Theatre History Studies articles from January 1 2008

Theatre History Studies archives from January 1 2008

Keynote speech from the twenty-eighth mid-America theatre conference, changing theatrical landscapes: mapping new directions in history, pedagogy, and practice in the twenty-first century.
January 1, 2008... I'm inspired by the boldness of the challenge of this conference's theme. As I thought about it while preparing this talk, I even began to wax creative and found myself becoming excited over the possibilities. "Mapping new directions" offers...

Between the lines: editing the notebooks of Tennessee Williams.(Essay)
January 1, 2008... In 1997, John Eastman, the executor of the Tennessee Williams Estate, asked me if I would be willing to look at the notebooks of Tennessee Williams and give him my thoughts as to whether or not they should be published. Two weeks later a box...

Research and performance: a roundtable on the future of the archive.
January 1, 2008... The American Society for Theatre Research's Fiftieth-Anniversary Conference in Chicago in November 2006 chose as its theme "'America,' 'Society,' 'Theatre,' and 'Research.'" For the plenary on research, conference chair Shannon Jackson...

Performance in the archives.(Essay)
January 1, 2008... On Christmas Eve in 2001, New York City's outgoing mayor, Rudolph Giuliani, signed an agreement with city authorities that allowed him unprecedented control over his public records. Giuliani convinced the commissioner of Records and Information...

Performing arts archives: dynamic entities complementing and supporting scholarship and creativity.(Report)
January 1, 2008... The Role of Archives in Democratic Societies In the course of history, whenever political and social oppression take place, many records that document the past and the rights of countries or individuals are destroyed in order to make...

eBay, Wikipedia, and the future of the footnote.(Essay)
January 1, 2008... This essay began as an attempt to explore the disconnect I perceived between the theoretical innovations in historiography that have occurred in theatre scholarship over the past few decades and the traditional scholarly structures in which...

Period rush: affective transfers in recent queer art and performance.(Critical essay)
January 1, 2008... In Terry Zwigoff's 2001 film, Ghost World, the malcontent Enid Coleslaw is firmly ensconced in the post-adolescent malaise her best friend, Rebecca, wants to grow out of. Tension erupts when Rebecca suggests they "pretend" to be yuppies. Enid...

Goon, warrior, communitarian, and mythos: the Lincoln Legend of dramatic literature and live performance.(Critical essay)
January 1, 2008... Roy Basler offers a noteworthy if not comprehensive distinction between historicized Lincoln biographical narratives and the Lincoln Legend, postulating that the former "is a catalogue of detached facts, which have no other connection than...

Ole Olson and companions as others: Swedish-dialect characters and the question of Scandinavian acculturation.(Critical essay)
January 1, 2008... Since the late 1970s, extensive research has focused on ethnic stereotypes in American popular theatre and vaudeville of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries--especially studies on German (commonly called Dutch), Irish, Hebrew, and...

Games with ghosts in Muller's Explosion of a Memory: a study of pre-ideology in the Muller-Wilson collaboration.(Critical essay)
January 1, 2008... That's how it was for me working with Bob [Wilson].... Always it was like playing games. HEINER MULLER When discussing his experimental drama Explosion of a Memory, the East German playwright Heiner Muller remarked, with characteristic...

On the emergence of European avant-garde theatre.(Critical essay)
January 1, 2008... Introduction: A Problem of Theatre Historiography When historians of theatre examine bibliographical sources concerning the genesis of European avant-garde theatre, they usually find exceptional works on the major artistic movements,...

The Enchanted Years of the Stage: Kansas City at the Crossroads of American Theater, 1870-1930.(Book review)
January 1, 2008... The Enchanted Years of the Stage: Kansas City at the Crossroads of American Theater, 1870-1930. By Felicia Hardison Londre. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2007. 327 pp. $34.95 cloth. It is rare, even for theatre historians, to pick...

Messiah of the New Technique: John Howard Lawson, Communism, and American Theatre, 1923-1937.(Book review)
January 1, 2008... Messiah of the New Technique: John Howard Lawson, Communism, and American Theatre, 1923-1937. By Jonathan L. Chambers. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2006. xv + 268 pp. $55.00 cloth. Arguably the most notable American...

Liberty Theatres of the United States Army, 1917-1919.(Book review)
January 1, 2008... Liberty Theatres of the United States Army, 1917-1919. By Weldon B. Durham. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2006. viii + 219 pp. $35.00 paper. As the United States prepared in 1917 to enter World War I--a time of turmoil and often chaos--the...

Vaudeville Wars: How the Keith-Albee and Orpheum Circuits Controlled the Big-Time and Its Performers.(Book review)
January 1, 2008... Vaudeville Wars: How the Keith-Albee and Orpheum Circuits Controlled the Big-Time and Its Performers. By Arthur Frank Wertheim. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2006. 332 pp. $75.00 cloth. Although the history of American vaudeville has been...

Susan Glaspell and the Anxiety of Expression.(Book review)
January 1, 2008... Susan Glaspell and the Anxiety of Expression. By Kristina Hinz-Bode. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2006. 292 pp. $45.00 cloth. Susan Glaspell (1876-1948), Pulitzer Prize winner, playwright, and novelist, was a founding member of the...

Bodies in Dissent: Spectacular Performances of Race and Freedom, 1850-1910.(Book review)
January 1, 2008... Bodies in Dissent: Spectacular Performances of Race and Freedom, 1850-1910. By Daphne A. Brooks. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2006. 475 PP. $25.95 paper. Daphne Brooks's Bodies in Dissent offers a dynamic exploration of the complex...

The Plays of Georgia Douglas Johnson: From the New Negro Renaissance to the Civil Rights Movement.(Book review)
January 1, 2008... The Plays of Georgia Douglas Johnson: From the New Negro Renaissance to the Civil Rights Movement. Edited and with an introduction by Judith L. Stephens. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2006. 195 PP. $40.00 cloth, $20.00 paper. ...

Performing Glam Rock: Gender and Theatricality in Popular Music.(Book review)
January 1, 2008... Performing Glam Rock: Gender and Theatricality in Popular Music. By Philip Auslander. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2006. xii + 260 pp. $60.00 cloth, $24.95 paper. With Performing Glam Rock: Gender and Theatricality in Popular...

Notebooks.(Book review)
January 1, 2008... Notebooks. By Tennessee Williams. Edited by Margaret Bradham Thornton. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006. xxvii + 828 pp. $40.00 cloth. In 1936, Tennessee Williams began writing a journal that eventually filled thirty composition...

The Performing Set: The Broadway Designs of William and Jean Eckart.(Book review)
January 1, 2008... The Performing Set: The Broadway Designs of William and Jean Eckart. By Andrew B. Harris. Denton: University of North Texas Press, 2006. 256 pp. $37.95 cloth. With the use of floating, flying, rolling, and rotating scenery, the...

Acting: An Introduction to the Art and Craft of Playing.(Book review)
January 1, 2008... Acting: An Introduction to the Art and Craft of Playing. By Paul Kassel. Boston: Pearson Education, 2007. 224 pp. $58.00 cloth. In his preface to the teacher and coach, Paul Kassel admits that acting textbooks cover pretty similar...

Kenneth Burke on Shakespeare.(Book review)
January 1, 2008... Kenneth Burke on Shakespeare. Edited by Scott L. Newstok. West Lafayette, Ind.: Parlor Press, 2007. 368 pp. $32.00 paper, $65.00 cloth, $18.00 Adobe eBook. Newstok has collected fourteen essays, including three heretofore unpublished...

Codifying the National Self: Spectators, Actors, and the American Dramatic Text.(Book review)
January 1, 2008... Codifying the National Self: Spectators, Actors, and the American Dramatic Text. Edited by Barbara Ozieblo and Maria Dolores Narbona-Carrion. Brussels: P.I.E.-Peter Lang, 2006. 299 pp. $38.95 paper. The seventeen essays in this volume...

Fantasies of Empire: The Empire Theatre of Varieties and the Licensing Controversy of 1894.(Book review)
January 1, 2008... Fantasies of Empire: The Empire Theatre of Varieties and the Licensing Controversy of 1894. By Joseph Donohue. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2005. xi + 290 pp. $44.95 cloth. The real question here is, will Professor Joseph Donohue...

A Companion to Twentieth-Century American Drama.(Book review)
January 1, 2008... A Companion to Twentieth-Century American Drama. Edited by David Krasner. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 2005. xx + 576 pp. $167.95 cloth. The dramatic history of the United States is, in many respects, even briefer than the history of the...

Theatre Histories: An Introduction.(Book review)
January 1, 2008... Theatre Histories: An Introduction. By Phillip B. Zarrilli, Bruce McConachie, Gary Jay Williams, and Carol Fisher Sorgenfrei. New York: Routledge, 2006. 544 pp. $44.95 paper. Theatre Histories: An Introduction was conceived and written to...

Susan Glaspell: New Directions in Critical Inquiry.(Disclosing Intertextualities: The Stories, Plays, and Novels of Susan Glaspell)(Book review)
January 1, 2008... Susan Glaspell: New Directions in Critical Inquiry. Edited and with an introduction by Martha C. Carpentier. Newcastle, U.K.: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2006.117 pp. $59.99 cloth. Disclosing Intertextualities: The Stories, Plays, and Novels...

Strange Duets: Impresarios and Actresses in the American Theatre, 1865-1914.(Book review)
January 1, 2008... Strange Duets: Impresarios and Actresses in the American Theatre, 1865-1914. By Kim Marra. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2006. 378 pp. $47.95 paper. Kim Marra's Strange Duets participates in the determined campaign by cultural...

Books received.
January 1, 2008... Benedetti, Jean. The Art of the Actor: The Essential History of Acting, from Classical Times to the Present Day. New York: Routledge, 2007. Bloom, Ken. The Routledge Guide to Broadway. New York: Routledge, 2007. Brandesky, Joe. Czech...