808 books match the query 'Drama' and 5 start with a non-letter

cover of "The Stage's Glory": John Rich (1692–1761)

"The Stage's Glory"

John Rich (1692–1761)

Berta Joncus

University of Delaware Press, 2011

John Rich (1692-1761) was a profoundly influential figure of the eighteenth-century London stage. As producer, manager, and performer, he transformed the urban entertainment market, creating genres and promotional methods still with us today. This volume gives the first comprehensive overview of Rich’s multifaceted career, appreciation of which has suffered from his performing identity as Lun, London’s most celebrated Harlequin. Far from the lightweight buffoon that this stereotype has suggested, Rich—the first producer of The Beggar’s Opera, the founder of Covent Garden, the dauntless backer of Handel, and the promoter of the principal dancers from the Parisian opera—is revealed as an agent of changes much more enduring than those of his younger contemporary, David Garrick. Contributions by leading scholars from a range of disciplines—theatre, dance, music, art, and cultural history—provide detailed analyses of Rich’s productions and representations. These findings complement Robert D. Hume’s lead article, a study that radically alters our perception of Rich.

Published by University of Delaware Press. Distributed worldwide by Rutgers University Press.
 
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cover of "What Country, Friends, is This?": Shakespeare and the Staging of Exile

"What Country, Friends, is This?"

Shakespeare and the Staging of Exile

Edited by Vanessa I. Corredera, Stephanie E. Chamberlain, and James M. Sutton

Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2026

An exploration of displacement and exile in Shakespeare’s plays and our world today.

This compelling collection of fourteen essays explores the enduring theme of exile in Shakespeare’s works and their global afterlives, offering a timely and thought-provoking response to the modern age of displacement. Building on Edward Said’s observation that exile today is marked by its unprecedented scale—driven by war, imperialism, totalitarianism, climate change, and systemic injustice—this volume traces the ideological and cultural forces that shape experiences of exile across time and geography. 

Shakespeare’s plays, deeply haunted by exile in its many guises—political, religious, cultural, and gendered—serve as a rich site for interrogating identity, belonging, and otherness.
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cover of ......And the Dogs Were Silent/......Et les chiens se taisaient

......And the Dogs Were Silent/......Et les chiens se taisaient

Aimé Césaire. Translated and with an introduction by Alex Gil. With a foreword by Brent Hayes Edwards.

Duke University Press, 2024

Available to readers for the first time, Aimé Césaire’s three-act drama . . . . . . And the Dogs Were Silent—written during the Vichy regime in Martinique in 1943 and lost until 2008—dramatizes the Haitian Revolution and the rise and fall of Toussaint Louverture as its heroic leader. This bilingual English and French edition stands apart from Césaire’s more widely known 1946 closet drama. Following the slave revolts that sparked the revolution, Louverture arrives as both prophet and poet, general and visionary. With striking dramatic technique, Césaire retells the revolution in poignant encounters between rebels and colonial forces, guided by a prophetic chorus and Louverture’s steady ethical and political vision. In the last act, we reach the hero’s betrayal, his imprisonment, and his last stand against the lures of compromise. Césaire’s masterwork is a strikingly beautiful and brutal indictment of colonial cruelty and an unabashed celebration of Black rebellion and victory.
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cover of 100 Years of Kurt Weill, Volume 30

100 Years of Kurt Weill, Volume 30

Tom Sellar, ed.

Duke University Press, 0

The year 2000 marks the hundredth birthday of theater and opera composer Kurt Weill (1900-1950). In celebration of this occasion, 100 Years of Kurt Weill features recently rediscovered and previously untranslated dramatic works by Weill and critical essays and articles reflecting on his legacy and influence. Reviews and reports on centenary productions from around the world are included along with panel discussions by directors and musicians on Weill’s cultural identity.
100 Years of Kurt Weill makes a notable addition to the commemoration of the anniversary with the English-language publication of two major Weill librettos, both translated and introduced by international opera director Jonathan Eaton. Written in 1925, Royal Palace is a one-act opera with a libretto by surrealist/expressionist poet-playwright Yvan Goll. It was one of the first operas to incorporate film. The other work, Die Bürgschaft (The Pledge), was inspired by a dark social parable by Johann Gottfried von Herder and written in collaboration with Caspar Neher. The piece was banned in 1933 by the Nazi regime because of its controversial content and was not restaged in its original form until Eaton’s 1998 and 1999 productions in Bielefeld, Germany, and at the Spoleto Festival U.S.A.
This special issue specifically addresses the theatrical context of Weill’s music, exploring new perspectives on the artist and his work and on recent developments in Weill scholarship. These articles, combined with the previously unpublished works, make 100 Years of Kurt Weill a considerable and unique contribution to the centenary commemoration of his birth.
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cover of 25th Street Confidential: Drama, Decadence, and Dissipation along Ogden's Rowdiest Road

25th Street Confidential

Drama, Decadence, and Dissipation along Ogden's Rowdiest Road

Val Holley

University of Utah Press, 2013

Generations of Ogdenites have grown up absorbing 25th Street’s legends of corruption, menace, and depravity. The rest of Utah has tended to judge Ogden—known in its first century as a “gambling hell” and tenderloin, and in recent years as a degraded skid row—by the street’s gaudy reputation. Present-day Ogden embraces the afterglow of 25th Street’s decadence and successfully promotes it to tourists. In the same preservationist spirit as Denver’s Larimer Square, today’s 25th Street is home to art galleries, fine dining, live theater, street festivals, mixed-use condominiums, and the Utah State Railroad Museum.

25th Street Confidential traces Ogden’s transformation from quiet hamlet to chaotic transcontinental railroad junction as waves of non-Mormon fortune seekers swelled the city’s population. The street’s outsized role in Ogden annals illuminates larger themes in Utah and U.S. history. Most significantly, 25th Street was a crucible of Mormon-Gentile conflict, especially after the non-Mormon Liberal Party deprived its rival, the People’s Party, of long-standing control of Ogden’s municipal government in 1889. In the early twentieth-century the street was targeted in statewide Progressive Era reform efforts, and during Prohibition it would come to epitomize the futility of liquor abatement programs.

This first full-length treatment of Ogden’s rowdiest road spotlights larger-than-life figures whose careers were entwined with the street: Mayor Harman Ward Peery, who unabashedly filled the city treasury with fees and fines from vicious establishments; Belle London, the most successful madam in Utah history; and Rosetta Ducinnie Davie, the heiress to London’s legacy who became a celebrity on the street, in the courts, and in the press. Material from previously unexploited archives and more than one hundred historic photos enrich this narrative of a turbulent but unforgettable street.

Winner of the Utah Book Award in Nonfiction.
Chosen by Foreword as a finalist in the regional category for their IndieFab Book of the Year Award.
 
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