A Student Handbook to the Plays of Tennessee Williams. Katherine Weiss, ed. London: Bloomsbury, 2014; Pp. 290. The book opens with a quote from Tennessee Williams: “truth is something you need to deserve,” a statement that volume editor Katherine Weiss asserts “fl[ies] in the face of the imaginary worlds so […]
Book Review
103 posts
Unfinished Business: Michael Jackson, Detroit, & the Figural Economy of American Deindustrialization. Judith Hamera. New York: Oxford University Press, 2017; Pp. 286 + xvii. Scholarship on the subject of performance labor has proliferated with renewed intensity over the past decade. This development is, in part, a response to the way […]
Donatella Galella, Editor The American Negro Theatre and the Long Civil Rights Era By Jonathan Shandell Reviewed by Jennie Youssef Black Acting Methods: Critical Approaches Edited by Sharrell D. Luckett with Tia M. Shaffer Reviewed by DeRon S. Williams Palabras del Cielo: An Exploration of Latina/o Theatre for Young Audiences […]
Donatella Galella, Editor Building Character: The Art and Science of Casting By Amy Cook Reviewed by Ariel Nereson Latinx Theater in the Times of Neoliberalism By Patricia A. Ybarra Reviewed by Trevor Boffone The Late Work of Sam Shepard By Shannon Blake Skelton Reviewed by Carol Westcamp Disability Theatre and […]
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, […]
Disability Theatre and Modern Drama: Recasting Modernism. Kirsty Johnston. London: Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2016; Pp. 240. Kirsty Johnson’s Disability Theatre and Modern Drama: Recasting Modernism is an invaluable resource. Having previously written Stage Turns: Canadian Disability Theatre, Johnston offers in her latest book an impressive range of approaches to disability […]
The Late Work of Sam Shepard. Shannon Blake Skelton. New York: Bloomsbury, 2016; Pp. 256. The Late Work of Sam Shepard, by Shannon Blake Skelton, brings necessary attention to the later phase of Sam Shepard’s works, including his short prose, plays, acting performances, and screenplays. Previously published scholarship has tended […]
Latinx Theater in the Times of Neoliberalism. Patricia A. Ybarra. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 2018; Pp. 247. Patricia Ybarra’s Latinx Theater in the Times of Neoliberalism rightly notes that the emergence of Latinx theatre in the 1960s and 70s paralleled the rise of neoliberalism in the Americas. From the beginnings […]
Building Character: The Art and Science of Casting. Amy Cook. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; Pp. 198. Amy Cook’s Building Character: The Art and Science of Casting argues that casting, as artistic practice and necessary strategy for everyday life, is a performative act related to human cognitive tendencies to […]
The Contemporary American Monologue: Performance and Politics. Eddie Paterson. New York: Methuen, 2015; Pp. 232. The Contemporary American Monologue: Performance and Politics by Eddie Paterson offers comparative analyses of solo performance artists Spalding Grey, Laurie Anderson, Anna Deavere Smith, and Karen Finley. In his introduction, Paterson clearly lays out his […]
Stage for Action: U.S. Social Activist Theatre in the 1940s. Chrystyna Dail. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2016; Pp. 194. In Stage for Action: U.S. Social Activist Theatre in the 1940s, Chrystyna Dail reveals a significant piece of theatre history and asserts its rightful place in the canon of American […]
Immersions in Cultural Difference: Tourism, War, Performance. Natalie Alvarez. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2018; Pp. 214. Reading Natalie Alvarez’s Immersions in Cultural Difference: Tourism, War, Performance is a fantastic reminder of what theatre and performance studies have to offer during a cultural moment in which “reality” programming is […]
Black Performance on the Outskirts of the Left. Malik Gaines. New York: NYU Press, 2017; Pp. 248. It begins with a bold proposition. In Black Performance on the Outskirts of the Left, scholar-practitioner Malik Gaines suggests that performance is a radical act and that black performances can amend “dominant discourses […]
Samuel Beckett’s Theatre in America: The Legacy of Alan Schneider as Beckett’s American Director. Natka Bianchini. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015; Pp. 204. To discuss the production history of Samuel Beckett’s work in the US is inevitably to begin with Alan Schneider. Schneider directed the American premiere of all twelve […]
Stages of Struggle and Celebration: A Production History of Black Theatre in Texas. Sandra M. Mayo and Elvin Holt. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2016; Pp. 341. The history of black theatre in the United States tends to be analyzed as a product of the coasts, from New York City during the […]
If you would like to write a review for JADT, please contact our current book review editor Maya Roth at mer46@georgetown.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, […]
Donatella Galella, Editor Black Performance on the Outskirts of the Left By Malik Gaines Reviewed by Kristin Moriah The Contemporary American Monologue: Performance and Politics By Eddie Paterson Reviewed by Kevin T. Browne Immersions in Cultural Difference: Tourism, War, Performance By Natalie Alvarez Reviewed by Eero Laine Samuel Beckett’s Theatre […]
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 […]
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 […]
