Lynette Goddard

Catherine Hindson

Claire Cochrane

Trish Reid

The Routledge Companion to Twentieth Century British Theatre and Performance provides a broad range of perspectives on the multiple models and examples of theatre, artists, enthusiasts, enablers and audiences that emerged over this formative hundred‐year period. This second volume covers the second half of the century, constructing an equitable and inclusive history that is more representative of the nation's lived experience than the traditional narrative of British theatre. Its approach is intra-national - weaving together the theatres and communities of England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, as well as being thematic, breaking down its coverage into sections that address nation, power and identity; fixity and mobility; bodies in performance; theatre communities, and the materiality of theatre. This approach exposes the synergies, convergences and divergences of the theatre world in Britain during this period, giving a sense of the sheer variety of performance that was taking place at any given moment in time. This is a fascinating and indispensable resource for undergraduate and graduate students, postgraduate researchers and scholars across theatre and performance studies, cultural studies, and twentieth century history.

Volume Two: 1950–2000

The Routledge Companion to Twentieth Century British Theatre and Performance

Jo Robinson

Shortlisted for the 2021 TaPRA Edited Collection Prize The Methuen Drama Handbook of Theatre History and Historiography is an authoritative guide to contemporary debates and practices in this field. The book covers the key themes and methods that are current in theatre history research, with a particular focus on expanding the object of study to include engagement with theatre and performance practices and the development of theatre histories around the world. Central to the book are eighteen specially commissioned essays by established and emerging scholars from a wide range of international contexts, whose discussion of individual case studies is predicated on their understanding and experience of their 'local' landscape of theatre history. These essays reveal where important work continues to be done in the field and, most valuably, draws on academic contexts beyond the Western academy to expand our knowledge of the exciting directions that such an approach opens up. Prefaced by an introduction tracing the development of the discipline of theatre history and changing historiographical approaches, the Handbook explores current issues pertaining to theatre and performance history research, as well as providing up to date and robust introductions to the methods and historiographic questions being explored by researchers in the field. Featuring a series of essential research tools, including a detailed list of resources and an annotated bibliography of key texts, this is an indispensable scholarly handbook for anyone working in theatre and performance history and historiography.

The Methuen Drama Handbook of Theatre History and Historiography

In this book, Claire Cochrane maps the experience of theatre across the British Isles during the twentieth century through the social and economic factors which shaped it. Three topographies for 1900, 1950 and 2000 survey the complex plurality of theatre within the nation-state which at the beginning of the century was at the hub of world-wide imperial interests and after one hundred years had seen unprecedented demographic, economic and industrial change. Cochrane analyses the dominance of London theatre, but redresses the balance in favour of the hitherto marginalised majority experience in the English regions and the other component nations of the British political construct. Developments arising from demographic change are outlined, especially those relating to the rapid expansion of migrant communities representing multiple ethnicities. Presenting fresh historiographic perspectives on twentieth-century British theatre, the book breaks down the traditionally accepted binary oppositions between different sectors, showing a broader spectrum of theatre practice.

Industry, Art and Empire

Twentieth-Century British Theatre

The Methuen Drama Handbook of Theatre History and Historiography offers an authoritative guide to contemporary debates and practices in this field. The book covers current key themes and methods in theatre history research, and expands the object of study to include engagement with theatre and performance practices and the development of theatre histories around the world. Central to the book are 16 specially commissioned essays by established and emerging scholars from a wide range of international contexts, whose discussion of individual case studies is predicated on their understanding and experience of their 'local' landscape of theatre history. These essays reveal where important work continues to be done in the field and, most valuably, draw on academic contexts beyond the Western academy to expand our knowledge of the exciting directions that such an approach opens up. Prefaced by an introduction tracing the development of the discipline of theatre history and changing historiographical approaches, the handbook explores current issues pertaining to theatre and performance history research, and provides up to date and robust introductions to the methods and historiographic questions being explored by researchers in the field. Featuring a series of essential research tools, including a detailed list of resources and an annotated bibliography of key texts, this is an indispensable scholarly handbook for anyone working in theatre and performance history and historiography.

For the first time in this collection of essays a group of theatre historians have come together to consider the challenge of applying ethical thinking to attempts to truthfully represent the past. Topics include the life of the celebrated Restoration actor Thomas Betterton, the little-known records of hitherto forgotten women involved in Victorian theatre, amateur theatricals enjoyed by the British army in colonial India, the loss of a pioneering arts centre for African and Caribbean culture, performance art in Wales and present day community arts in Northern Ireland. While confronting such difficult issues as the instability of evidence and the unreliability of memory, all the contributors offer fresh perspectives and innovative strategies for fulfilling their ethical responsibility to the lived experience of the past.

Claire Cochrane

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