A Cultural History of Theatre in the Modern Age

To call something modern is to assert something fundamental about the social, cultural, economic and technical sophistication of that thing, over and against what has come before. A Cultural History of Theatre in the Modern Age provides an interdisciplinary overview of theatre and performance in their social and material contexts from the late 19th century through the early 2000s, emphasizing key developments and trends that both exemplify and trouble the various meanings of the term ‘modern’, and the identity of modernist theatre and performance. Highly illustrated with 40 images, the ten chapters each take a different theme as their focus: institutional frameworks; social functions; sexuality and gender; the environment of theatre; circulation; interpretations; communities of production; repertoire and genres; technologies of performance; and knowledge transmission.

Table of Contents:
List of Illustrations Notes on Contributors Series Preface Editor’s Acknowledgements Introduction: The Impossible Modern Age Kim Solga, Western University, Canada 1 Institutional Frameworks: Theatre, State, and Market in Modern Urban Performance Michael McKinnie, Queen Mary University of London, UK 2 Social Functions: Consumers and Producers Nicholas Ridout, Queen Mary University of London, UK 3 Sexuality and Gender: New Stories and New Spaces on the Modern Stage Kirsten Pullen, Texas A&M University, USA 4 The Environment of Theatre: ‘Home’ in the Modern Age Kim Solga, Western University, Canada and Joanne Tompkins, The University of Queensland, Australia 5 Circulations: Visual Sovereignty, Transmotion, and Tribalography Jill Carter, University of Tornoto, Canada, Heather Davis-Fisch,University of the Fraser Valley, USA and Ric Knowles, University of Guelph, Canada 6 Interpretations: The Stakes of Audience Interpretation in Twentieth-Century Political Theatre Dassia N. Posner, Northwestern University, USA 7 Communities of Production: A Materialist Reading with an Offstage View Christin Essin,Vanderbilt University, USA and Marlis Schweitzer, York University, Canada 8 Genres and Repertoires: Redressing the Nation in Ireland and Japan Michelle Liu Carriger,University of California, Los Angeles , USA and Aoife Monks, Queen Mary University of London, UK 9 Technologies of Performance: Machinic Staging and Corporeal Choreographies Ashley Ferro-Murray, University of California, Berkeley, USA and Timothy Murray, Cornell University, USA 10 Knowledge Transmission: Media and Memory Sarah Bay-Cheng, Bowdoin College, USA Notes Bibliography Index