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Situating the theater as a site of broad cultural movements and conflicts, Lisa A. Freeman asserts that antitheatrical incidents from the English Renaissance to present-day America provide us with occasions to trace major struggles over the nature and balance of power and political authority. In studies of William Prynne's Histrio-mastix (1633), Jeremy Collier's A Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage (1698), John Home's Douglas (1757), the burning of the theater at Richmond (1811), and the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in National Endowment for the Arts v. Finley (1998) Freeman engages in a careful examination of the political, religious, philosophical, literary, and dramatic contexts in which challenges to theatricality unfold. In so doing, she demonstrates that however differently \"the public\" might be defined in each epoch, what lies at the heart of antitheatrical disputes is a struggle over the character of the body politic that governs a nation and the bodies public that could be said to represent that nation.By situating antitheatrical incidents as rich and interpretable cultural performances, Freeman seeks to account fully for the significance of these particular historical conflicts. She delineates when, why, and how anxieties about representation manifest themselves, and traces the actual politics that govern such ostensibly aesthetic and moral debates even today.

Troubling Traditions takes up a 21st century, field-specific conversation between scholars, educators, and artists from varying generational, geographical, and identity positions that speak to the wide array of debates around dramatic canons. Unlike Literature and other fields in the humanities, Theatre and Performance Studies has not yet fully grappled with the problems of its canon. Troubling Traditions stages that conversation in relation to the canon in the United States. It investigates the possibilities for multiplying canons, methodologies for challenging canon formation, and the role of adaptation and practice in rethinking the field's relation to established texts. The conversations put forward by this book on the canon interrogate the field's fundamental values, and ask how to expand the voices, forms, and bodies that constitute this discipline. This is a vital text for anyone considering the role, construction, and impact of canons in the US and beyond.

01 02 Masculinity and Film Performance is a lively and engaging study of the complex relationship between masculinity and performance on and off screen, focusing on the performance of 'male angst' in American film and popular culture during the 1990s and 2000s. Building on theories of film acting, masculinity, performance, and cultural studies, this book establishes a framework for studying screen masculinity and provides close analysis of a range of performers and performance styles. It also examines the specific social, cultural, historical and political contexts that have shaped and affected the performance of masculinity on screen, such as the aging of the baby boom and the launch of Viagra onto the marketplace, the 'Iron John' and 'Wild Man' phenomenon, and the racially marked fatherhood crisis. Drawing from an array of illuminating film and actor case studies, including Bill Murray, Tom Cruise, Michael Douglas, Will Smith, William H. Macy, Denzel Washington, Broken Flowers , Far From Heaven , Pleasantville , Magnolia , and Wonder Boys , Donna Peberdy offers a significant contribution to the emerging field of screen performance studies. 31 02 A study of the complex relationship between masculinity and performance on and off screen, focusing on the performance of 'male angst' in American film and popular culture during the 1990s and 2000s 04 02 Illustrations Acknowledgements Introduction: Being a Man PART I: PERFORMANCE AND PERFORMERS Performance and Masculinity Performing Angst PART II: ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES From Wimps to Wild Men: Bipolar Masculinity and the Paradoxical Performances of Tom Cruise Performing Paternity: Clinton, Nostalgia and the Racial Politics of Fatherhood Aging Men: Viagra, Retiring Boomers and Jack Nicholson Conclusion: Returns, Renewals, Departures Notes Filmography Bibliography Index 08 02 'This is a hugely enjoyable and scholarly consideration of an under-written area of film studies, which simultaneously draws intelligently from and moves beyond existing theorisations of film performance.' - Lisa Purse, University of Reading, UK 'Peberdy's insightful and original examination of male 'angst' in the cinema makes a compelling case for the importance of historical context in understanding performances that take place both on and off the screen.' - Jacob Smith, Northwestern University, USA 'This genuinely interdisciplinary work includes some of the most penetrating analysis of identity in contemporary American film that I have read in the last few years. Peberdy's focus on performances of 'male angst' breathes new life into debates over the intersection of Hollywood cinema and the politics of identity. Film is expertly put into the context of political debates over masculinity and fatherhood, while never losing sight of real audiences and our fascination with viewing male angst.' - Jude Davies, University of Winchester, UK 19 02 1 Theorisation of 'performance' is a relatively new area in Film Studies, and this book will be a significant contribution to its development 2 Uses this concept of 'performing' masculinity to move beyond current scholarship which mainly focuses on representations of masculinity on screen 3 Aims to link on-screen and off-screen performances of masculinity with broader socio-cultural issues 4 Frames specific case studies (Tom Cruise, Sean Penn, Michael Douglas, Bill Murray) with theoretical background and examination of social, cultural, political and historical contexts 5 An extremely timely study that addresses a very recent period of cinematic and cultural history 02 02 A lively and engaging study of on-screen and off-screen performances of masculinity, focusing on well-known male actors in American film and popular culture in the 1990s and 2000s. Peberdy examines specific social, cultural, historical and political contexts that have affected age, race, sexuality and fatherhood on screen. 13 02 DONNA PEBERDY is Senior Lecturer in Film and Television Studies at Southampton Solent University, UK. Her research and publications focus on performance, masculinity and sexuality in American cinema. She is currently researching representations of taboo sex for a collection of essays she is co-editing entitled Tainted Love: Screening Sexual Perversities .

Chronicling over forty years of changes in African-American popular culture, the Regal Theatre (1928-1968) was the largest movie-stage-show venue ever constructed for a Black community. Semmes reveals the political, economic and business realities of cultural production and the institutional inequalities that circumscribed Black life.

01 02 Slum plays represent the different locations, attractions, and challenges of life in the slums such as tenements and tenants' rights, immigrant neighborhoods and nativist prejudices, and red-light districts and prostitution. This genre's rise in prominence took place precisely when the United States was shifting from one discursive regime of the slums to another: from Victorian notions of individualism and moralism to modern notions of spectacle and sociology. The productions of slum plays functioned as sites for the negotiation, interrogation, and dissemination of new and competing discourses of the slums for Broadway audiences during the Progressive Era. Drawing on traditional archival research, reception theory, cultural histories of slumming, and recent work in critical theory on literary representations of poverty, Westgate argues that the productions of slum plays served as enactments of the emergent definitions of the slum and the corresponding ethical obligations involved therein. 02 02 Drawing on traditional archival research, reception theory, cultural histories of slumming, and recent work in critical theory on literary representations of poverty, Westgate argues that the productions of slum plays served as enactments of the emergent definitions of the slum and the corresponding ethical obligations involved therein. 13 02 J. Chris Westgate is Associate Professor of English at California State University, Fullerton, USA. 04 02 Introduction: Darnton's Lament PART I: MODES OF STAGING THE SLUMS 1. \"Strange Things\" from the Bowery: The Tourism Narrative in Slum Plays 2. \"What the Poor of this Great City Must Endure\": The Sociological Narrative in Slum Plays PART III: SLUMMING DESTINATIONS ON STAGE 3. The Courage to See the Sights of the Tenement 4. The Spectacle of Immigrant Neighborhoods 5. Touring the Red Lights District PART III: CASE STUDIES IN SLUM PLAYS 6. \"Nothing More Infernal\": Verisimilitude and Voyeurism in Salvation Nell 7. \"Avoiding the Grotesque and Offensive\": The Zangwill Plays 08 02 \" Staging the Slums, Slumming the Stage is deeply researched, carefully contextualized, broad in scope, thoughtful about assessing what has and has not been done in the field, and just plain fascinating. This is not only an important work in late-nineteenth and twentieth-century drama and theatre, but also a major contribution to American Studies. It amplifies and 'corrects' in thoughtful and complex ways our understanding of the Progressive Era, offering a substantive methodology in performing necessary revisionist investigation.\" - Susan Harris Smith, Professor, English, University of Pittsburgh, USA \"J. Chris Westgate's bold new approach to the ethical complexities behind Progressive-Era representations of and engagement with urban poverty unearths a period in American theatre history that has lain mostly fallow for over a century. A highly readable yet deeply probing archaeological study of this lost era, Staging the Slums, Slumming the Stage masterfully answers an early drama critic's query, 'What is the purpose of this elaborate exploitation of the slums?' – Robert M. Dowling, author of Slumming in New York: From the Waterfront to Mythic Harlem and Eugene O'Neill: A Life in Four Acts \"This fascinating and detailed study about the practices of slumming and Progressive-Era theatre deserves to be widely read. Westgate's engaging prose and thorough research demonstrate the stakes of theatricalizing urban poverty. With compelling readings of Progressive-Era plays about slum life, Westgate shows how enactment is vital to cultural discourse about the poor. As the first book-length project devoted to the theatricalization of slumming, Staging the Slums offers a new understanding of the development of modernity in U.S. theatre and society.\" - Katie N. Johnson, Associate Professor, Miami University, USA and author of Sisters in Sin: Brothel Drama in America

As a professor of French Studies, I had often wished to develop a course in which students could mount a play in French. Its pedagogical value seemed obvious: performing in a foreign language and managing a theatrical production could help students increase their knowledge of French society while improving pronunciation and vocabulary. However, my lack of expertise in the theory and practice of theater stymied me. I had also often longed to teach a course about the Dreyfus affair. The story of a French officer falsely convicted of selling military secrets to the Germans, which tore apart French society for a decade, it contains plenteous teachable issues about France: nationalism, anti-Semitism, the birth of intellectuals, treason and raison d'état , the rise of the modern press and public opinion, the separation of church and state, Third Republic politics, military justice, Franco-German rivalries, and even handwriting analysis. But I doubted that a French department would welcome a whole course just on the Dreyfus affair.

Joseph M. Shosh shows how he made writing central in a drama class to build critical literacy. He describes writing tasks such as creating scenes from personal observations and using acting journals as well as writing projects necessarily involved with play production.

This article describes how the second-graders of one school performed a first-person historical presentation using all of the presidents of the United States as their characters. In connection with Presidents' Day, students presented a one-minute overview of the president's life in first-person characterization including costumes. Rationale, procedures, and assessment are discussed. (Contains references.) (CR)