"Covers productions, personalities, theories, innovations, and plays from ancient Greece to the Spanish Golden Age."--Back cover.

Providing a clear journey through centuries of European, North and South American, African and Asian forms of theatre and performance, this introduction helps the reader think critically about this exciting field through fascinating yet plain-speaking essays and case studies.

"Representing the Past is required reading for any serious scholar of theatre and performance historiography: original in its conception, global in its reach, thought-provoking and transformative in its effects."---Gay Gibson Cima, author, Early American Women Crities: Performance, Religion, Race --

Theatre Studios explores the history of the studio model in England, first established by Konstantin Stanislavsky, Jacques Copeau and others in the early twentieth century, and later developed in the UK primarily by Michel Saint-Denis, George Devine, Michael Chekhov and Joan Littlewood, whose studios are the focus of this study. Cornford offers in-depth accounts of the radical, collective work of these leading theatre companies of the mid-twentieth century, considering the models of ensemble theatre-making that they developed and their remnants in the newly publicly-funded UK theatre establishment of the 1960s. In the process, this book develops an approach to understanding the politics of artistic practices rooted in the work of John Dewey, Antonio Gramsci and the standpoint feminists. It concludes by considering the legacy of the studio movement for twenty-first-century theatre, partly by tracking its echoes in the work of Secret Theatre at the Lyric, Hammersmith (2013–2015). Students and makers of theatre alike will find in this book a provocative and illuminating analysis of the politics of performance-making and a history of the theatre as a site for developing counterhegemonic, radically democratic, anti-individualist forms of cultural production.

A history of Italian theatre from its origins to the the time of this book's publication in 2006. The text discusses the impact of all the elements and figures integral to the collaborative process of theatre-making. The distinctive nature of Italian theatre is expressed in the individual chapters by highly regarded international scholars.

(Applause Books). Theatre and Drama in the Making introduces readers not only to important primary sources, but to the uses made of them by distinguished theorists, critics, and historians. Unlike other texts, it discusses theatre as a whole, embracing both the art of dramatic writing and the art of performance. Included in this new edition are greatly expanded sections covering "Latin Theatre and Drama" and "The Golden Age of Spain," as well as all the exciting new archaeological information relating to the excavation of the Rose and the Globe. The introduction to each essay has been revised and enlarged so that together they may be read independently as a concise and accurate narrative of theatre history. From Aeschylus to Calderon, from Agatharcus to Serlio, from Thespis to Burbage, from Aristotle to Sidney, here is the story of Western Theatre in all its glorious variety.