Download or read book Theatre and Celebrity in Britain 1660 2000 written by Mary Luckhurst and published by Springer. This book was released on 2005-10-18 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Theatre has always been a site for selling outrage and sensation, a place where public reputations are made and destroyed in spectacular ways. This is the first book to investigate the construction and production of celebrity in the British theatre. These exciting essays explore aspects of fame, notoriety and transgression in a wide range of performers and playwrights including David Garrick, Oscar Wilde, Ellen Terry, Laurence Olivier and Sarah Kane. This pioneering volume examines the ingenious ways in which these stars have negotiated their own fame. The essays also analyze the complex relationships between discourses of celebrity and questions of gender, spectatorship and the operation of cultural markets.
Download or read book English Theatrical Anecdotes 1660 1800 written by Heather Ladd and published by Rutgers University Press. This book was released on 2022-06-17 with total page 299 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The essays in English Theatrical Anecdotes, 1660-1800 explore the theatrical anecdote’s role in the construction of stage fame in England’s emergent celebrity culture during the long eighteenth century, as well as the challenges of employing such anecdotes in theatre scholarship today. This collection showcases scholarship that complicates the theatrical anecdote and shows its many sides and applications beyond the expected comic punch. Discussing anecdotal narratives about theatre people as producing, maintaining, and sometimes toppling individual fame, this book crucially investigates a key mechanism of celebrity in the long eighteenth century that reaches into the nineteenth century and beyond. The anecdote erases boundaries between public and private and fictionalizing the individual in ways deeply familiar to twenty-first century celebrity culture.
Download or read book Historical Dictionary of British Theatre written by Darryll Grantley and published by Scarecrow Press. This book was released on 2013-10-10 with total page 549 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: British theatre has a greater tradition than any other, having started all the way back in 1311 and still going strong today. But that is too much for one book to cover, so this volume deals with early theatre and has a cut-off date in 1899. Still, this is almost six centuries, centuries during which British theatre not only developed but produced some of the greatest playwrights of all time and anywhere, including obviously Shakespeare but also Marlowe and Shaw. And they wrote some of the finest plays ever, which are known around the world. So there is plenty for this book to cover, just with the playwrights, plays and actors, but it also has information on stagecraft and theatres, as well as the historical and political background. This book has over 1,183 entries in the dictionary section, these being mainly on playwrights and plays, but others as well including managers and critics, and also on specific theatres, legislative acts and some technical jargon. Then there are entries on the different genres, from comedy to tragedy and everything in between. Inevitably, the chronology is quite long as it has a long period to cover and the introduction provides the necessary overview. The Historical Dictionary of Early British Theatre concludes with a pretty massive bibliography. That will be of use to particularly assiduous researchers, but this book itself is a good place to start any research since it covers periods that are far less well-known and documented, and ordinary theatre-goers will also find useful information.
Download or read book Stage women 1900 50 written by Maggie B. Gale and published by Manchester University Press. This book was released on 2019-04-08 with total page 403 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This electronic version has been made available under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-ND) open access license. This book presents a collection of cutting-edge historical and cultural essays in the field of women, theatre and performance. The chapters explore women’s networks of professional practice in the theatre and performance industries between 1900 and 1950, with a focus on women’s sense and experience of professional agency in an industry largely controlled by men. The book is divided into two sections: ‘Female theatre workers in the social and theatrical realm’ looks at the relationship between women’s work – on and off stage – and autobiography, activism, technique, touring, education and the law. ‘Women and popular performance’ focuses on the careers of individual artists, once household names, including Lily Brayton, Ellen Terry, radio star Mabel Constanduros and Oscar-winning film star Margaret Rutherford.
Download or read book The Cambridge Companion to Women s Writing in Britain 1660 1789 written by Catherine Ingrassia and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2015-04-23 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Essays by leading scholars provide a comprehensive overview of women writers and their work in Restoration and eighteenth-century Britain.
Download or read book Intimacy and Celebrity in Eighteenth Century Literary Culture written by Emrys D. Jones and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-06-19 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides an expansive view of celebrity’s intimate dimensions. In the process, it offers a timely reassessment of how notions of private and public were negotiated by writers, readers, actors and audiences in the early to mid-eighteenth century. The essays assembled here explore the lives of a wide range of figures: actors and actresses, but also politicians, churchmen, authors and rogues; some who courted celebrity openly and others who seemed to achieve it almost inadvertently. At a time when the topic of celebrity’s origins is attracting unprecedented scholarly attention, this collection is an important, pioneering resource.
Download or read book British Theatre and Performance 1900 1950 written by Rebecca D'Monte and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2015-02-26 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: British theatre from 1900 to 1950 has been subject to radical re-evaluation with plays from the period setting theatres alight and gaining critical acclaim once again; this book explains why, presenting a comprehensive survey of the theatre and how it shaped the work that followed. Rebecca D'Monte examines how the emphasis upon the working class, 'angry' drama from the 1950s has led to the neglect of much of the century's earlier drama, positioning the book as part of the current debate about the relationship between war and culture, the middlebrow, and historiography. In a comprehensive survey of the period, the book considers: - the Edwardian theatre; - the theatre of the First World War, including propaganda and musicals; -the interwar years, the rise of commercial theatre and influence of Modernism; - the theatre of the Second World War and post-war period. Essays from leading scholars Penny Farfan, Steve Nicholson and Claire Cochrane give further critical perspectives on the period's theatre and demonstrate its relevance to the drama of today. For anyone studying 20th-century British Drama this will prove one of the foundational texts.
Download or read book The Visual Life of Romantic Theater 1780 1830 written by Diane Piccitto and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 2023-05-24 with total page 397 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Provides fresh perspectives on the Romantic era through a focus on the visual nature and impact of the stage
Download or read book An Illustrated History of British Theatre and Performance written by Robert Leach and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-12-21 with total page 760 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An Illustrated History of British Theatre and Performance chronicles the history and development of theatre from the Roman era to the present day. As the most public of arts, theatre constantly interacts with changing social, political and intellectual movements and ideas, and Robert Leach’s masterful work restores to the foreground of this evolution the contributions of women, gay people and ethnic minorities, as well as the theatres of the English regions, and of Wales and Scotland. Highly illustrated chapters trace the development of theatre through major plays from each period; evaluations of playwrights; contemporary dramatic theory; acting and acting companies; dance and music; the theatre buildings themselves; and the audience, while also highlighting enduring features of British theatre, from comic gags to the use of props. This first volume spans from the earliest forms of performance to the popular theatres of high society and the Enlightenment, tracing a movement from the outdoor and fringe to the heart of the social world. The Illustrated History acts as an accessible, flexible basis for students of the theatre, and for pure fans of British theatre history there could be no better starting point.
Download or read book The Routledge Companion to Media Gender written by Cynthia Carter and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-12-13 with total page 670 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Routledge Companion to Media and Gender offers a comprehensive examination of media and gender studies, charting its histories, investigating ongoing controversies, and assessing future trends. The 59 chapters in this volume, written by leading researchers from around the world, provide scholars and students with an engaging and authoritative survey of current thinking in media and gender research. The Companion includes the following features: With each chapter addressing a distinct, concrete set of issues, the volume includes research from around the world to engage readers in a broad array of global and transnational issues and intersectional perspectives. Authors address a series of important questions that have consequences for current and future thinking in the field, including postfeminism, sexual violence, masculinity, media industries, queer identities, video games, digital policy, media activism, sexualization, docusoaps, teen drama, cosmetic surgery, media Islamophobia, sport, telenovelas, news audiences, pornography, and social and mobile media. A range of academic disciplines inform exploration of key issues around production and policymaking, representation, audience engagement, and the place of gender in media studies. The Routledge Companion to Media and Gender is an essential guide to the central ideas, concepts and debates currently shaping media and gender research.
Download or read book Modernizing Costume Design 1820 1920 written by Annie Holt and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-10-14 with total page 243 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Annie Holt identifies the roots of contemporary Euro-American practices of costume design, in which costumes are an integrated part of the dramaturgy rather than a reflection of an individual performer’s taste or status. She argues that in the period 1820–1920, as part of the larger project of modernism across the artistic and cultural field, the functions of "clothing" and "costume" diverged. Onstage apparel took on a more specific semiotic task, acting as a fresh channel for the flow of information between the performer, the literary text, and the spectator. Modernizing Costume Design traces how five kinds of artists – directors, performers, writers, couturiers, and painters – made key contributions to this new model of costume design. Holt shows that by 1920, costume design shifted in status from craft to art.
Download or read book A Companion to Modern British and Irish Drama 1880 2005 written by Mary Luckhurst and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2008-04-15 with total page 608 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This wide-ranging Companion to Modern British and Irish Drama offers challenging analyses of a range of plays in their political contexts. It explores the cultural, social, economic and institutional agendas that readers need to engage with in order to appreciate modern theatre in all its complexity. An authoritative guide to modern British and Irish drama. Engages with theoretical discourses challenging a canon that has privileged London as well as white English males and realism. Topics covered include: national, regional and fringe theatres; post-colonial stages and multiculturalism; feminist and queer theatres; sex and consumerism; technology and globalisation; representations of war, terrorism, and trauma.
Download or read book Polish Theatre Revisited written by Agata Luksza and published by University of Iowa Press. This book was released on 2024-01-19 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Polish Theatre Revisited explores nineteenth-century Polish theatre through the lens of theatre audiences. Agata Łuksza places special emphasis on the most engaged spectators, known as “theatremaniacs”—from what they wore, to what they bought, to what they ate. Her source material is elusive ephemera from fans’ lives, such as notes scribbled on a weekly list of shows in the Warsaw theatres, collections of theatre postcards, and recipes for sweets named after famous actors. The fannish behavior of theatremaniacs was usually deemed excessive or in poor taste by people in positions of power, as it clashed with the ongoing embourgeoisement of the theatre and the disciplining of audiences. Nevertheless, the theatre was one of the key areas where early fan cultures emerged, and theatremaniacs indulged in diverse fan practices in opposition to the forces reforming the theatre and its spectatorship.
Download or read book Black and Asian Theatre In Britain written by Colin Chambers and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-12-17 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Black and Asian Theatre in Britain is an unprecedented study tracing the history of ‘the Other’ through the ages in British theatre. The diverse and often contradictory aspects of this history are expertly drawn together to provide a detailed background to the work of African, Asian, and Caribbean diasporic companies and practitioners. Colin Chambers examines early forms of blackface and other representations in the sixteenth century, through to the emergence of black and Asian actors, companies, and theatre groups in their own right. Thorough analysis uncovers how they led to a flourishing of black and Asian voices in theatre at the turn of the twenty-first century. Figures and companies studied include: Ira Aldridge Henry Francis Downing Paul Robeson Errol John Mustapha Matura Dark and Light Theatre The Keskidee Centre Indian Art and Dramatic Society Temba Edric and Pearl Connor Tara Arts Yvonne Brewster Tamasha Talawa. Black and Asian Theatre in Britain is an enlightening and immensely readable resource and represents a major new study of theatre history and British history as a whole.
Download or read book Rival Queens written by Felicity Nussbaum and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2011-10-11 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In eighteenth-century England, actresses were frequently dismissed as mere prostitutes trading on their sexual power rather than their talents. Yet they were, Felicity Nussbaum argues, central to the success of a newly commercial theater. Urban, recently moneyed, and thoroughly engaged with their audiences, celebrated actresses were among the first women to achieve social mobility, cultural authority, and financial independence. In fact, Nussbaum contends, the eighteenth century might well be called the "age of the actress" in the British theater, given women's influence on the dramatic repertory and, through it, on the definition of femininity. Treating individual star actresses who helped spark a cult of celebrity—especially Anne Oldfield, Susannah Cibber, Catherine Clive, Margaret Woffington, Frances Abington, and George Anne Bellamy—Rival Queens reveals the way these women animated issues of national identity, property, patronage, and fashion in the context of their dramatic performances. Actresses intentionally heightened their commercial appeal by catapulting the rivalries among themselves to center stage. They also boldly challenged in importance the actor-managers who have long dominated eighteenth-century theater history and criticism. Felicity Nussbaum combines an emphasis on the actresses themselves with close analysis of their diverse roles in works by major playwrights, including George Farquhar, Nicholas Rowe, Colley Cibber, Arthur Murphy, David Garrick, Isaac Bickerstaff, and Richard Sheridan. Hers is a comprehensive and original argument about the importance of actresses as the first modern subjects, actively shaping their public identities to make themselves into celebrated properties.
Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of the Georgian Theatre 1737 1832 written by Julia Swindells and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2014 with total page 786 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Oxford Handbook of the Georgian Theatre 1737-1832 provides a comprehensive guide to theatre of the Georgian era across the range of dramatic forms.
Download or read book What Would Garrick Do Or Acting Lessons from the Eighteenth Century written by James Harriman-Smith and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2023-12-14 with total page 151 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The stage of the 1700s established a star culture, with the emergence of such acting celebrities as David Garrick, Susannah Cibber, and Sarah Siddons. It placed Shakespeare at the heart of the classical repertoire and offered unprecedented opportunities to female actors. This book demonstrates how an understanding of the practice and theories circulating three hundred years ago can generate new ways of studying and performing plays of all kinds in the present. Eight short essays – on emotions, cultivation, character, voice, action, company, audience, and reflection – provide two things: a vivid introduction to the practice and ideas of the eighteenth-century stage, and the story of how these past practices and ideas were used in collaborative workshops around the UK to create new rehearsal exercises. Designed to work alone or in combination, these exercises are also open to further adaptation and analysis as part of a work that treats theatre writers of the past as potential collaborators for those interested in theatre today. Marrying academic and professional theatre expertise, this book ranges through a vast archive of writing about acting, from private letters and battered promptbooks, through to philosophical treatises and celebrity biographies. The exercises, stories, and ideas shared here capture the strangeness of this material – and sometimes its surprising familiarity, as questions asked of actors then seem to anticipate those questions we ask now. A truly unique offering, What would Garrick Do? Or, Acting Lessons from the Eighteenth Century offers a fascinating deep-dive into an important time in theatre history to illuminate practices and processes today.
