The ‘macabre’, as a process and product, has been haunting the theatre – and more broadly, performance – for thousands of years. In its embodied meditations on death and dying, its thematic and aesthetic grotesquerie, and its sensory-rich environments, macabre theatre invites artists and audiences to trace the stranger, darker contours of human existence. In this volume, numerous scholars explore the morbid and gruesome onstage, from freak shows to the French Grand Guignol; from Hell Houses to German Trauerspiel; from immersive theatre to dark tourism, stopping along the way to look at phantoms, severed heads, dark rides, haunted mothers and haunting children, dances of death and dismembered bodies. From Japan to Australia to England to the United States, the global macabre is framed and juxtaposed to understand how the theatre brings us face to face with the deathly and the horrific.

A hooded figure wanders a lonesome road waiting for a special someone ... A criminal returns home to face old memories and new nightmares ... A man awakes to find himself living in a mirror image of reality ... and diners at a restaurant find themselves confronted with a terrifying revelation about who and what they are ... These are the nineteen nightmarish tales that await you in the THEATER MACABRE ...

The greatest portrayer of blue-fire deviltry, Edward Fitzball was a melodramatist on the nineteenth-century British stage. His Theatre of the Macabre was very much a forebearer of the sensationalized media of today. This book discusses Fitzball's life, and his dramatic oeuvre.

Welcome to the Theatre!Got your popcorn and soft drink? Good! Have you turned your cell phones off? Splendid!Pay no attention to the orderlies strapping you in. It¿s more for our pleasure than your safety. What you are about to experience will make you squeal, cringe, and by the end, laugh maniacally!Roy C. Booth, the internationally award-winning playwright who brought us Brian Keene¿s Terminal: The Play, offers this trilogy of one-acts plays to chill your bones, kicked off by a brilliant introduction from Dr. David Beard.In ¿Death Under the Gaslights,¿ follow three robbers into a house filled with terror. Learn a valuable lesson in ¿Smoking Will Kill You.¿ And in ¿He Who Gets Laughed At Last,¿ see what happens when some people just can¿t take a joke.Before the lights dim, we want to thank you for coming. The price was your sanity, but the screams are free.Cover art by Mark McLaughlin

A study of Edward Fitzball, a melodramatic dramatist of 19th- century England, whose primary themes of horror, crime, and madness, reflected the insecurities of the time and foreshadowed the sensationalist media of ours. His life, the contemporary society and theater, and his dramatic principles and influences, are all considered. No index. Paper edition (unseen), $15.95. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

A delightfully creepy collection of 25 plays of horror and the supernatural, Theatre Macabre provides a bevy of produceable one-acts sure to put a shiver down the spines of your most discriminating audiences. This anthology of plays is Christopher Cook's best and most frightening dramas suitable for professional, community, college and experimental theatre companies. It is perfect for the late-night play-going crowds. Cook's plays abound with tales of vampires, ghosts, werewolves, zombies, extraterrestrials, psychopaths, and even killer bees. Some of the plays in this book have been fully produced, some have received staged readings, a few are brand new and all of them are fast-paced, intriguing little gems written in the tradition of the classic Twilight Zone and Hitchcock TV series, respectively. If you're looking for something to produce at Halloween, a one-act play festival, or an unusual addition to a season of full-length offerings, Theatre Macabre will prove an invaluable resource to add to your library of play collections. While not all the plays included are necessarily appropriate for school-aged actors to read or perform, there are a handful of scripts in the publication written specifically with middle and high school students in mind. Theatre Macabre is a treasure trove of material for directors, producers, actors, teachers, and university professors alike. It is sure to become one of Christopher Cook's lasting legacies to the theatre world as well as the growing cult of horror enthusiasts worldwide! Order your copy of Theatre Macabre today and begin looking forward to putting on your own evening of chilling terrors and nightmarish thrillers!