Irish women dramatists have long faced an uphill challenge in getting the recognition and audience of their male counterparts. There are more female playwrights now than ever before, but they are often ignored by mainstream theatres. Kearney and Headrick strive to shift the spotlight with Irish Women Dramatists. The plays collected in this volume represent a cross-section of the excellent dramatic output of Irish women writing in the twentieth century. In addition to the scripts and biographical introductions, the anthology includes a detailed, critical, annotated essay addressing the development of the Irish theatre throughout this time period, and the place women have artistically carved out for themselves in a traditionally male-dominated theatre industry and dramatic canon. One of the few collections of plays by Irish women, this volume contextualizes the political and sociological climate in which these playwrights developed. As theatre practitioners—actors and directors—as well as scholars, Kearney and Headrick have devoted years of research to discovering and rediscovering the contributions these women have made—and continue to make—in the Irish and world theatre scenes.

Irish Women Playwrights 1900-1939 is the first book to examine the plays of five fascinating and creative women, placing their work for theatre in co-relation to suggest a parallel tradition that reframes the development of Irish theatre into the present day. How these playwrights dramatize violence and its impacts in political, social, and personal life is a central concern of this book. Augusta Gregory, Eva Gore-Booth, Dorothy Macardle, Mary Manning, and Teresa Deevy re-model theatrical form, re-structuring action and narrative, and exploring closure as a way of disrupting audience expectation. Their plays create stage spaces and images that expose relationships of power and authority, and invite the audience to see the performance not as illusion, but as framed by the conventions and limits of theatrical representation. Irish Women Playwrights 1900-1939 is suitable for courses in Irish theatre, women in theatre, gender and performance, dramaturgy, and Irish drama in the twentieth century as well as for those interested in women's work in theatre and in Irish theatre in the twentieth century.

Featuring original essays by leading scholars in the field, this book explores the immense legacy of women playwrights in Irish theatre since the beginning of theTwentieth century. Chapters consider the intersecting contexts of gender, sexuality and the body in order to investigate the broader cultural, political and historical implications of representing 'woman' on the stage. In addition, a number of essays engage with representations of women by a selection of male playwrights in order to re-evaluate familiar contexts and traditions in Irish drama. Features a Foreword by Marina Carr and a useful appendix of Irish women playwrights and their works.

Robert returns to Dublin to reunite with Cait, the woman who captured his heart during a James Joyce literary tour thirty-five years ago. Dancing backwards through time, the older couple retrace their steps to discover their younger selves. Through young Robbie and Caithleen, they relive the unlikely, inevitable events that brought them—only briefly—together. This Irish time-travel love story blends wit, humor, and heartache into a buoyant, moving appeal for making the most of the present before it is past.

THE STORY: A passionate woman--mother of eight children and wife to a remorseful husband--now facing death, looks back over her life and asks what could have been. Pathos and bitter humor mix in this powerful play from one of Ireland's leading dramat

Alan P. Barr has brought together eleven world-class modern plays by women that show not only their artistry but also their variety and their passion. Drawn from nine different countries (other than the United States and England) that use English as their literary language, the plays reflect the concerns of women across the globe. The imagery and dramatic conventions may shift and the tones vary, but the need to be strong (and its difficulty), the sense of a world that is anything but nurturing or ideal, and the suspect nature of family life and relations are constant themes. The struggle over language, in countries that are very often ex-colonies, conveys the frequent overlap between feminist and postcolonial focuses. The diversity of Englishes on stages from Singapore to South Africa is a lovely curtain call to this theater festival.