Volume 33 of Theatre History Studies explores war. War is a paradox—horrifying and compelling, galvanizing and devastating, a phenomenon that separates and decimates while at the same time creating and strengthening national identity and community bonds. War is the stuff of great drama.
 
War and theatre is a subject of increasing popularity among scholars of theatre. The essays in this special edition of Theatre History Studies brings together a unique collection of work by thirteen innovative scholars whose work explores such topics as theatre performances during war times, theatre written and performed to resist war, and theatre that fosters and promotes war.
 
The contributors to this volume write poignantly about nationhood and about how war—through both propaganda and protest—defines a people. The contributors also delve into numerous fascinating themes that transcend time, peoples, nations, and particular conflicts: the foundations of nationalism and the concepts of occupied and occupier, nostalgia and utopia, and patriotism and revolution.
 
These essays survey a march of civil and international wars spanning three centuries. Arranged chronologically, they invite comparisons between themes and trace the development of the major themes of war. Ideas manifest in the theatre of one period recall ideologies and propaganda of the past, reflect those of the present, and anticipate wars to come.

Essays in part one of Theatre History Studies, Vol. 35 address theatrical production in very specific historical contexts, among them German theatre “from the rubble of Berlin” and German nationalist mass spectacles. Essays in part two are devoted to the theme of “Rethinking the Maternal” in contemporary and historical theatre. Also included is the Robert A. Schanke Award-winning essay “Whispers from a Silent Past: Inspiration and Memory in Natasha Tretheway’s Native Guard,” a keynote essay by Irma Mayorga, and eighteen reviews of new book publications of note.
 
Theatre History Studies, published since 1981 by the Mid-American Theatre Conference (MATC) is a leading scholarly publication in the field of theatrical history and theory. The conference encompasses the states of Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wisconsin, Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio. The purpose of the conference is to unite persons and organizations within the region with an interest in theatre and to promote the growth and development of all forms of theatre.

A peer-reviewed journal of theatre history and scholarship published annually since 1981 by the Mid-American Theatre Conference.

Theatre History Studies is devoted to research in all areas of theatre studies, with special interest in archival research, historical documentation, and historiography. Many issues feature a special section curated around a special theme or topic; for 2017 that special section focus on histories of new writing for the theatre.

Featured in THEATRE HISTORY STUDIES 2017, VOLUME 36

Theatre History Studies (THS) is a peer-reviewed journal of theatre history and scholarship published annually since 1981 by the Mid-America Theatre Conference
 
THEATRE HISTORY STUDIES, VOLUME 37
 
STEFAN AQUILINA
Meyerhold and The Revolution: A Reading through Henri Lefebvre’s Theories on “Everyday Life”
 
VIVIAN APPLER
“Shuffled Together under the Name of a Farce”: Finding Nature in Aphra Behn’s The Emperor of the Moon
 
KRISTI GOOD
Kate Soffel’s Life of Crime: A Gendered Journey from Warden’s Wife to Criminal Actress
 
PETER A. CAMPBELL
Staging Ajax’s Suicide: A Historiography
 
BRIAN E. G. COOK
Rousing Experiences: Theatre, Politics, and Change
 
MEGAN LEWIS
Until You See the Whites of Their Eyes: Brett Bailey’s Exhibit B and the Consequences of Staging the Colonial Gaze
 
PATRICIA GABORIK
Taking the Theatre to the People: Performance Sponsorship and Regulation in Mussolini’s Italy
 
ILINCA TODORUT AND ANTHONY SORGE
To Image and to Imagine: Walid Raad, Rabih Mouré, and the Arab Spring
 
SHULAMITH LEV-ALADGEM
Where Has the Political Theatre in Israel Gone? Rethinking the Concept of Political Theatre Today
 
CHRISTINE WOODWORTH
“Equal Rights By All Means!”: Beatrice Forbes-Robertson’s 1910 Suffrage Matinee and the Onstage Junction of the US And UK Franchise Movements
 
LURANA DONNELS O’MALLEY
“Why I Wrote the Phyllis Wheatley Pageant-Play”: Mary Church Terrell’s Bicentennial Activism
 
JULIET GUZZETTA
The Lasting Theatre of Dario Fo and Franca Rame
 
ASHLEY E. LUCAS
Chavez Ravine: Culture Clash and the Political Project of Rewriting History
 
NOE MONTEZ
The Heavy Lifting: Resisting the Obama Presidency’s Neoliberalist Conceptions of the American Dream in Kristoffer Diaz’s The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity

Theatre has long been an art form of subterfuge and concealment. Working in the Wings: New Perspectives on Theatre History and Labor, edited by Elizabeth A. Osborne and Christine Woodworth, brings attention to what goes on behind the scenes, challenging, and revising our understanding of work, theatre, and history.

Essays consider a range of historic moments and geographic locations—from African Americans’ performance of the cakewalk in Florida’s resort hotels during the Gilded Age to the UAW Union Theatre and striking automobile workers in post–World War II Detroit, to the struggle in the latter part of the twentieth century to finish an adaptation of Moby Dick for the stage before the memory of creator Rinde Eckert failed. Contributors incorporate methodologies and theories from fields as diverse as theatre history, work studies, legal studies, economics, and literature and draw on traditional archival materials, including performance texts and architectural structures, as well as less tangible material traces of stagecraft.

Working in the Wings looks at the ways in which workers' identities are shaped, influenced, and dictated by what they do; the traces left behind by workers whose contributions have been overwritten; the intersections between the sometimes repetitive and sometimes destructive process of creation and the end result—the play or performance; and the ways in which theatre affects the popular imagination. This collected volume draws attention to the significance of work in the theatre, encouraging a fresh examination of this important subject in the history of the theatre and beyond.