Feminist Approaches in Musical Theatre

Musical theatre is not only entertainment that dominates the prolific stages of Broadway and The West End to community and educational stages but is a distinct performing art genre that has become both a cultural and economic force within society over the last century. Despite women being Broadway’s primary ticket buyers, men still have the systemic privilege and retain most of the power, influence, and notoriety as musical theatre makers. As the predominant creators of musicals, they also control whose stories make it to the stage, and the lens through which those stories are told.

This book locates Harold Pinter’s controversial anti-fascism, overtly political plays not as revolutionary works designed to mobilize the masses, but as cries of moral outrage against the authoritarian forces of oppression.

Displaying on stage the plight of political prisoners facing illegal detainment, brutal interrogation, and torture, Pinter employs an aggressive, graphic style seeking to shock spectators out of their apathy and denial, and encourage awareness of such documented realities of fascist rule. Russell argues that Pinter’s political plays are not propagandistic screeds, but rather reflect a level of quasi-journalistic facticity about the global rise of fascism.

Analysing an expanding body of theatre and performance works, Science Fiction and Contemporary British Theatre examines how the themes and images of science fiction are enabling practitioners to intervene on the most urgent social and political issues of the present moment.

By exploring the genre’s impact on the live theatrical event, the book presents an original and topical interrogation of issues that remain at the heart of the national and global political agenda, including military conflict, social injustice, economic inequality, migration, nationhood, anti-democratic populism, and climate collapse.

This volume captures the theatrical and cultural practice to have come out of Double Edge Theatre, which Stacy Klein founded in 1982. It showcases the company’s dedication to collective artistic creativity, cultural survival and sustained, equitable organization-building, with Klein’s artistic and social vision at its centre.
Featuring interviews, artists’ statements, essays and speeches in which Klein articulates the mission of Double Edge Theatre as it evolves, the volume captures the democratic spirit and boundary-pushing theatrical work the company has championed.

Marking the 50th anniversary of one of the world’s leading theatre companies, this book collects six of its most impactful plays together in one volume for the first time.

Druid Theatre is Ireland’s leading theatre company. Since their origin in 1975 they have surprised, delighted, and inspired audiences worldwide, touring from their home city of Galway in the west of Ireland to countless other locations nationally and internationally. Under the leadership of Garry Hynes, the first woman to win a Tony Award for directing, the company has revitalised the Irish dramatic tradition by staging seminal new plays and by breathing life into neglected classics. This anthology celebrates that tradition by gathering together six key plays from Druid’s fifty-year history.

Every couple needs a little fantasy to keep their marriage sparkling. Judy and Johnny are living the 1950s dream, but behind the gingham curtains, being a domestic goddess is not as easy as it looks

A dark comedy about sex, cake, and the quest to be the ‘perfect’ housewife, Laura Wade’s incisive study of the idealisation of gender norms remains as topical as ever as it asks how happily married are the happily married?
Home, I’m Darling is a compelling, incisive play that interrogates nostalgia, gender performance, and the seductive, yet precarious, fantasy of retreating into an idealised past.

Staging Beckett in London presents the first dedicated performance history of Samuel Beckett’s drama in London theatre culture.

This open access volume argues that Samuel Beckett has held a long and varied relationship with London and its theatres. Although Dublin and Paris hold obvious connections with Beckett’s life, London is the city that has proved the most consistent home for his drama, the origin for many of his major collaborations and where his legacy continues to flourish today. By tracing these performance histories through original findings in international archives, interviews with key practitioners and framing the performances in their historical and cultural contexts, this history offers new readings and insights into productions of Beckett’s plays in London.

When Katherine Brewed features two groups: the royal group around the boy King Richard II; and a group of rebels caught up in the tumult of the Rising. As news of the rising reaches the king and his advisors panic descends upon them as they realise the precariousness of their situation. Without an army to defend them and holed up in the Tower of London, they go into meltdown as the seriousness of what is happening sinks in. In the meantime, four rebels come together to take part in the great march to London. The central character is Katherine, a brewer (brewing being one of the few trades open to a woman at this time). The other characters are an ex-archer and experienced soldier, a recently released ex-convict, and a village girl called Elizabeth.

The rebel characters grow in confidence as they understand more and more the true purpose of the rising. Discussing the events, laughing and joking in amazement at what they are about, they enact the experience of the movement by turns with humour and seriousness. As the events unfold, we see Wat Tyler negotiating with the King, and the moment of apparent triumph. But we also learn of the trickery of the King’s advisers and the terrible betrayal that leads to the defeat of our four rebels and the movement that all-too-briefly changed their lives.

Drawing on theoretical and empirical insights from art teachers in Canada and Europe, this edited volume explores the question of how learning in the arts can be effectively and fairly assessed in the context of higher education.

The chapters consider a rich variety of assessment practices across music, visual and plastic arts, performing arts, design, fashion, dance and music and illustrate how knowledge, competencies, skills and progress can be viably and fairly assessed. Contextual challenges to assessment are also considered in depth, and particular attention is paid to the challenges of reconciling teaching in the arts, aimed at an intuitive transformation of the student, and assessing learning that takes on its meaning in subjectivity and sensitivity.