African-American Performance and Theatre History is an anthology of critical writings that explores the intersections of race, theater, and performance in America. Assembled by two respected scholars in black theater and composed of essays from acknowledged authorities in the field (Joseph Roach and Henry Louis Gates, Jr. among other), this volume is organized into four sections representative of the ways black theater, drama, and performance past and present interact and enact continuous social, cultural, and political dialogues. The premise behind the book is that analyzing...

African American Performance and Theater History is an anthology of critical writings that explores the intersections of race, theater, and performance in America. Assembled by two esteemed scholars in black theater, Harry J. Elam, Jr. and David Krasner, and composed of essays from acknowledged authorities in the field, this anthology is organized into four sections representative of the ways black theater, drama, and performance interact and enact continual social, cultural, and political dialogues.

Ranging from a discussion of dramatic performances of Uncle Tom's Cabin...

The history of African American performance and theatre is a topic that few scholars have closely studied or discussed as a critical part of American culture. In this fascinating interdisciplinary volume, David Krasner reveals such a history to be a tremendously rich one, focusing particularly on the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the 20th century. The fields of history, black literary theory, cultural studies, performance studies and postcolonial theory are utilized in an examination of several major productions. In addition, Krasner looks at the aesthetic significance of African...

Method Acting is one of the most popular and controversial approaches to acting in the United States. It has not only shaped important schools of acting, but has been a fundamental constant of all American acting. This insightful volume explores Method Acting from a broad perspective, focusing on a point of equilibrium between the principles of the Method and its relationship to other theories of performance. David Krasner has gathered together some of the most well-known theater scholars and acting teachers to look at the Method. By concentrating on three areas of the Method - its theory,...

The fifteen original essays in Staging Philosophy make useful connections between the discipline of philosophy and the fields of theater and performance and use these insights to develop new theories about theater. Each of the contributors--leading scholars in the fields of performance and philosophy--breaks new ground, presents new arguments, and offers new theories that will pave the way for future scholarship.
Staging Philosophy raises issues of critical importance by providing case studies of various philosophical movements and schools of thought, including aesthetics,...

This Companion provides an original and authoritative survey of twentieth-century American drama studies, written by some of the best scholars and critics in the field.

• Balances consideration of canonical material with discussion of works by previously marginalized playwrights


• Includes studies of leading dramatists, such as Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, Eugene O'Neill and Gertrude Stein
  
• Allows readers to make new links between particular plays and playwrights
  
• Examines the movements that framed the...

This concise introduction to American drama gives readers an overview of how American drama developed from the end of the Second World War to the turn of the twenty-first century.

• Provides a balanced assessment of the major plays and playwrights of the period.
  
• Shows how these dramatists broke new ground in their contribution to political, economic, social and cultural debates, as well as in their dramaturgical strategies.
  
• Organized chronologically, with plays, playwrights and movements clustered around different movements such as realism and...

Theatre in Theory is the most complete anthology documenting 20th-century dramatic and performance theory to date, offering a rich variety of perspectives from the century's most prominent playwrights, directors, scholars, and philosophers.

• Includes major theoretical and critical manifestos, hypotheses, and theories from the field
  
• Wide-ranging and broadly constructed, this text has both interdisciplinary and global appeal
  
• Includes a thematic index, section introductions, and supporting commentary
  
• Helps...

This Companion provides an original and authoritative survey of twentieth-century American drama studies, written by some of the best scholars and critics in the field.

• Balances consideration of canonical material with discussion of works by previously marginalized playwrights


• Includes studies of leading dramatists, such as Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, Eugene O'Neill and Gertrude Stein
  
• Allows readers to make new links between particular plays and playwrights
  
• Examines the movements that framed the...

The Harlem Renaissance was an unprecedented period of vitality in the American Arts. Defined as the years between 1910 and 1927, it was the time when Harlem came alive with theater, drama, sports, dance and politics. Looking at events as diverse as the prizefight between Jack Johnson and Jim 'White Hope' Jeffries, the choreography of Aida Walker and Ethel Waters, the writing of Zora Neale Hurston and the musicals of the period, Krasner paints a vibrant portrait of those years. This was the time when the residents of northern Manhattan were leading their downtown counterparts at the vanguard...