George Villiers, Second Duke of Buckingham (1628-1687) was one of the most scandalous and controversial figures of the Restoration period. He was the principal author of The Rehearsal (1671), an enormously successful burlesque play that ridiculed John Dryden and the rhymed heroic drama. Historians remember Buckingham as an opponent who helped topple Clarendon from power in 1667, as a member of the 'Cabal' government in the early 1670s, and as an ally of the Earl of Shaftesbury in the political crisis of 1678-1683. The duke was prominent among the 'court wits' (Rochester, Etherege, Sedley, Dorset, Wycherley, and their circle); he was closely associated with such writers as Butler and Cowley; he was a conspicuous champion of religious toleration and a friend of William Penn. No edition of Buckingham has been published since 1775, partly because his work presents horrendous attribution problems. He was (probably) adapter or co-author of six plays (two of them vastly successful for more than a century) including one in French that appears here in English for the first time. He is also associated with nine topical pieces (variously political, religious, and satiric) and some twenty poems of wildly varying type. The 'Buckingham' commonplace book has previously been published only in fragmentary form. Almost all of these works present major difficulties in both attribution and annotation, here seriously addressed for the first time. This edition is a companion venture to Harold Love's important edition of Rochester (OUP, 1999).

The free-standing radios of the middle decades of the 20th century were invitingly rotund and proudly displayed--nothing like today's skinny televisions hidden inside "entertainment centers." Radios were the hub of the family's after-dinner activities, and children and adults gorged themselves on western-adventure series like "The Lone Ranger," police dramas such as "Calling All Cars," and the varied offerings of "The Cavalcade of America." Shows often aired two or three times a week, and many programs were broadcast for more than a decade, comprising hundreds of episodes. This book includes more than 300 program logs (many appearing in print for the first time) drawn from newspapers, script files in broadcast museums, records from NBC, ABC and CBS, and the personal records of series directors. Each entry contains a short broadcast history that includes directors, writers, and actors, and the broadcast dates and airtimes. A comprehensive index rounds out the work.

Based on years of research as well as interviews conducted with Circle in the Square's major contributing artists, this book records the entire history of this distinguished theatre from its nightclub origins to its current status as a Tony Award-winning Broadway institution. Over the course of seven decades, Circle in the Square theatre profoundly changed ideas of what American theatre could be. Founded by Theodore Mann and Jose Quintero in an abandoned Off-Broadway nightclub just after WWII, it was a catalyst for the Off-Broadway movement. The building had a unique arena-shaped performance space that became Circle in the Square theatre, New York's first Off-Broadway arena stage and currently Broadway's only arena stage. The theatre was precedent-setting in many other regards, including operating as a non-profit, contracting with trade unions, establishing a school, and serving as a home for blacklisted artists. It sparked a resurgence of interest in playwright Eugene O'Neill's canon, and was famous for landmark revivals and American premieres of his plays. The theatre also fostered the careers of such luminaries as Geraldine Page, Colleen Dewhurst, George C. Scott, Jason Robards, James Earl Jones, Cecily Tyson, Dustin Hoffman, Irene Papas, Alan Arkin, Philip Bosco, Al Pacino, Amy Irving, Pamela Payton-Wright, Vanessa Redgrave, Julie Christie, John Malkovich, Lynn Redgrave, and Annette Bening.

Representing the largest expansion between editions, this updated volume of Ottemiller's Index to Plays in Collections is the standard location tool for full-length plays published in collections and anthologies in England and the United States throughout the 20th century and beyond. This new volume lists more than 3,500 new plays and 2,000 new authors, as well as birth and/or death information for hundreds of authors.

In this second edition, the author opens with a discussion of important developments in the discipline. His closing chapter, 'Global and Intercultural Performance', is completely rewritten in light of the post-9/11 world. Fully revised chapters with new examples, biographies and source material provide a lively, easily accessible overview of the full range of performance for undergraduates at all levels in performance studies, theatre, performing arts and cultural studies. Among the topics discussed are the performing arts and popular entertainments, rituals, play and games as well as the performances of everyday life. Supporting examples and ideas are drawn from the social sciences, performing arts, post-structuralism, ritual theory, ethology, philosophy and aesthetics. User-friendly, with a special text design, Performance Studies: An Introduction also includes the following features: numerous extracts from primary sources giving alternative voices and viewpoints biographies of key thinkers student activities to stimulate fieldwork, classroom exercises and discussion key reading lists for each chapter twenty line drawings and 202 photographs drawn from private and public collections around the world.