Theatre studies Books

An audacious new play that explores the ways in which historical trauma affects the present-day intersections of race, gender, and sexuality."The single most daring thing I've seen in a theater in a long time." -- Wesley Morris, New York...

When Bella Baird, an isolated creative writing professor at Yale, begins to mentor a brilliant but enigmatic student named Christopher, the two form an unexpectedly intense bond. As their lives and the stories they tell about themselves become...

"There is a muscularity, not to mention wisdom and truth, to Seth's techniques. He is a wonderful teacher, and I know that having him as my first guide is one of the luckiest things to have happened to me in my career and life." -Anne Hathaway, from her...

Winner, Pulitzer Prize for Drama, 2018Other awards for Cost of Living: Edgerton New Play Prize (2016), Jean Kennedy Smith Prize-The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts (2016), Women's Invitational-Ashland New Plays Festival2016 NY Times...

In his introduction, Christopher Bayes describes the pursuit of the clown as the search for "the authentic, playful self and its unique relationship to the comic world." An essential read for performers of all kinds, this text takes a deep dive into...

In his five decades of work in theatre, Richard Foreman has become known as the figurehead of the "downtown" scene, the king of all things experimental and unconventional. This brand new anthology is a tribute to his mammoth acclaim, including such...

"Cho's playwriting style...lures us into caring about characters who never fail to surprise us with their simple humanity."-Los Angeles Times"...a strength of Cho's writing is her empathy for those who stumble toward and slip away from intimacies they...

Winner of the 2016 Tony Award for Best Play Finalist for the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Drama Winner of the Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding New Broadway Play Winner of the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award for Best Play "THE BEST PLAY OF THE...

"One of the most spectacularly original plays in recent memory."-Entertainment Weekly"Fascinating and hilarious . . . With each of its three acts, Mr. Burns grows grander."-Village Voice"When was the last time you met a new play that was so smart it made...

"This brave new musical, haunting and electrifying by turns, restores the mystery, the thrill to that shattering transformation that stirs in all our souls."-Charles Isherwood, The New York Times"The staggering purity of this show will touch all open...

Acknowledged as the nation's foremost expert on audience development involving America's growing multicultural population by the Arts and Business Council, Donna Walker-Kuhne has now written the first book describing her strategies and methods to engage...

"A landmark musical, one of those few shows that enter the permanent lore of the theatre by altering the vocabulary of dramatic possibilities." Time"There's never been a franker, more sophisticated work written for the musical stage." San Francisco...

"Ms. Finley hasn't lost the power to disturb."-Ben Brantley, The New York TimesNo other performing artist has captured the psychological complexity of this decade as Karen Finley has. In her inimitable style, she has embodied some of the most troubling...

This collection brings together studies of popular performance and politics across the nineteenth century, offering a fresh perspective from an archivally grounded research base. It works with the concept that politics is performative and performance is...

This book deals with Shakespeare's role in contemporary culture. It looks in detail at the way that Shakespeare's plays inform modern ideas of cultural value and the work required to make Shakespeare part of modern culture. It is unique in using social...

"That joyous rarity, a work of sophisticated artistic ambition and deep political purpose that affords nonstop pleasure."--William A. Henry III, Time

In 1993 when Robert Lepage suggested to his colleagues that a specific identity and image be found for his next working group, he imposed one condition. The word "theatre" was not to be part of the name of the new company. This gorgeous full-colour book...

As long ago as 1916 William Butler Yeats and Ezra Pound were excitedly discovering Noh plays. In 1922 Aurthur Waley's fine translations appeared in a collection titled The Noh Plays of Japan. Since then, interest has grown steadily in this...

The hilarious and poignant third play by award-winning actor, playwright, and writer Jesse Eisenberg, The Spoils continues Eisenberg's exploration of the privilege of the young straight white male. Nobody likes Ben. Ben doesn't...

The Revisionist, the second play by the award-winning actor and regular New Yorker contributor Jesse Eisenberg, is a stunning exploration of obsession, secrets, and the nature of family. The play had its world premiere at the Cherry Lane Theatre in New...

Theatres on film is an innovative contribution to the study of both theatre and film history, with its detailed discussion of popular and influential films that have taken the theatre as their subject, informed by a strong sense of the cultural and...

This collection of essays is part of a new phase in Shakespeare studies. The traditional view of Shakespeare is that he was a man of the theatre who showed no interest in the printing of his plays, producing works that are only fully realised in...

The Henry VI plays are Shakespeare's earliest, most theatrically exciting plays and in their day, they were among his most popular works. In a story which stretches over thirty years, Shakespeare dramatises the fall of the House of Lancaster and creates...

Drawing on feminist cultural materialist theories and historiographies, 'Treading the bawds' analyses the collaboration between actresses Elizabeth Barry and Anne Bracegirdle and women playwrights such as Aphra Behn and Mary Pix, and traces a line of...

Beginning Shakespeare introduces students to the study of Shakespeare, and grounds their understanding of his work in theoretical discourses. After an introductory survey of the dominant approaches of the past, seven chapters examine the major current...

Through a study of ten modern stage and screen productions of 'King Lear', this book examines the way performance and interpretation are bound together, and shows how different performances have illuminated the contradictions in this play. The updated...

Playing for time explores connections between theatre time, the historical moment and fictional time. Geraldine Cousin persuasively argues that a crucial characteristic of contemporary British theatre is its preoccupation with instability and danger, and...

"Analysing Performance" is a wide-ranging collection of essays by contributors of international standing about key aspects of the performing arts. Each essay tackles the theory and practice of contemporary performance work, and enables students and...

Of all Shakespeare's tragedies, "Othello", with its issues of racism, jealousy and sexual stereotyping seems most immediate to contemporary audiences. This work traces Othello's acting tradition as it has affected the roles of Othello, Desdemona and Iago...

For many years Middleton's "A Game at Chess" was more notorious than read, considered rather a phenomenon of theatrical history than a pre-eminent piece of dramatic writing. "A Game at Chess" was a nine days' wonder, an exceptional play of King James'...

Science on Stage is the first full-length study of the phenomenon of "science plays"--theatrical events that weave scientific content into the plot lines of the drama. The book investigates the tradition of science on the stage from the Renaissance to...

William Kluba, author, takes an in-depth look at the origins of inspiration and ideas, to help us better understand where creativity comes from in our bodies and minds, and to understand how this intangible force translates into artistic expression. This...

This volume offers the fruits of Peter Meineck and Paul Woodruff's dynamic collaboration on the plays of Sophocles' Theban cycle, presenting the translators' Oedipus Tyrannus (2000) along with Woodruff's Antigone (2001) and a muscular new Oedipus at...

This new volume of three of Euripides' most celebrated plays offers graceful, economical, metrical translations that convey the wide range of effects of the playwright's verse, from the idiomatic speech of its dialogue to the high formality of its choral...

Mitchell-Boyask's Introduction gives the reader a lively and accessible overview of Euripides' life, the circumstances of the original performances, and critical debate on the three plays. Footnotes to the translations provide students with useful...

Aeschylus: The Libation Bearers; Euripides: Electra; Sophocles: Electra

'This is the best Prometheus Bound in English. Deborah Roberts' translation is accurate, readable, and true to the original in idiom, imagery, and the combination of a high style with occasional colloquialism. The informative notes and perceptive...