Theatre Across Oceans: Mediators of Transatlantic Exchange, 1890-1925

ISBN-13: 9783030763541 / Angielski / Twarda / 2021 / 259 str.

Nic Leonhardt

Spis treści

1. Meandering (Theatre) Histories

            1.1 Discoveries

            1.2 Methodological Approaches

                        1.2.1 Relational Past: Global/Transnational History

1.2.2 Flows, Landscapes, Networks – Transnational Theories

            1.3 Global/Transnational Theatre History

            1.4 Design of the Study

                        1.4.1 Shared History – Theatrescapes – Follow the People

                        1.4.2 Sources

                        1.4.3 “Theatre across Oceans”

                        1.4.4 Structure

2. “Transfer, Transmission, Translation” – of Countries, Oceans, News

            2.1 Prologue: The Sinking of a Ship as a Global Event

2.2 Transatlantic Passages – Infrastructures of Traffic, Travel and Theatre Trade

                        2.2.1 Passages on Land

                        2.2.2 Passages on Water

2.3 Mediascapes – Tele-Waves and Communication across Borders

                        2.3.1 Global Spaces of Communication – History and Media

2.3.2 Telegraphy – The Cabling of the World

2.3.3 Agencies as Mediators: Markets for Texts and Images

2.3.4 Theatrescapes and Mediascapes

3. Agencies ­ Backstage, Bookings, Bureaucracy

3.1 The Professionalisation of Theatrical Mediation

3.2 Repositories of a Profession: Papers and Paperwork as Traces

3.3 Mediators Reflected in (Theatre) Scholarship

3.4 Impresario, Entrepreneur, Manager, Agent – The Semantic Spectrum of the Term ‘Mediator’

3.5 Powerful in Action, but Invisible: A Who’s Who of Mediators

3.5.1 No Country Just For Men – Female Mediators

3.5.2 International Agencies

3.5.3 Multi-Professionalism and ‘Cross-Ocean Knowledge’

3.6 Twice the Mediation: Agents and the Media as Mediators

3.7 “If Money not Here until Tomorrow You Lose Rights”: Contracts, Rights, and Legal Precedents

3.8 Institutions as Critical Voices: (International) Syndicates and Associations

3.9 Research Gaps in International Performance Rights and Copyright

 

4. Transatlantic Mediators of Theatre

            4.1 “An Active Medium for the Exchange” – Elisabeth Marbury (1855–1933)

4.1.1 “A Kaleidoscopic Mind” – Marbury’s ‘Transcultural Capital’

4.1.2 “The Spirit of Speculation Entered into my Veins” – Professional Beginnings

4.1.3  “In Touch With the World” – Building the Marbury Enterprise

4.1.4 Media Mediator – Marbury’s “Novel Facts” and “Home Stories”

4.1.5 Marbury’s Portfolio

4.1.6 “Regular, Systematic Work” – Marbury’s Organisational Systems

4.1.7 “La Providence des Écrivains Dramatiques” – Marbury’s Métier in France

4.1.8 Organising People: Marbury as Personal Manager and Dance Impresaria

4.1.9 Contact Zones: Villa Trianon, Colony Club and Castle House

4.1.10 The Revue Russe and La Chauve-Souris

            4.2 Playbroker – Alice Kauser (1871 – 1945)

4.2.1 A Polyglot US-European: The Early Years

4.2.2 Kauser’s Contacts: Publishers, Agencies, Managers, Actors

4.2.3 “Miss Kauser Reads, Personally, Every Play Sent to Her” – Kauser’s System

4.2.4 Kauser’s Client Files: Advancements and Failures

4.2.5 New Markets, New Departures: Alice Kauser’s Motion Picture Department

4.3 The Global Amusement Explorer – Richard Pitrot (1852 – 1929)

                   4.3.2 “The Globe-Trotting Mimic” – From Vienna to the White House

                   4.3.2 Attractions, Circus, Agency

4.3.4 “Yours Mimically, Richard Pitrot” – Strategies for (Self-) Promotion

4.3.5 Richard Pitrot, “the Star-Seeker”

4.3.6 Circuits & Circus: “European Representative” for North and South America

4.4 “The Greatest Exporter of European Talent” – H. B. Marinelli (1864 – 1924)

4.4.1 First Career: Contortionist and Anatomical Miracle

4.4.2 Building a Global Agency – “The World’s Theatrical Exchange”

4.4.3 The Marinelli System: Organisation of a Multi-Local and Multi-Professional Business

4.4.4 Mixed Mediation

4.4.5 Theatre Director in Paris: Olympia Music Hall, Boulevard des Capucines

5. Multifurcations: The Course and Decline of Transatlantic Theatre Flows during the First World War

5.1 Translations of Countries, Oceans, News

5.1.1 Stagnating Flows

5.1.2 Cut Cables

5.2 New Stages of Mediation

5.3 Divided History – History Divided: New Nationalisms

6. Conclusion

O autorze

Nic Leonhardt is Associate Professor of Theatre Studies at LMU Munich. Her research focuses on theatre history of the nineteenth and twentieth century and is strongly interdisciplinary and transnational in approach. Since 2016 she has been the senior researcher and associate director of the ERC (European Research Council) project “Developing Theatre” at LMU Munich, as well as director of the Centre for Global Theatre History.

Blurb

“This book excels in innovative transnational historiography and historical network research. It opens up original and fascinating perspectives on 19th century Atlantic cross overs between cultural brokers and theatre agents, offering an impressive insight into the vivid global circulation of theatre industries. It reads like a stunning adventure!"

—     - Kati Röttger, Universiteit van Amsterdam

“In her superbly researched and elegantly written book, Nic Leonhardt puts centre stage theatre’s invisible players. She sheds new light on theatre agents as the protagonists of a global theatre business in the early twentieth century. This is an innovative contribution to theatre history informed by global history and a broad understanding of theatrical production in the context of a capitalist market economy, infrastructural, legal and technical innovations. For historians, it is a stimulating contribution to the cultural history of modern globalisation in a transatlantic key.”

—     - Martin Baumeister, Historian, Director German Historical Institute, Rome

Theatre Across Oceans: Mediators Of Transatlantic Exchange allows the reader to enter and understand the infrastructural 'backstage area' of global cultural mobility during the years between 1890 and 1925. Located within the research fields of global history and theory, the geographical focus of the book is a transatlantic one, based on the active exchange in this phase between North and South America and Europe. Emanating from a rich body of archival material, the study argues that this exchange was essentially facilitated and controlled by professional theatrical mediators (agents, brokers), who have not been sufficiently researched within theatre or historical studies. The low visibility of mediators in the scientific research is in diametrical contrast to the enormous power that they possessed in the period dealt with in this book. 

Nic Leonhardt is Associate Professor of Theatre Studies at LMU Munich. Her research focuses on theatre history of the nineteenth and twentieth century and is strongly interdisciplinary and transnational in approach. Since 2016 she has been the senior researcher and associate director of the ERC (European Research Council) project “Developing Theatre” at LMU Munich, as well as director of the Centre for Global Theatre History.