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BOOK SERIES


Studies in Performance and Early Modern Drama


About the Series

This series presents original research on theatre histories and performance histories; the time period covered is from about 1500 to the early 18th century. Studies in which women's activities are a central feature of discussion are especially of interest; this may include women as financial or technical support (patrons, musicians, dancers, seamstresses, wig-makers) or house support staff (e.g., gatherers), rather than performance per se. We also welcome critiques of early modern drama that take into account the production values of the plays and rely on period records of performance.

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Shakespeare and (Eco-)Performance History The Merry Wives of Windsor

Shakespeare and (Eco-)Performance History: The Merry Wives of Windsor

1st Edition

Forthcoming

By Elizabeth Schafer
June 14, 2024

Seismic shifts in the theatrical meanings of The Merry Wives of Windsor have taken place across the centuries as Shakespeare’s frequently performed play has relocated to Windsors across the world, journeying along the production/adaptation/appropriation continuum. This (eco-)performance history of ...

Living Death in Early Modern Drama

Living Death in Early Modern Drama

1st Edition

Forthcoming

By James Alsop
June 10, 2024

This book explores historical, socio-political, and metatheatrical readings of a whole host of dying bodies and risen corpses, each part of a long tradition of living death on stage.  Just as zombies, ghouls, and the undead in modern media often stand in for present-day concerns, early modern ...

Imitation and Contamination of the Classics in the Comedies of Ben Jonson Guides Not Commanders

Imitation and Contamination of the Classics in the Comedies of Ben Jonson: Guides Not Commanders

1st Edition

Forthcoming

By Tom Harrison
May 27, 2024

This book focuses on the influence of classical authors on Ben Jonson’s dramaturgy, with particular emphasis on the Greek and Roman playwrights and satirists. It illuminates the interdependence of the aspects of Jonson’s creative personality by considering how classical performance elements, ...

From Playtext to Performance on the Early Modern Stage How Did They Do It?

From Playtext to Performance on the Early Modern Stage: How Did They Do It?

1st Edition

By Leslie Thomson
January 29, 2024

This book reconsiders the evidence for what we know (or think we know) about early modern performance conditions. This study encourages a new recognition and treatment of certain aspects of the plays as evidence – and demonstrates the significance of the implications of that new information. This ...

Consent in Shakespeare What Women Do and Don’t Say and Do in Shakespeare’s Mediterranean Comedies and Origin Stories

Consent in Shakespeare: What Women Do and Don’t Say and Do in Shakespeare’s Mediterranean Comedies and Origin Stories

1st Edition

By Artemis Preeshl
May 31, 2023

By examining how female characters speak and act during coming of age, engagement, marriage, and intimacy, Consent in Shakespeare will enhance understanding about how and why women spoke, remained silent, or acted as they did in relation to their intimate partners in Early Modern and contemporary ...

Shakespeare’s Hobby-Horse and Early Modern Popular Culture

Shakespeare’s Hobby-Horse and Early Modern Popular Culture

1st Edition

By Natália Pikli
May 31, 2023

This book explores the ways in which the early modern hobby-horse featured in different productions of popular culture between the 1580s and 1630s. Natália Pikli approaches this study with a thorough and interdisciplinary examination of hobby-horse references, with commentary on the polysemous ...

Venus’s Palace Shakespeare and the Antitheatricalists

Venus’s Palace: Shakespeare and the Antitheatricalists

1st Edition

By Reut Barzilai
March 20, 2023

This book lays bare the dialogue between Shakespeare and critics of the stage and positions it as part of an ongoing cultural, ethical, and psychological debate about the effects of performance on actors and on spectators. In so doing, the book makes a substantial contribution both to the study of ...

Dance Lexicon in Shakespeare and His Contemporaries A Corpus Based Approach

Dance Lexicon in Shakespeare and His Contemporaries: A Corpus Based Approach

1st Edition

By Fabio Ciambella
January 09, 2023

This book provides a thorough analysis of terpsichorean lexis in Renaissance drama. Besides considering not only the Shakespearean canon but also the Bard’s contemporaries (e.g., dramatists as John Marston and Ben Jonson among the most refined Renaissance dance aficionados), the originality of this ...

The Self-Centred Art Ben Jonson's Parts in Performance

The Self-Centred Art: Ben Jonson's Parts in Performance

1st Edition

By Jakub Boguszak
January 09, 2023

The Self-Centred Art is a study of the plays of Ben Jonson and the actors who first performed in them. Jakub Boguszak shows how the idiosyncrasies of Jonson’s comic characters were thrown into relief in actors’ part-scripts—scrolls containing a single actor’s lines and cues—some five hundred of ...

Playgrounds Urban Theatrical Culture in Shakespeare’s England and Golden Age Spain

Playgrounds: Urban Theatrical Culture in Shakespeare’s England and Golden Age Spain

1st Edition

By David J. Amelang
December 30, 2022

This book compares the theatrical cultures of early modern England and Spain and explores the causes and consequences not just of the remarkable similarities but also of the visible differences between them. An exercise in multi-focal theatre history research, it deploys a wide range of ...

Strangeness in Jacobean Drama

Strangeness in Jacobean Drama

1st Edition

By Callan Davies
May 06, 2022

Callan Davies presents “strangeness” as a fresh critical paradigm for understanding the construction and performance of Jacobean drama—one that would have been deeply familiar to its playwrights and early audiences. This study brings together cultural analysis, philosophical enquiry, and the ...

Civic Performance Pageantry and Entertainments in Early Modern London

Civic Performance: Pageantry and Entertainments in Early Modern London

1st Edition

Edited By J. Caitlin Finlayson, Amrita Sen
February 17, 2020

Civic Performance: Pageantry and Entertainments in Early Modern London brings together a group of essays from across multiple fields of study that examine the socio-cultural, political, economic, and aesthetic dimensions of pageantry in sixteenth and seventeenth-century London. This collection ...

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