This volume presents some of the most influential work on gender and performing arts. It reviews women's contributions to theatre history and examines how theatre has represented women over the centuries. The reader is introduced to major theoretical approaches, and more complex questions about gender, the body and cross-dressing. Coverage includes: women's stage work; women's bodies on stage; feminist approaches; comparative perspectives; women's status in the theatre; and reception and reviewing.

Lydia Weekes is a beautiful young woman, although she hardly knows it. Her volatile ex-soldier husband ignores her & then he is gone completely, leaving her to support her son Charlie on her own. A secretive & perceptive schoolboy, Charlie is increasingly left to his own devices - until he befriends the town's new female GP