Your time has come to flyYou have no borders—El Vez, “Órale,” sung to the tune of “Bridge over Troubled Waters”With brightly colored papel picado (cut paper banners), tissue flowers, and Latin American flags festooning the performance area at San Francisco's Z Space, David Herrera Performance Company's September 2023 event, ÓRALE!, promised fun and festivity. On its surface, the performance resembled

In 2010 film and theatre historian David Mayer urged researchers to look to early film for evidence of continuing traditions of Victorian pantomime, arguing its “audiences tolerated, even enjoyed, the same sight-gags and hackneyed routines that amused their Victorian ancestors.” This article is a response to his challenge and in the process explores wider interconnections. The harlequinade was the

In the summer of 1944, Black modern dancer Pearl Primus searched for authenticity. Over the past year, she had achieved critical success for her modern dance choreography that protested racial injustice in the South, informed by a leftist political mission. However, she thought something was missing. She explained to Dance Magazine, “I had done dances about sharecroppers and lynchings without ever

Since its publication in 2005, Anne Bogart and Tina Landau's The Viewpoints Book: A Practical Guide to Viewpoints and Composition has provided the received narrative not only for the ways that Viewpoints training is practiced, but also for its history. In their opening chapter, the authors crucially acknowledge that they did not invent this method of training: In 1979, Anne met choreographer Mary Overlie

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Editorial Comment:Abolition and Performance Ariel Nereson [A]bolition has to be the way to relate to one another. So, not a tool to implement, but a posture and a way of life. —Ashon Crawley1 Theatre, dance, and performance studies offer many methodological tools for understanding practice and interpreting theories embedded in and arising

Abstract: John Brown is a figure so intensely contested as to embody diametrically opposed meanings according to the varied contexts in which his image has been activated. At times hailed as the man who started the US Civil War, Brown has been variously described as a righteous abolitionist, a religious zealot, a gifted orator, a formidable military strategist, a self-appointed white savior, and a

Abstract: Taking the popular podcast series Violation as its point of departure, this article examines the dramaturgy within the parole system, its affective politics, and its performative speech acts to consider its role in the perpetuation of mass incarceration in the United States. By training an eye on the affective economy of parole hearings, this article explores the retributive turn in the criminal

Abstract: In Atlanta, South River (Weelaunee) Forest is the proposed home of the $90 million Public Safety Training Center, also known as "Cop City." On June 5, 2023, when the Atlanta City Council opened the floor for public comment on Cop City, hundreds of people voiced their opposition for nearly fifteen hours, frequently using humor as a tactic of resistance. What are the radical political potentials

Abstract: This article explores how the police state choreographs active shooter drills as "performances of protection," or embodied actions framed around an anticipatory threat. During these scenarios, choreographic imperatives—or movement directives in response to specific cues—become tools for directing bodies through public space to preempt crisis. While these measures protect students, teachers

Abstract: Two plays focusing on the postincarceration experiences of sex offenders opened in 2018: Life Jacket Theatre Company's America Is Hard to See and Bruce Norris's Downstate. Both plays ask spectators to recognize the humanity of sex offenders while also keeping in mind the harm they caused. The questions at the heart of these plays are ultimately about ethics and space: how close do we as a

Abstract: Black theatremakers have utilized performance to imagine and stage an alternative place where policing is abolished. They usurp the normative theatrical apparatuses to enact countergeographies that become meaningful ways to resist social control. In so doing, they inhabit (and push other artists and audiences to inhabit) theatre differently through transforming the geography of the theatre

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Reviewed by: Vanessa in Bedby Diana Grisanti Gina M. Di Salvo VANESSA IN BED. By Diana Grisanti. Directed by Pirronne Yousefzadeh. Audible Theater. Digital audio production released 09 23, 2023. Downloaded 02 10, 2024. Finally, a comedy about dead mothers, millennial flailing, and the legacy of colonial wealth that spans from an abortion

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Reviewed by: The Jungle Book Reimaginedby Tariq Jordan Alexandra A. Rego THE JUNGLE BOOK REIMAGINED. By Tariq Jordan. Directed and choreographed by Akram Khan. Music by Jocelyn Pook. Animation by YeastCulture ( Adam Smith and Nick Hillel). Akram Khan Company, Rose Theater, Lincoln Center. 11 18, 2023. The Jungle Book Reimaginedpremiered

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Reviewed by: The Theatre of Christopher Durang by Miriam M. Chirico Amy S. Osatinski THE THEATRE OF CHRISTOPHER DURANG. By Miriam M. Chirico. Methuen Drama Critical Companions. London: Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2020; pp. 234. Christopher Durang's works have opened on Broadway, and he's won the Tony Award for Best Play and been nominated

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Reviewed by: Latinx Shakespeares: Staging U.S. Intracultural Theater by Carla Della Gatta Guillermo Avilés-Rodríguez LATINX SHAKESPEARES: STAGING U.S. INTRACULTURAL THEATER. By Carla Della Gatta. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2023; pp. 265. For too long, a decidedly multicultural Shakespearean analysis that foregrounds European

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Reviewed by: Performing Copyright: Law, Theatre and Authorship by Luke McDonagh, and: Owning Performance | Performing Ownership: Literary Property and The Eighteenth-Century British Stage by Jane Wessel, and: Copyright and the Value of Performance, 1770–1911 by Derek Miller, and: Negotiating Copyright in the American Theatre: 1856–1951

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Reviewed by: Staging Haiti in Nineteenth-Century America: Revolution, Race and Popular Performance by Peter P. Reed Guo Shuyu STAGING HAITI IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA: REVOLUTION, RACE AND POPULAR PERFORMANCE. By Peter P. Reed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022; pp. 231. Peter P. Reed's new and prodigious volume, Staging Haiti

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Reviewed by: Theatre Blogging: The Emergence of a Critical Culture by Megan Vaughan Kevin J. Wetmore Jr. THEATRE BLOGGING: THE EMERGENCE OF A CRITICAL CULTURE. By Megan Vaughan. London: Methuen Drama, 2020; pp. 280. Hiya. I'm Kevin. Thanks for reading this review. I figured if I was gonna review a book on theatre blogging that reproduced

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Decarcerating the University:A Roundtable Discussion Courtney Erin Colligan (bio), Aaron Moore Ellis (bio), Nicholas Fesette (bio), Donatella Galella (bio), Megan E. Geigner (bio), Lindsay Livingston (bio), Ariel Nereson, Leticia L. Ridley (bio), and Misty Saribal (bio) This roundtable discussion took place on Zoom on June 6, 2024, and

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: 8 to abolition to infinity (8 => abolition => ∞) Aaron Moore Ellis (bio) How do I hold a systemic analysis and approach when each system I am critical of is peopled, in part, by the same flawed and complex individuals that I love? This question always leads me to self-reflection. If I can see the ways I am perpetuating systemic oppressions

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Consent Pedagogies:Classroom Lessons from Intimacy Practice Lindsay Brandon Hunter (bio) In 2023, I took part in a conversation gathered under the title "Decarcerating the Field: Building Abolitionist Networks of Care at ATHE" at the Association for Theatre in Higher Education conference in Austin, Texas. Where others entered that conversation

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Looking at/for Disappearing John Brown Ben Spatz (bio), SAJ (bio), Eero Laine (bio), Michelle Liu Carriger (bio), and Henry Bial (bio) Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 1. John Brown BBQ in Queens, New York City, https://www.johnbrownbbq.net. (Photo: Eero Laine.) In the mid-nineteenth century, John Brown (1800-59) riveted

Mundo Quinta is a documentary theatre creation programme for adolescents in Madrid, launched by Espacio Abierto Quinta de los Molinos and directed by the theatre company Cross Border Project. This publicly funded programme started in 2018 and is currently celebrating its sixth season. Each season takes place during the academic year and culminates in the premiere of a new play. This article combines

In theatre criticism, the lines between professional and amateur have softened considerably since the turn of the twenty-first century, with much attention – academic and journalistic – given to the impact of amateur theatre criticism on theatre-making and marketing, on newspapers, and on theatre scholarship. So far, however, the voices and perspectives of amateur critics themselves have largely been

This article demonstrates how the Enlightenment model of sentiment and sympathy is performed in embodied gestures of affective empathy-building, cross-cultural fraternity, and concern for human rights in three Romantic Regency tragedies: Pizarro (1799) by the Romantic dramatist August von Kotzebue, adapted from the German by the Irish dramatist Richard Brinsley Sheridan; Remorse (1813) by the English

In this interview, which took place in Birmingham on 16 February 2023, Hakan Gültekin talks to playwright David Edgar about his theatre universe and the current state of British theatre. Edgar has long championed the social and economic rights of playwrights, and here suggests that the lack of long-term and sustained support from British theatres has created what he calls ‘Primark playwrights’. His

As a prominent figure in the contemporary Iranian theatre scene, Chista Yasrebi uses her plays to call for female liberation in the country while navigating the existing political constraints, including censorship. Her 1996 play Rahil, for example, acts as a political allegory through its narrative of the titular woman’s desire for transcendence within the patriarchal realm of Persian mysticism. In

The evolution of the colour of Othello’s skin-tone is a surprisingly accurate cultural barometer of attitudes towards race in the eyes of scholars. A significant portion of the critical literature is focused upon the Moor’s complexion as one of the main variables within the play. Yet the fact that the script has itself become a variable, and not a constant, has been neglected. This text’s transformation

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Prologue Julia C. Hernández A Suelta State of Mind A stroll down early eighteenth-century Seville’s short but bustling Calle de Génova, a long-disappeared market street that had linked the Plaza de El Salvador and the Plaza de San Francisco since the city’s Castilian conquest in 1248, would bring the comedia enthusiast to the heart of

Abstract: Despite the derivative plotlines, crude characterizations, and prioritization of performance over posterity for which scholars have criticized his Cuatro comedias, Lope de Rueda (1505?–65?) received great acclaim among contemporaries. To reconcile this disconnect between abiding popular acclaim in the late sixteenth century and critical dismissals in literary histories, this article draws

Abstract: An examination of the layered, dual meanings of the term maravilla in El semejante a sí mismo shows the hand of Juan Ruiz de Alarcón navigating his own criollo identity. The double meanings of maravilla reflect a conflict between the inclination to adopt the dominant views and rhetoric of the Spanish Empire and the counterbalancing impulse to undermine this colonial agenda. This article observes

Abstract: This article examines the connections of El gran teatro del mundo with heterodox intellectual traditions that the Spanish Inquisition targeted for scrutiny or censorship. While many critics have considered El gran teatro del mundo a prominent example of Calderón de la Barca’s Catholic orthodoxy, this study ponders discursive elements that link the auto sacramental to Neoplatonic natural philosophy

Abstract: Pedro Calderón de la Barca and the philosopher Baruch Spinoza manifested, each in their own way, that profound interest in the intricacies of the human being that was so characteristic of early modern mentalities. The playwright and philosopher each delved into the exploration of passions and affections, construed as being in constant conflict with reason. These pages analyze the common ties

Abstract: This article examines an almost completely unexplored element in Jerónimo de Cáncer’s comic interludes (entremeses)—the music. Through analysis of his own works as well as comparative examinations of Cáncer’s theatrical practice with those of other dramaturgs who cultivated the entremés genre, including Pedro Calderón de la Barca and Luis Quiñones de Benavente, we find Cáncer at the forefront

Abstract: Szilvia Szmuk-Tanenbaum, lifelong bibliophile and the creator of the Comedias Suelta USA website, welcomed Associate Editor Julia Hernández into her book-filled Upper East Side apartment in New York City. In their conversation, Szmuk-Tanenbaum discussed her journey as a scholar and librarian; her inspiration for developing online bibliographic databases; her service to the Bulletin of the

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Reviewed by: The Diva’s Gift to the Shakespearean Stage: Agency, Theatricality, and the Innamorata by Pamela Allen Brown David J. Amelang Pamela Allen Brown. The Diva’s Gift to the Shakespearean Stage: Agency, Theatricality, and the Innamorata. OXFORD UP, 2021. 302 PP. “‘FOR WHAT Is A PLAY WITHOUT A WOMAN IN IT?’” The epigraph that launches

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Reviewed by: Poesía y música en la Roma barroca. El cancionero español Corsini 625 by Patrizia Botta Sebastián León Patrizia Botta, coordinadora. Poesía y música en la Roma barroca. El cancionero español Corsini 625. LIGUORI EDITORE, 2023. 532 PP. EL LLAMADO CANCIONERO CORSINI 625 es un manuscrito copiado en Roma a principios del siglo

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Reviewed by: The Routledge Hispanic Studies Companion to Early Modern Spanish Literature and Culture ed. by Rodrigo Cacho Casal and Caroline Egan Richard Rabone Rodrigo Cacho Casal and Caroline Egan, editors. The Routledge Hispanic Studies Companion to Early Modern Spanish Literature and Culture. ROUTLEDGE, 2022. 639 PP. THE GENRE OF THE

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Reviewed by: Entremeses by Miguel de Cervantes Javier Rubiera Miguel de Cervantes. Entremeses. Edición de Adrián J. Sáez. CÁTEDRA, 2020. 296 PP. LOS OCHO ENTREMESES PUBLICADOS POR CERVANTES en 1615 reciben nueva edición en Cátedra, que desde 1982 tenía en su colección de Letras Hispánicas la realizada desde una orientación bien diferente

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Reviewed by: La Araucana by Alonso de Ercilla Imogen Choi Alonso de Ercilla. La Araucana. Edited by Luis Gómez Canseco. REAL ACADEMIA ESPAÑOLA–ESPASA, 2022. 1488 PP. WHILE ALWAYS A PROMINENT TITLE OF THE GOLDEN AGE canon, La Araucana has been the object of a steady growth in scholarship over recent decades, which shows no signs of abating

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Reviewed by: Dramaturgas del Siglo de Oro. Guía completa by Juana Escabias Victoria Jane Rasbridge Juana Escabias. Dramaturgas del Siglo de Oro. Guía completa. EDICIONES ANTÍGONA, 2022. 170 PP. IN COMEDIA STUDIES THERE HAS LONG BEEN an imbalance in favor of the work of male dramatists, but in recent decades there has been a concerted effort

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Reviewed by: Pasiones mitológicas: Tiziano, Veronese, Allori, Rubens, Ribera, Poussin, Van Dyck, Velázquez by Miguel Falomir et al. Oliver Noble Wood Miguel Falomir, Sheila Barker, Javier Moscoso, and Alejandro Vergara (coords.). Pasiones mitológicas: Tiziano, Veronese, Allori, Rubens, Ribera, Poussin, Van Dyck, Velázquez. MUSEO DEL PRADO

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Reviewed by: Drawing the Curtain: Cervantes’s Theatrical Revelations ed. by Esther Fernández and Adrienne L. Martín Melanie Henry Esther Fernández and Adrienne L. Martín, editors. Drawing the Curtain: Cervantes’s Theatrical Revelations. U OF TORONTO P, 2022. 392 PP. CERVANTES’S DRAMATIC OEUVRE HAS LONG BEEN CONSIDERED a failed endeavor

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Reviewed by: El aire español. Usos musicales de la nobleza española en Italia (1580–1640) by Ignacio Rodulfo Hazen Adriana Beltrán del Río Sousa Ignacio Rodulfo Hazen. El aire español. Usos musicales de la nobleza española en Italia (1580–1640). CENTRO DE ESTUDIOS EUROPA HISPÁNICA, 2023. 320 PP. EN ESTA INTERESANTE MONOGRAFÍA derivada

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Reviewed by: Literature and Historiography in the Spanish Golden Age: The Poetics of History by Sofie Kluge Alberto Villate-Isaza Sofie Kluge. Literature and Historiography in the Spanish Golden Age: The Poetics of History. ROUTLEDGE UP, 2022. 234 PP. THIS NEW CONTRIBUTION BOTH CEMENTS our understanding of the Golden Age’s treatment of

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Reviewed by: The Business of Conquest: Empire, Love, and Law in the Atlantic World by Nicole D. Legnani Ruth Hill Nicole D. Legnani. The Business of Conquest: Empire, Love, and Law in the Atlantic World. U OF NOTRE DAME P, 2020. 300 PP. ATLANTIC (OR TRANSATLANTIC OR CIRCUMATLANTIC) studies has experienced such enormous growth in the past

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Reviewed by: La monja alférez, famosa comedia atribuida a Juan Pérez de Montalbán ed. by Gabriel Andrés Renales Marta Albalá Pelegrín La monja alférez, famosa comedia atribuida a Juan Pérez de Montalbán. Edición crítica de Gabriel Andrés Renales. METAURO EDIZIONI, 2020. 151 PP. LA MONJA ALFÉREZ (ca. 1626) is a theatrical rewriting of the

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Reviewed by: Scripts of Blackness: Early Modern Performance Culture and the Making of Race by Noémie Ndiaye Sarah J. Adams Noémie Ndiaye. Scripts of Blackness: Early Modern Performance Culture and the Making of Race. U OF PENNSYLVANIA P, 2022. 376 PP. THIS BOOK TRACES AND EXAMINES the performative praxes used in sixteenth-and seventeenth-century

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Reviewed by: The Melancholy Void: Lyric and Masculinity in the Age of Góngora by Felipe Valencia Ignacio Navarrete The Melancholy Void: Lyric and Masculinity in the Age of Góngora. Felipe Valencia. U OF NEBRASKA P, 2021. 335 PP. FELIPE VALENCIA HAS WRITTEN a remarkable book, a wide-ranging study of early modern poetry, in the manner of

This article examines the COVID-era shift in the disability politics of sensory-theatre artists in the United Kingdom who create work for neurodiverse young audiences, arguing that the pandemic pushed them toward a more expansive and overtly political understanding of disability. I examine the work of three companies – Oily Cart (London), Frozen Light (Norwich) and Spectra (Birmingham) – who adjusted

The Naoshima Onna Bunraku, an all-female bunraku troupe on the island of Naoshima in Japan's Seto Inland Sea, has revitalized a puppetry tradition dating back to the Edo period (1603–1868). This article examines how the Naoshima Onna Bunraku negotiates the pull of its local, community-oriented past and its global present as a folk performing art on an island now known for art tourism as the site of

The Oberammergau Passion Play – arguably the largest and longest-running Passion Play tradition in the world – depicts Jesus’ arrest, conviction and crucifixion at a spellbinding scale. It has also been at the centre of a controversy regarding its historic antisemitism and its efforts to reform, having engaged a director with a zeal for radically changing it. However, this article, informed by a large

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: In MemoriamClifford O. Davidson: 1932–2024 Click for larger view View full resolution In Memoriam Clifford O. Davidson (1932–2024) When Clifford Davidson retired from Western Michigan University in 2003, the Medieval Institute, where he held a joint appointment with English for nearly 40 years, printed a short volume of essays in his honor

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: ”Simply Sitting in a Chair”: Questioning Representational Practice and Dramatic Convention in Marguerite Duras’s L’Amante anglaise and The Viaducts of Seine-et-Oise Shelley Orr (bio) One doesn’t know in life when things are there. They escape you . . . You want to know what it would take for it to be so. For me to be on stage saying nothing

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Rewriting Idolatry: Doctor Faustus and Romeo and Juliet Tom Rutter (bio) FAUSTUS Her lips sucks forth my soul. See where it flies! Come, Helen, come, give me my soul again. Marlowe, Doctor Faustus ROMEO Sin from my lips? O trespass sweetly urged! Give me my sin again. Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet 1 The lines quoted above accompany what

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Measuring Protagonism in Early Modern European Theatre: A Distant Reading of the Character of Sophonisba David J. Amelang (bio) Introduction Any person taking their first steps into the wide and complex world of early modern comparative theatre history immediately confronts one basic fact: that during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Reviewed by: The Drama of Serial Conversion in Early Modern England by Holly Crawford Pickett Arthur F. Marotti (bio) Holly Crawford Pickett. The Drama of Serial Conversion in Early Modern England. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2024. Pp. x + 264 + 8 b/w illus. $65.00 hardcover, $65.00 eBook. This study departs from

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Reviewed by: Theater, War, and Revolution in Eighteenth-Century France and Its Empire by Logan J. Connors Yann Robert (bio) Logan J. Connors. Theater, War, and Revolution in Eighteenth-Century France and Its Empire. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2024. Pp. x + 255 + 9 b/w illus. $110.00 hardback, $110.00 eBook. Logan J. Connors

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Reviewed by: Macbeth by William Shakespeare Christopher Crosbie (bio) Macbeth, by William Shakespeare, directed by Simon Godwin, The Shakespeare Company, Washington, D.C. (April 9 – May 5, 2024) The penultimate figure in Jacques’ “seven ages of man” soliloquy brilliantly conveys the vulnerabilities of old age, presenting us with a person

Agency is a significant concept in participatory performance: as a participant you are able to take actions that affect the direction or outcome of (part of) the performance and this ability is a k...