Studies in Performance and Early Modern Drama
About the Book Series
This series presents original research on theatre histories and performance histories; the time period covered is from about 1500 to the early 18th century. Studies in which women's activities are a central feature of discussion are especially of interest; this may include women as financial or technical support (patrons, musicians, dancers, seamstresses, wig-makers) or house support staff (e.g., gatherers), rather than performance per se. We also welcome critiques of early modern drama that take into account the production values of the plays and rely on period records of performance.
Shakespeare and (Eco-)Performance History: The Merry Wives of Windsor
1st Edition
By Elizabeth Schafer
September 29, 2025
Seismic shifts in the theatrical meanings of The Merry Wives of Windsor have taken place across the centuries as Shakespeare’s frequently performed play has relocated to Windsor across the world, journeying along the production/adaptation/appropriation continuum. This (eco-)performance history of ...
John Lowin and the English Theatre, 1603�1647: Acting and Cultural Politics on the Jacobean and Caroline Stage
1st Edition
By Barbara Wooding
October 14, 2024
Even for scholars who have devoted their careers to the early modern theatre, the name John Lowin may not instantly evoke recognition-until now, the actor's life and contribution to the theatre of the period has never been the subject of a full-length publication. In this study, Barbara Wooding ...
Staging Spectatorship in the Plays of Philip Massinger
1st Edition
By Joanne Rochester
October 14, 2024
The playwrights composing for the London stage between 1580 and 1642 repeatedly staged plays-within and other metatheatrical inserts. Such works present fictionalized spectators as well as performers, providing images of the audience-stage interaction within the theatre. They are as much enactments...
Thomas Heywood's Theatre, 1599�1639: Locations, Translations, and Conflict
1st Edition
By Richard Rowland
October 14, 2024
In this major reassessment of his subject, Richard Rowland restores Thomas Heywood-playwright, miscellanist and translator-to his rightful place in early modern theatre history. Rowland contextualizes and historicizes this important contemporary of Shakespeare, locating him on the geographic and ...
Thomas Killigrew and the Seventeenth-Century English Stage: New Perspectives
1st Edition
By Philip Major
October 14, 2024
Despite his significant influence as a courtier, diplomat, playwright and theatre manager, Thomas Killigrew (1612-1683) remains a comparatively elusive and neglected figure. The original essays in this interdisciplinary volume shine new light on a singular, contradictory Englishman 400 years after ...
Transnational Mobilities in Early Modern Theater
1st Edition
By Robert Henke, Eric Nicholson
October 14, 2024
The essays in this volume investigate English, Italian, Spanish, German, Czech, and Bengali early modern theater, placing Shakespeare and his contemporaries in the theatrical contexts of western and central Europe, as well as the Indian sub-continent. Contributors explore the mobility of theatrical...
Venus’s Palace: Shakespeare and the Antitheatricalists
1st Edition
By Reut Barzilai
October 08, 2024
This book lays bare the dialogue between Shakespeare and critics of the stage and positions it as part of an ongoing cultural, ethical, and psychological debate about the effects of performance on actors and on spectators. In so doing, the book makes a substantial contribution both to the study of ...
Living Death in Early Modern Drama
1st Edition
By James Alsop
July 31, 2024
This book explores historical, socio-political, and metatheatrical readings of a whole host of dying bodies and risen corpses, each part of a long tradition of living death on stage. Just as zombies, ghouls, and the undead in modern media often stand in for present-day concerns, early modern ...
Imitation and Contamination of the Classics in the Comedies of Ben Jonson: Guides Not Commanders
1st Edition
By Tom Harrison
May 27, 2024
This book focuses on the influence of classical authors on Ben Jonson’s dramaturgy, with particular emphasis on the Greek and Roman playwrights and satirists. It illuminates the interdependence of the aspects of Jonson’s creative personality by considering how classical performance elements, ...
From Playtext to Performance on the Early Modern Stage: How Did They Do It?
1st Edition
By Leslie Thomson
January 29, 2024
This book reconsiders the evidence for what we know (or think we know) about early modern performance conditions. This study encourages a new recognition and treatment of certain aspects of the plays as evidence – and demonstrates the significance of the implications of that new information. This ...
Consent in Shakespeare: What Women Do and Don’t Say and Do in Shakespeare’s Mediterranean Comedies and Origin Stories
1st Edition
By Artemis Preeshl
May 31, 2023
By examining how female characters speak and act during coming of age, engagement, marriage, and intimacy, Consent in Shakespeare will enhance understanding about how and why women spoke, remained silent, or acted as they did in relation to their intimate partners in Early Modern and contemporary ...
Shakespeare’s Hobby-Horse and Early Modern Popular Culture
1st Edition
By Natália Pikli
May 31, 2023
This book explores the ways in which the early modern hobby-horse featured in different productions of popular culture between the 1580s and 1630s. Natália Pikli approaches this study with a thorough and interdisciplinary examination of hobby-horse references, with commentary on the polysemous ...