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 […]
Book Review
103 posts
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, […]
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 […]
Affective Performance and Cognitive Science: Body, Brain and Being. Edited by Nicola Shaugnessy. London: Bloomsbury, 2013; Pp. 300. Although Affective Performance and Cognitive Science: Body, Brain and Being serves as an introductory text, its usefulness is not in the structured and fixed definitions and equations a novice might desire, but […]
Theatre and Cognitive Neuroscience. Edited by Clelia Falletti, Gabriele Sofia, and Victor Iacono. Performance and Science: Interdisciplinary Dialogues Series. Series editors: John Lutterbie and Nicola Shaugnessy. London UK, New York NY: Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2016; Pp. 260. Theatre and Cognitive Neuroscience emerged from a series of five conferences organized by […]
Performance, Identity, and Immigration Law: A Theatre of Undocumentedness. By Gad Guterman. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014; Pp. 236. Written in 2014, Performance, Identity, and Immigration is a timely addition to the intersecting discourses of performance studies and immigration identity formations, particularly given the rhetoric of the 2016 presidential race […]
August Wilson’s Pittsburgh Cycle: Critical Perspectives on the Plays. Edited by Sandra G. Shannon. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2016; Pp. 211. The principal undertaking of August Wilson’s playwriting career—the “Pittsburgh Cycle”—is a singular accomplishment in American theater. A series of ten plays highlighting the cultural shifts and stresses of African-American experience […]
Susan Kattwinkel, Editor Affective Performance and Cognitive Science: Body, Brain and Being Edited by Nicola Shaugnessy Reviewed by Natalie Tenner August Wilson’s Pittsburgh Cycle: Critical Perspectives on the Plays Edited by Sandra G. Shannon Reviewed by James M. Cherry Kitchen Sink Realisms: Domestic Labor, Dining, and Drama in American Theatre […]
Kitchen Sink Realisms: Domestic Labor, Dining, and Drama in American Theatre. By Dorothy Chansky. Theatre History and Culture Series. Series editor Heather Nathans. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2015; Pp. 620. In 1996, John Guare summed up the aesthetic battle in American theatre as “the war against the kitchen […]
Blue Collar Broadway: The Craft and Industry of American Theater. By Timothy R. White. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015; Pp. 275. Blue-Collar Broadway: The Craft and Industry of American Theater adds a refreshing urban studies point of view to the increasingly interdisciplinary body of work on Times Square, alongside […]
The New Humor in the Progressive Era: Americanization and the Vaudeville Comedian. By Rick DesRochers. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014. Pp. 187. Rick DesRochers’s exploration of vaudeville comedians and comediennes during vaudeville’s heyday is richly contextualized within a particular sociocultural moment, a crucial moment of rapid change in the history […]
Stages of Engagement. Edited by Joshua E. Polster. Routledge Press: New York, NY, 2016. Pp. 241. Joshua Polster’s Stages of Engagement features eight essays that examine the relationship between United States society, culture and politics in order to demonstrate how the first half of the twentieth century was marked by […]
Performing Anti-slavery: Activist Women on Antebellum Stages. By Gay Gibson Cima. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014. Pp. xiii + 298. Gay Gibson Cima’s new book, Performing Anti-Slavery, should become a model for how to combine detailed historical research with activism. In her compelling study, she imaginatively links the struggle to […]
American Tragedian: The Life of Edwin Booth. By Daniel J. Watermeier. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2015; Pp. 464. More has been written on Edwin Booth than any other American actor. Three popular biographies lionize Booth in the late-nineteenth century. Another four in the mid-twentieth century, one of which (Prince […]
