Anthropocene Theater and the Shakespearean Stage
Anthropocene Theater and the Shakespearean Stage

Author: William H. Steffen

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2023-02-20

Total Pages: 257

ISBN-13: 0192699954

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Anthropocene Theater and the Shakespearean Stage revises the anthropocentric narrative of early globalization from the perspective of the non-human world in order to demonstrate Nature's agency in determining ecological, economic, and colonial outcomes. It welcomes readers to reimagine theater history in broader terms, and to account for more non-human and atmospheric players in the otherwise anthropocentric history of Shakespearean performance. This book analyses plays, horticultural manuals, cosmetic recipes, Puritan polemics, and travel writing in order to demonstrate how the material practices of the stage both catalyze and resist early forms of globalization in an ecological arena. William Steffen addresses the role of an understudied ecological performance history in determining Shakespeare's iconic cultural status, and models how non-human players have undermined Shakespeare's authoritative role in colonial discourse. Finally, this book makes a celebratory argument for the humanities in the age of climate change, and invites interdisciplinary engagement a research community that is compelled to find strategies for cultivating a hopeful tomorrow amidst unprecedented anthropogenic environmental changes.

Costuming the Shakespearean Stage
Costuming the Shakespearean Stage

Author: Robert I. Lublin

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-05-13

Total Pages: 250

ISBN-13: 1317159004

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Although scholars have long considered the material conditions surrounding the production of early modern drama, until now, no book-length examination has sought to explain what was worn on the period's stages and, more importantly, how articles of apparel were understood when seen by contemporary audiences. Robert Lublin's new study considers royal proclamations, religious writings, paintings, woodcuts, plays, historical accounts, sermons, and legal documents to investigate what Shakespearean actors actually wore in production and what cultural information those costumes conveyed. Four of the chapters of Costuming the Shakespearean Stage address 'categories of seeing': visually based semiotic systems according to which costumes constructed and conveyed information on the early modern stage. The four categories include gender, social station, nationality, and religion. The fifth chapter examines one play, Thomas Middleton's A Game at Chess, to show how costumes signified across the categories of seeing to establish a play's distinctive semiotics and visual aesthetic.

The Shakespearean Stage Space
The Shakespearean Stage Space

Author: Mariko Ichikawa

Publisher:

Published: 2013

Total Pages: 221

ISBN-13: 9781139845892

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"How did Renaissance theatre create its powerful effects with so few resources? In The Shakespearean Stage Space, Mariko Ichikawa explores the original staging of plays by Shakespeare and his contemporaries to build a new picture of the artistry of the Renaissance stage. Dealing with problematic scenes and stage directions, Ichikawa closely examines the playing conditions in early modern playhouses to reveal the ways in which the structure of the stage was used to ensure the audibility of offstage sounds, to control the visibility of characters, to convey fictional locales, to create specific moods and atmospheres and to maintain a frequently shifting balance between fictional and theatrical realities. She argues that basic theatrical terms were used in a much broader and more flexible way than we usually assume and demonstrates that, rather than imposing limitations, the bare stage of the Shakespearean theatre offered dramatists and actors a variety of imaginative possibilities"--

Theatre Revivals for the Anthropocene
Theatre Revivals for the Anthropocene

Author: Patrick Lonergan

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2023-09-30

Total Pages: 140

ISBN-13: 1009282166

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This Element argues that the climate emergency requires a new approach to the study of theatre history – a suggestion that is developed through an analysis of the practice of theatrical revival during the Anthropocene era.

Shakespeare’s Things
Shakespeare’s Things

Author: Brett Gamboa

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2019-11-19

Total Pages: 251

ISBN-13: 1000750922

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Floating daggers, enchanted handkerchiefs, supernatural storms, and moving statues have tantalized Shakespeare’s readers and audiences for centuries. The essays in Shakespeare’s Things: Shakespearean Theatre and the Non-Human World in History, Theory, and Performance renew attention to non-human influence and agency in the plays, exploring how Shakespeare anticipates new materialist thought, thing theory, and object studies while presenting accounts of intention, action, and expression that we have not yet noticed or named. By focusing on the things that populate the plays—from commodities to props, corpses to relics—they find that canonical Shakespeare, inventor of the human, gives way to a lesser-known figure, a chronicler of the ceaseless collaboration among persons, language, the stage, the object world, audiences, the weather, the earth, and the heavens.

Shakespeare's Theatre: A History
Shakespeare's Theatre: A History

Author: Richard Dutton

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2018-03-19

Total Pages: 382

ISBN-13: 1405115130

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Shakespeare’s Theatre: A History examines the theatre spaces used by William Shakespeare, and explores these spaces in relation to the social and political framework of the Elizabethan era. The text journeys from the performing spaces of the provincial inns, guild halls and houses of the gentry of the Bard’s early career, to the purpose-built outdoor playhouses of London, including the Globe, the Theatre, and the Curtain, and the royal courts of Elizabeth and James I. The author also discusses the players for whom Shakespeare wrote, and the positioning—or dispositioning—of audience members in relation to the stage. Widely and deeply researched, this fascinating volume is the first to draw on the most recent archaeological work on the remains of the Rose and the Globe, as well as continuing publications from the Records of Early English Drama project. The book also explores the contentious view that the ‘plot’ of The Seven Deadly Sins (part II), provides unprecedented insight into the working practices of Shakespeare’s company and includes a complete and modernized version of the ‘plot’. Throughout, the author relates the practicalities of early modern playing to the evolving systems of aristocratic patronage and royal licensing within which they developed Insightful and engaging, Shakespeare’s Theatre is ideal reading for undergraduates, postgraduates, and scholars of literature and theatre studies.

Weathering Shakespeare
Weathering Shakespeare

Author: Evelyn O'Malley

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2020-12-24

Total Pages: 339

ISBN-13: 1350078085

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Winner of the ASLE-UKI 2022 Book Prize From The Pastoral Players' 1884 performance of As You Like It to contemporary site-specific productions activist interventions, there is a rich history of open air performances of Shakespeare's plays beyond their early modern origins. Weathering Shakespeare reveals how new insights from the environmental humanities can transform our understanding of this popular performance practice. Drawing on audience accounts of outdoor productions of those plays most commonly chosen for open air performance – including A Midsummer Night's Dream and The Tempest – the book examines how performers and audiences alike have reacted to unpredictable natural environments.

Shakespeare's Workplace
Shakespeare's Workplace

Author: Andrew Gurr

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2017-10-19

Total Pages: 295

ISBN-13: 1107167841

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Andrew Gurr's work offers the best access to the original Shakespearean theatre. This is a selection of his key essays.

Theatre and Social Media
Theatre and Social Media

Author: Patrick Lonergan

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2024-09-19

Total Pages: 69

ISBN-13: 1350464961

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How does theatre, one of the most ancient and physical arts, relate to the modern, dynamic technology that is social media? How have changes in the use of social media affected the theatre? How does social media itself operate as a performance space? Used daily by many, social media has become one of the main mediums through which we present and perform our lives. In this concise study of the revealing relationship between theatre and social media, Patrick Lonergan considers social media as a performance space, analyses how theatre-makers' engagement with social media on and off stage affects elements of theatrical composition and reception, and explores the practical and conceptual implications of audiences interacting with professional productions through social media. Exploring case studies from Shakespearean performance to Broadway musicals, this revised edition explores new approaches to social media and theatre, asking how new platforms can influence, and even create, theatre productions.