Donatella Galella, Editor American Musical Theater By James Leve Reviewed by Eric M. Glover May Irwin: Singing, Shouting, and the Shadow of Minstrelsy By Sharon Ammen Reviewed by Franklin J. Lasik Chinese Looks: Fashion, Performance, Race By Sean Metzger Reviewed by Christine Mok New York’s Yiddish Theater: From the Bowery […]
Curtis Russell
32 posts
American Musical Theater. James Leve. New York: Oxford University Press, 2015; Pp. 448. American Musical Theater by James Leve provides instructors and students with an interdisciplinary approach to the history of the musical from Reconstruction to the contemporary period. From burlesque, the minstrel show, operetta, and vaudeville to the musicals […]
May Irwin: Singing, Shouting, and the Shadow of Minstrelsy. Sharon Ammen. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2017; Pp. 296. In 1981, popular culture scholar Anthony Slide wrote, “if May Irwin is remembered at all…it is as a plump, somewhat unattractive actress, bestowing an amorous kiss in a flickering film […]
Chinese Looks: Fashion, Performance, Race. Sean Metzger. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2014; Pp. 300. The 2015 theme for the Metropolitan Museum Costume Institute exhibition and gala in New York was supposed to be “Chinese Whispers: Tales of the East in Art, Film, and Fashion.” Curator Andrew Bolton explained […]
New York’s Yiddish Theater: From the Bowery to Broadway. Edna Nahshon, ed. New York: Columbia University Press in association with the Museum of the City of New York, 2016; Pp. 237. New York’s Yiddish Theater: From the Bowery to Broadway is a collection of thirteen scholarly articles edited and introduced […]
Actor-Musicianship. Jeremy Harrison. London, New York: Bloomsbury, 2016; Pp. 220. The Complete Book of 1940s Broadway Musicals. Dan Dietz. London: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015; Pp. 591. Musical Theatre Song. Stephen Purdy. London and New York: Bloomsbury, 2016; Pp. 284. A relative newcomer to theatre studies, musical theatre scholarship has proven […]
If you would like to write a review for JADT, please contact our current book review editor Donatella Galella at galella@ucr.edu. If you know of a book that would be suitable for review in JADT, please mail a copy to the Editors, JADT/Martin E. Segal Theatre Center, CUNY Graduate Center, […]
by Derek Miller The Journal of American Drama and Theatre Volume 30, Number 1 (Fall 2017) ISNN 2376-4236 ©2017 by Martin E. Segal Theatre Center To begin at the end: actors land in a tableau; lights fade; curtain falls. In the American musical theatre, a final chord sounds in the orchestra. […]
by Jeanne Klein The Journal of American Drama and Theatre Volume 30, Number 1 (Fall 2017) ISNN 2376-4236 ©2017 by Martin E. Segal Theatre Center I’ve done my duty, and I’ve done no more. Tom Thumb[1] Despite the burgeoning of childhood studies since the early 1990s, few theatre historians […]
by Paul Gagliardi The Journal of American Drama and Theatre Volume 30, Number 1 (Fall 2017) ISNN 2376-4236 ©2017 by Martin E. Segal Theatre Center In a chapter of her memoir on her tenure as leader of the Federal Theatre Project (FTP), Hallie Flanagan details the trials and tribulations of staging […]
by Jordan Schildcrout The Journal of American Drama and Theatre Volume 30, Number 1 (Fall 2017) ISNN 2376-4236 ©2017 by Martin E. Segal Theatre Center From 1969 to 1974, after the premiere of Mart Crowley’s landmark gay play The Boys in the Band (1968) and before the establishment of an organized […]
The American Theatre and Drama Society invites submissions for the Spring 2018 issue of The Journal of American Drama and Theatre Mediations of Authorship in American Postdramatic Mediaturgies Submission Deadline: 15 Dec. 2017 Authorship has proven to be an elastic concept determined by varying degrees of interference with media and technologies, […]
Susan Kattwinkel, Editor Acting in the Academy By Peter Zazzali Reviewed by Jennifer Joan Thompson Directing Shakespeare in America By Charles Ney Reviewed by Deric McNish Ruth Maleczech at Mabou Mines By Jessica Silsby Brater Reviewed by Catherine M. Young The Theatre of David Henry Hwang By Esther Kim Lee […]
Acting in the Academy: The history of professional actor training in US higher education. Peter Zazzali. London, New York: Routledge, 2016; Pp. 219. In Acting in the Academy, Peter Zazzali marshals some rather grim employment data provided by Actors Equity Association to argue that it is now harder than ever […]
Directing Shakespeare in America: Current Practices. By Charles Ney. London UK, New York NY: Bloomsbury Arden Shakespeare, 2016. Pp. 362. Charles Ney’s Directing Shakespeare in America: Current Practices is an illuminating and much-needed resource for directors, scholars, students, and Shakespeare aficionados. Between 2004 and 2015, Ney interviewed a veritable “who’s […]
The Theatre of David Henry Hwang. By Esther Kim Lee. New York: Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2015; pp. x + 207. The work of David Henry Hwang represents an intersection of many of the most prominent concerns of late 20th century and early 21st century drama. His plays tackle numerous facets […]
Ruth Maleczech at Mabou Mines: Woman’s Work. By Jessica Silsby Brater. Methuen Drama Engage Series. Series editors Enoch Brater and Mark Taylor-Batty. London: Bloomsbury Methuen Drama Press, 2016; Pp. 255. The Methuen Drama Engage Series “offers original reflections about key practitioners, movements and genres in the fields of modern theatre […]
The term “Anthropocene” entered general scientific discourse in 2002, when chemist-geologist Paul Crutzen published an article in Nature advocating that his colleagues adopt this name for the current geological epoch to emphasize the central role of humankind in shaping the earth’s biosphere and geology. Crutzen’s Nature article, which argued that […]
Global climate change has been a major issue of concern and political debate in the US and internationally for over 20 years, marked notably by the Kyoto Protocol in 1992. While politically-fraught contention still surrounds the rhetoric of how climate change is discussed, from a scientific perspective, the physical mechanics […]
In 1980, Ricardo Monti’s play Marrathon premieres in Buenos Aires.[1] In this play, the Argentine playwright presents the self-destructive specter of fascism as the effect of ideologies with a long historical trajectory. In 2000, Dutch scientist Paul J. Crutzen proposes the use of the term Anthropocene to emphasize the destructive […]
