The Performing Century Nineteenth-Century Theatre's History

This collection of specially commissioned essays offers the latest research on a broad array of nineteenth-century performance genres, lucidly written, by leading scholars in the field. It will be of interest to students of historiography, theatre history, British popular culture, and leisure studies.

TRACY C. DAVIS is Barber Professor of Performing Arts at Northwestern University, USA, and author of Actresses as Working Women: Their Social Identity in Victorian Culture, George Bernard Shaw and the Socialist Theatre, The Economics of the British Stage, 1800-1914, and Stages of Emergency: Cold War Nuclear Civil Defense. Her edited collections include Theatricality, and Playwriting and Nineteenth-Century British Women. She is President of the American Society for Theatre Research.

PETER HOLLAND is McMeel Family Professor in Shakespeare Studies at the University of Notre Dame, USA. From 1997 to 2002 he was Director of the Shakespeare Institute, Stratford-upon-Avon, UK, and Professor of Shakespeare Studies at the University of Birmingham, UK. In 2007-08 he is President of the Shakespeare Association of America.

List of Illustrations
Notes on Contributors
Series Introduction: Redefining British Theatre History--P.Holland
Introduction: The Performing Society--T.C.Davis&P.Holland
PART I: PERFORMANCE OCCASIONS
Boxing Day--J.Davis
What Are Faries For?--T.C.Davis
Communal Performances: Royal Ritual, Revolution, and National Acts--E.Allen
George Edwardes and Musical Comedy: The Transformations of London Theatre and Society, 1878-1914--T.Postlewait
PART II: PERFORMANCE ANXIETIES
Nation and Neighbourhood, Jews and Englishmen: Location and Theatrical Ideology in the Theatre of Victorian London--H.Holder
Theatre History and Capital on the Victorian Stage--J.Moody
Modernity, Geography and Historiography: (Re)-Mapping Irish Theatre History on the Nineteenth Century--M.Phelan
PART III: REPERTOIRES
The Death of Tragedy--or, the Birth of Melodrama--J.N.Cox
Fitting the Bill: Acting out the Season of 1813/14 at the Sans Pareil--G.Bush-Bailey
Charles Mathews, Low Comedian, and the Intersections of Romantic Ideology--E.Ziter
The Persistence of Closet Drama: Theory, History, Form--C.Burroughs
Shakespeare and the Music Hall--R.Schoch
What is a Play? Drama and the Victorian Circus--J.Bratton
Index