Literature Research

Introduction to Theatre: a Direct Approach addresses the student who is not a theatre major, but is taking a single course. The text attempts to address the most salient points pertinent to a beginning theatre course.

Individual articles on 198 dramatists and 24 extensive essays on various aspects of English language drama. In each essay, pertinent top matter is followed by a listing of the dramatist's plays, with dates of first release, a survey of publications in literary forms other than drama, a critical survey of the subject's professional achievements, a biographical sketch centered on the subject's dramatic development, and a rather extensive critical analysis of the subject's canon.

Contemporary productions on stage and film, and the development of theater studies, have created a new audience for ancient Greek drama. This volume fills the need for a clear, concise statement of what is known about the original conditions of production for tragedy, comedy, and satyr play in the age of Pericles and provides observations on all aspects of performance. Reexamining the surviving plays of the tragic writers Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides and of the comedian Aristophanes, Graham Ley discusses the actor's technique, the power and range of the chorus, the use of theatrical space, and parody in the plays. A series of diagrams relates the theater to the city and political life of ancient Athens, and photographic illustrations of scenes from Greek vases document the visualization of theatrical performance. An ideal companion to The Complete Greek Tragedies (University of Chicago Press), Ley's work is a valuable user's guide to the critical assessment of modern translations and adaptations of tragedy and comedy. It is designed for all students of Greek drama with an interest in performance, and for theatrical practitioners who require a concise but informative introduction to one of the great periods of world drama.

This book addresses the question of how and in what forms theater emerges from the ashes of police-state repression, taking Brazil as its case study.

This study argues that the century after the Reformation saw a crisis in the way that Europeans expressed their religious experience. Focusing specifically on how this crisis affected the drama of England, O'Connell shows that Reformation culture was preoccupied with idolatry and that thetheater was frequently attacked as idolatrous. This anti-theatricalism notably targeted the traditional cycles of mystery plays--a type of vernacular, popular biblical theater that from a modern perspective would seem ideally suited to advance the Reformation project. The Idolatrous Eye provides awide perspective on iconoclasm in the sixteenth century, and in so doing, helps us to understand why this biblical theater was found transgressive and what this meant for the secular theater that followed.

Offering a comprehensive account of a long and varied chronicle, this history of theater in Africa is comprised of essays written by scholars in the field. The coverage is geographically broad and includes an examination of the concepts of "history" and "theater" in Africa; North Africa; Francophone theatre; Anglophone West Africa; East Africa; Southern Africa; Lusophone African theatre; Mauritius and Reunion; as well as the African diaspora.

Theater has often served as a touchstone for critical moments of political change or national definition. Steve Wilmer selects key historical moments in American history to examine the theater's response. The selected events range from the Colonial fight for independence through Native American struggles, the Socialist Worker play and the Civil Rights Movement, to those of the last decade. Wilmer also considers audience reception and critical response.