Beth R. Barrett. Montrose, Colo.: Western Reflections Publishing Company, 2005. 208 pp. $19.95 cloth. Ah, the old West. First explorers, then mountain men, miners, ministers,...

Look to the Lady: Sarah Siddons, Ellen Terry, and Judi Dench on the Shakespearean Stage.(Book review)
January 1, 2007... Look to the Lady: Sarah Siddons, Ellen Terry, and Judi Dench on the Shakespearean Stage. By Russ McDonald. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2005. xx + 172 pp. $26.95 cloth. In April 2002, Russ McDonald delivered the Averitt Lectures at...

Blackface Cuba, 1840-1895.(Book review)
January 1, 2007... Blackface Cuba, 1840-1895. By Jill Lane. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005. xi + 274 pp. $50.00 cloth. Blackface Cuba is an examination of nineteenth-century Cuban society and theatre. Cuba at the time experienced an...

The Gay and Lesbian Theatrical Legacy: A Biographical Dictionary of Major Figures in American Stage History in the Pre-Stonewall Era.(Book review)
January 1, 2007... The Gay and Lesbian Theatrical Legacy: A Biographical Dictionary of Major Figures in American Stage History in the Pre-Stonewall Era. Edited by Billy J. Harbin, Kim Marra, and Robert A. Schanke. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2005....

Performing Opposition: Modern Theater and the Scandalized Audience.(Book review)
January 1, 2007... Performing Opposition: Modern Theater and the Scandalized Audience. By Neil Blackadder. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2003. xvii + 228 pp. $76.95 cloth. In Performing Opposition: Modern Theater and the Scandalized Audience, Neil Blackadder...

The Provincetown Players and the Culture of Modernity.(Book review)
January 1, 2007... The Provincetown Players and the Culture of Modernity. By Brenda Murphy. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005. xix + 28a pp. $85.00 cloth. Brenda Murphy's new book is a welcome and sophisticated addition to the scholarship on the...

A Student Guide to Play Analysis.(Book review)
January 1, 2007... A Student Guide to Play Analysis. By David Rush. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2006.299 pp. $28.50 paper. As its title implies, David Rush's A Student Guide to Play Analysis is intended as a textbook for undergraduate...

Words at Play: Creative Writing and Dramaturgy.(Book review)
January 1, 2007... Words at Play: Creative Writing and Dramaturgy. By Felicia Hardison Londre. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2005.249 pp. $28.50 cloth. As Mark Bly notes in his introduction to the second volume of the Production Notebooks:...

Books received.
January 1, 2007... Barnett, David. Rainer Werner Fassbinder and the German Theatre. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006. $90.00 cloth. Berkove, Lawrence I., and Gary Scharnhorst, eds. The Old West in the Old World: Lost Plays by Bret Harte and Sam...