Auto/Biography and Identity Women, Theatre and Performance

This groundbreaking book shows how female performers have used autobiography and performance as both a means of expression and control of their private and public selves, the "face and the mask." It looks at how actors, managers, writers and live artists have done this on the page and on the stage from the late eighteenth-century to the present day, testing the boundaries between gender, theatre and autobiographical form. This book facilitates connections--between texts and performances, past and present practitioners, professional and private selves, individuals and communities--all of which have in some way renegotiated identity through autobiography and the creative act.

Maggie B. Gale is Reader in Drama and Theatre Arts at the University of Birmingham.

Viv Gardner is Professor of Theatre Studies in the Department of Drama at the University of Manchester.