DRAMA & PERFORMANCE STUDIES NEW BOOKS April - June 2026
CONTENTS Shakespeare Studies and Criticism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Ebooks ePub and ePDF availability is listed under each book entry.
Early Modern and Renaissance Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Review Copies
The Arden Shakespeare Fourth Series . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Email academicreviewus@bloomsbury.com (Americas)
Shakespeare Workbook Series . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
academicreviews@bloomsbury.com (UK / Rest of World).
Theatre Making . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Standing Orders
Methuen Drama Play Collections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Many series are available on standing order.
Contemporary Dramatists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Please contact our trade ordering departments
Plays for Young People . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
(see page 29).
Student Editions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Translation Rights
Modern Plays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Available unless otherwise indicated.
Acting and Performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Key to Symbols
Dance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 Musical Theatre . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 Comedy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
BOR
Online resources available. COLLECTIONS
Autobiography, Biography and Diaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
Available for institutions to purchase on
Theatre Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
www.bloomsburycollections.com
Theatre History and Criticism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Bloomsbury Open Access
Design and Production . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 Representatives, Agents and Distributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
OPEN ACCESS
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A must-have for students, theatre makers and readers everywhere. The RSC Shakespeare is an imprint of Bloomsbury, available via www.bloomsbury.com and through the Bloomsbury Academic sales team. RSC Shakespeare titles are not available in North America.
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DRAMA & PERFORMANCE STUDIES - THE ARDEN SHAKESPEARE COLLECTIONS
2ND EDITION
Queer Shakespeare
Desire, Sexuality and Embodiment Edited by Goran Stanivukovic, Saint Mary’s University, Canada The go-to resource for understanding desire, same-sex and trans eroticism in Shakespeare's texts, as well as in stage performance and in textual criticism, this second edition features revisions to the original chapters and an additional 5 new chapters. The plays and poems of Shakespeare overflow with sexual and erotic discourses, languages, and representations concerning eroticism and sex, and they display forms of embodiment that intersect with the erotic. This preoccupation with sex and desire often disrupts on page and stage the otherwise heavily regulated worlds of sexuality and desire in UK June 2026 • US June 2026 384 Pages HB 9781350527485 • £75.00 / $100.00 PB 9781350527478 • £24.99 / $34.95 ePDF 9781350527508 • £22.49 / $31.45 ePub 9781350527492 • £22.49 / $31.45 The Arden Shakespeare
Shakespeare’s society. The updated chapters take stock of the ideas and arguments explored in queer Shakespeare scholarship since the first edition in 2017. Five new chapters expand the scope of the book and trace further lines of enquiry: queerness in stage performance, and in the original intersection between textual and trans analysis; queerness and race; queerness and critical disability studies in the narrative poetry, and trans theory of queer Shakespeare. Together with a new introduction, Queer Shakespeare expands the possibilities for teaching both Shakespeare and queer theory in all of its manifestations.
COLLECTIONS
Shakespeare and Trauma Theory Kelsey Ridge, Alvernia University, USA Kelsey Ridge provides a thorough overview of how we can use trauma theory to understand Shakespeare through its intellectual and practical application. Ridge covers the history of trauma theory from Freud to Holocaust studies and PTSD by drawing on psychoanalytic theory, feminist theory, post-colonial theory and disability studies. The Rape of Lucrece, Titus Andronicus, and Merchant of Venice provide initial case studies of trauma-informed analyses of Shakespeare, whilst a focus on adaptation furthers our understanding of key plays and productions. These include The Tempest, The Percys’ Opera inspired by Henry IV, Part 1, and Cry Havoc!, a production by the trauma-focused theatre company De-Cruit, which together suggest how trauma theory can be used as a tool for analysing Shakespeare as well as engaging with the lived experience of trauma itself. In communicating these interpretations, Ridge provides a set of tools for Shakespeare and Theory UK February 2026 • US April 2026 184 Pages PB 9781350439146 • £28.99 / $39.95 HB 9781350439108 • £80.00 / $110.00 ePDF 9781350439122 • £72.00 / $99.00 ePub 9781350439115 • £72.00 / $99.00 The Arden Shakespeare
those wanting to conduct their own trauma theory analyses of Shakespeare, productions and adaptations themselves. A dynamic resource for academics, students, and theatre practitioners, Shakespeare and Trauma Theory includes suggested readings and resources as well as a glossary of key terms to support understanding of an important and growing field in Shakespeare studies.
COLLECTIONS
Twelfth Night, or What You Will: The State of Play Edited by Emma Smith, University of Oxford, UK Offering new insights from a range of experienced and emerging scholars, this volume analyses Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, or What You Will through a variety of critical lenses. Shakespeare’s comedy of gender confusion and unrequited love was a critical play for feminist readings and ideas related to cross-dressing, gender fluidity and relationships in the 1980s. Since then, it has been somewhat critically adrift. Smith’s collection of essays resets the critical conversation that surrounds this play to a more contemporary idiom and provides an up-to-date reader for both professors and their students.
Arden Shakespeare The State of Play UK April 2026 • US April 2026 288 Pages • 6 bw illus PB 9781350456440 • £28.99 / $39.95 HB 9781350456402 • £80.00 / $110.00 ePDF 9781350456426 • £72.00 / $99.00 ePub 9781350456419 • £72.00 / $99.00 The Arden Shakespeare
An interdisciplinary volume, this book gathers a range of voices and views in order to assess how transformative work on texts, identity and race has impacted Twelfth Night’s standing in current Shakespeare conversations. Scholars from across the globe utilize viewpoints stemming from transgender studies, environmental studies, racial studies and queer theory, in order to provide a present-day exploration of the play’s critical framework, and stimulate future conversations that arise from recent adaptations and performance traditions from beyond the anglophone sphere.
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DRAMA & PERFORMANCE STUDIES - THE ARDEN SHAKESPEARE COLLECTIONS
Rethinking Science and Religion in Early Modern Culture Edited by Aaron Kitch, Bowdoin College, USA & Jennifer R. Rust, Saint Louis University, USA Early modern Europe provides a rich context from which to challenge the rigid opposition between science and religion in this bold new edited collection. Contributors reveal how modes of science or natural philosophy, and religion, were mutually interdependent, even if they were also fluid and contested. Essays break new ground by situating texts and artefacts of early modern science and religion in terms of contemporary scholarly developments, including ecocriticism, postcolonial, race and affect studies. By foregrounding questions of gender, embodiment, evidence and the historical formation of scientific colonialism, this collection locates the early modern body and its empirical study as a source of both religious and scientific knowledge. Essays cover the soteriological body at the heart of Andreas Vesalius’ seminal studies of anatomy, depictions of the hymen UK June 2026 • US June 2026 256 Pages PB 9781350511668 • £28.99 / $39.95 HB 9781350511620 • £80.00 / $110.00 ePDF 9781350511644 • £72.00 / $99.00 ePub 9781350511637 • £72.00 / $99.00 The Arden Shakespeare
in Shakespeare and medical texts and forms of empiricism in John Donne. Where some of the essays address non-literary works, many chapters explore the role of imaginative literature and aesthetics more broadly. Beyond the centrality of Protestant Christianity to early modern European science, some contributors consider the influence of hermetic writings on Francis Bacon and read the Mayan K’iche’ epic of creation known as the Popul Wuj alongside Milton’s Paradise Lost. These inquiries demonstrate the value of comparative perspectives in a period in which radical social, political and religious changes caused a series of epistemic ruptures.
COLLECTIONS
Shakespeare in the Theatre: Phyllida Lloyd Elizabeth Schafer, Royal Holloway, University of London, UK & David Bullen, Royal Holloway, University of London, UK Part of the series Shakespeare in the Theatre, this book examines the work of Phyllida Lloyd who has transformed and revolutionized 21st century Shakespeare by her all female productions. It begins with the Globe Taming of the Shrew in 2003 and then, later, with her Shakespeare Trilogy: her Donmar Theatre productions of Julius Caesar (2012), Henry IV (2014) and The Tempest (2016). While critical response to The Shrew was divided, with some seeing all female approach casting as evocative of ‘girls’ boarding school’ Shakespeare, by the time of Lloyd’s 2016 season of Julius Caesar, Henry IV and The Tempest at King’s Cross, most critics appeared to be won over or at least accepting. Shakespeare in the Theatre UK May 2026 • US May 2026 216 Pages • 7 bw illus PB 9781350613898 • £28.99 / $39.95 HB 9781350106345 • £80.00 / $110.00 ePDF 9781350106369 • £72.00 / $99.00 ePub 9781350106352 • £72.00 / $99.00 The Arden Shakespeare
The book explores the significance of Lloyd’s ongoing working relationships with key performers – Janet McTeer, Meryl Streep, Harriet Walter – while acknowledging the importance of Lloyd’s success with Mamma Mia! in freeing her to pursue high risk theatrical ventures – such as the all female Shakespeare productions - without needing to worry unduly about what the reviewers thought. Schafer illustrates how Lloyd’s ability to hold realism and the non real in creative tension - an ability on display in Mamma Mia! in the all female productions and in her opera productions - is particularly critical when she is working with Shakespeare’s (mostly) anti-illusionistic dramaturgy.
COLLECTIONS
NEW IN PB
Antony and Cleopatra
Shakespeare: The Critical Tradition Edited by Marga Munkelt, University of Munster, Germany This new volume in the Shakespeare: The Critical Tradition series increases our knowledge of how Antony and Cleopatra has been received and understood by critics, editors and general readers. The volume provides, in separate sections, both critical opinions about the play across the centuries and an evaluation of their positions within and their impact on the reception of the play. The chronological arrangement of the text-excerpts engages the readers in a direct and unbiased dialogue, and the introduction offers a critical evaluation from a current stance, including modern theories and methods. This volume makes a major contribution to our understanding of the play and of the traditions of Shakespearean criticism surrounding it as they have developed from century to century. Shakespeare: The Critical Tradition UK May 2026 • US May 2026 504 Pages HB 9781474257008 • £140.00 / $190.00 PB 9781350442924 • £39.99 / $54.95 ePDF 9781350321434 • £126.00 / $171.00 ePub 9781350321441 • £126.00 / $171.00 The Arden Shakespeare
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NEW IN PB
A Comprehensive Guide to Shakespeare’s Sonnets Roland Weidle, Ruhr University, Germany This book provides readers with the tools to unravel the complexities of one of the most difficult sonnet sequences, introducing them to the literary tradition, themes, stylistic features and cultural contexts of the genre and the collection, and offering close readings of more than 100 sonnets. This combined approach enables readers not only to disentangle the complex relationships of the poems’ characters but also to appreciate their philosophical, sensual, topical and subversive qualities. Of the book’s two sections, the first, ‘Contexts and Forms’, includes chapters on the sonnet tradition, early publication history, the structural features of the sequence and the Shakespearean sonnet, as well as the main characteristics of the UK May 2026 • US May 2026 256 Pages • 5 bw illus HB 9781350382831 • £80.00 / $110.00 PB 9781350382879 • £28.99 / $39.95 ePDF 9781350382855 • £72.00 / $99.00 ePub 9781350382848 • £72.00 / $99.00 The Arden Shakespeare
dramatis personae. The second section, ‘Themes’, consists of 5 chapters and explores the theme clusters that can be identified throughout the sequence (preservation, writing, desire, deception, imagination). Additional features of the book include a step-by-step approach to a Shakespeare sonnet, a model interpretation of a sonnet, as well as charts and tables identifying and summarizing the sequence’s mini-narratives, groups, addressees and themes. For easy reference, the sonnets discussed in the book are cross-referenced and listed in the index, which also includes key terms and names of works and people. Suggestions for further reading are provided at the end of each chapter, and the annotated bibliography includes brief descriptions of the most useful works for further study.
COLLECTIONS
NEW IN PB
Shakespeare and Comics Negotiating Cultural Value
Edited by Jim Casey, Independent scholar, USA & Brandon Christopher, University of Winnipeg, Canada From their inception, ‘low culture’ comics have intersected with the ‘high culture’ of Shakespeare. This is the first book-length collection dedicated entirely to the exploration of this collision. Its chapters illuminate the ways in which different texts, time periods, politics, authors, media, approaches and forms interact. Ranging from Classic Comics to Marvel, from tebeo to manga, from independent to mainstream comics, texts explored include Y: The Last Man, Neil Gaiman and Charles Vess’s 'A Midsummer Night’s Dream' (The Sandman #19), The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, I Am Alfonso Jones, Marvel 1602, Doom 2099, and manga adaptations of The Tempest and Macbeth, among many others. Shakespeare and Adaptation UK April 2026 • US April 2026 264 Pages • 14 bw illus HB 9781350401341 • £85.00 / $115.00 PB 9781350401389 • £28.99 / $39.95 ePDF 9781350401365 • £76.50 / $103.50 ePub 9781350401358 • £76.50 / $103.50 The Arden Shakespeare
As comic books and their big-screen progeny dominate mainstream popular culture, the association of Shakespeare with comics offers creators and critics tools with which to interrogate the place of Shakespeare within the English and global literary and cultural traditions. Shakespeare and Comics argues that, at a moment when the reassessment and reimagining of literary canons has become more urgent than ever, thinking about Shakespeare through the lens of comics invites us to imagine a literary and cultural landscape in which so-called ‘great works’ exist alongside and in equal conversation with marginalized writers, topics and forms.
COLLECTIONS
Book Culture in Shakespeare’s Stratford The Quiney Connections
Marlin E. Blaine, California State University, Fullerton, USA, Lena Cowen Orlin, Georgetown University, Robert Bearman, University of Birmingham, UK & Alan H. Nelson, University of California, Berkeley, USA The recent discovery of two Latin books that once belonged to the Quiney family of Stratford-upon-Avon expands our understanding of Shakespeare’s grammar school education and of the social, material, and learned networks that operated in his hometown. One of these books, the Apophthegmata of Erasmus, belonged to Shakespeare’s friend and neighbour, Richard Quiney, while the other, a commentary on Aristotelian logic, was owned by a different Richard Quiney, who was Shakespeare’s grandson.
Arden Studies in Early Modern Material Culture UK December 2025 • US December 2025 288 Pages • 21 b/w illus PB 9781350558564 • £28.99 / $39.95 HB 9781350558526 • £80.00 / $110.00 ePDF 9781350558540 • £72.00 / $99.00 ePub 9781350558533 • £72.00 / $99.00 The Arden Shakespeare
Building from a simple account of these findings, Book Culture in Shakespeare’s Stratford: The Quiney Connections sheds new light on the use of Latin in the market town that produced the world’s most famous playwright. The story it tells weaves together analysis of letters, sermons, wills, public monuments and other printed books owned by local residents. Complementing these cultural explorations, biographical studies of Quiney family members and influential clergymen and teachers in Stratford evoke the impact of this learned culture on the lived experience of individual people. This study breaks new ground in our understanding of the rich educational environment that would enliven the plays and poems of William Shakespeare.
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ARDEN EARLY MODERN DRA M A Scholarly editions of Renaissance and Restoration plays
9781408133453
9781350115422
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9781472532596
9781474289290
9781904271758
9781904271741
9781904271512
9781904271604
9781472520456
9781904271628
9781904271505
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DRAMA & PERFORMANCE STUDIES - THE ARDEN SHAKESPEARE COLLECTIONS
Theatre of Fire
Special Effects in Early English and Scottish Theatre Philip Butterworth, University of Leeds, UK This revised edition investigates first-hand evidence of the use of special effects in fire and flame in medieval and Tudor theatre. Evidence concerning the use of special effects in fire and flame in medieval and tudor theatre points to some hazardous, exciting and spectacular theatrical activity. The effects range from the simple use of candles to impressive ‘set-pieces’ for dramatic firework events. Although the term ‘special effect’ is not a medieval one, it is a useful modern term to draw together activity through the production of flame and fire in addition to that produced by the actions of players. Examining the production of pyrotechnic devices and approaches to their construction, provision and creative use, this book considers five major forms of evidence: guild, civic and ecclesiastical records, firework writers’ recipes, eye-witness UK April 2026 • US April 2026 304 Pages • 32 bw illus PB 9781350565470 • £28.99 / $39.95 HB 9781350565432 • £80.00 / $110.00 ePDF 9781350565456 • £72.00 / $99.00 ePub 9781350565449 • £72.00 / $99.00 The Arden Shakespeare
accounts, recipes in Books of Secrets and explicit stage directions in plays. This edition reidentifies one of the five forms of evidence, the ‘explicit stage direction’ in use before 1560, as the ‘record of performance’, and reassesses it in this new light. This revised edition makes use of related research that has been produced since 1998, when the first edition was published by The Society for Theatre Research, and includes further discussion of the extent to which interpretative weight may be put on to the evidence produced by financial accounts and other civic documents. It also includes wider reflection on the authority of some post-1560 stage directions, improved discussion on the evidence concerning performances of travelling players in taverns, and consideration of subsequent work on special effects. The work concludes with an extensive set of appendices drawing together primary materials - some published here for the first time - including eye witness accounts and extracts from manuals and recipe books. A substantial expanded Glossary and numerous illustrations completes this uniquely illuminating resource. Features a new foreword by Peter Meredith (Emeritus Professor of Medieval Drama, University of Leeds, UK).
Edward II Christopher Marlowe Edited by Jeffrey Masten, Northwestern Univeristy, Illinois Vivid and daring in Marlowe’s time and ours, Edward II has captivated generations of readers, audiences and performers with its evocative portrayal of passionate friendship, kingly power and brutal retribution. Leading scholar Jeffrey Masten’s new edition of Marlowe’s great tragedy distils its importance for the history of queer sexuality, historical drama and modern performance alike. Drawing on new research into Edward’s earliest readers, as well as modern stage, film and operatic adaptations, Masten unpacks the play’s early meanings and modern resonances to spotlight its radical potential across a span of 400 years. This edition gives students a modernised, comprehensively annotated text with a detailed, illustrated introduction addressing Marlowe’s life and education, the play’s influence as a history play and its sexual, religious and national politics. Highlighted as well are Derek Jarman’s landmark queer film adaption of Edward II and celebrated performances by Ian McKellen, Derek Jacobi and Tilda Swinton. Arden Early Modern Drama UK May 2026 • US May 2026 456 Pages • 22 bw illus HB 9781408133460 • £90.00 / $120.00 PB 9781408133453 • £16.99 / $22.95 ePDF 9781408140109 • £15.29 / $20.65 ePub 9781408140116 • £15.209 / $20.65 The Arden Shakespeare
Arden Early Modern Drama editions offer the best in contemporary scholarship, providing a wealth of helpful and incisive commentary to guide the reader through a deeper understanding and appreciation of the play. This edition provides: - A clear and authoritative text - Detailed on-page commentary notes - A comprehensive, illustrated introduction to the play’s historical, cultural and performance contexts - A guide to reading an original printed page of the 1594 text - A bibliography of references and further reading
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THE ARDEN SHAKESPEARE FOURTH SERIES
The next generation of Shakespeare’s plays, poems & sonnets
May 2026 | 9781350110861
October 2026 | 9781350144422
May 2026 | 9781350078406
December 2026 | 9781350046757
December 2026 | 9781350065598
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DRAMA & PERFORMANCE STUDIES - THE ARDEN SHAKESPEARE
Titus Andronicus William Shakespeare Edited by Curtis Perry, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, USA & Ayanna Thompson, Arizona State University, USA The bloodiest and brashest of Shakespeare’s plays, this revenge tragedy begins with war and ends in mutilation and cannibalism. Acts of war and sexual violence across borders and within families highlight the importance of empire, Blackness and gender, alongside the familial and literal blood which characterise early modern and contemporary performance. The Arden Shakespeare Fourth Series Titus Andronicus provides: - A critical introduction to the textual, cultural and performance history - An edition that is rooted in a Jacobean revival performance of the play The Arden Shakespeare Fourth Series UK May 2026 • US May 2026 352 Pages • 22 bw illus HB 9781350078413 • £90.00 / $120.00 PB 9781350078406 • £10.99 / $14.95 ePDF 9781350078437 • £9.89 / $13.45 ePub 9781350078420 • £9.89 / $13.45 The Arden Shakespeare
- Detailed on-the-page notes explaining language, character and performance - A clear page layout with an easy-to-read font and single-column notes - Images of relevant productions, paintings and texts The Arden Shakespeare Fourth Series includes a new edition of every Shakespeare play, the poems and sonnets. Each volume is edited afresh by a leading scholar specialising in cutting-edge research on performance, gender, sexuality and race. These editions cover everything you need to know as a student, teacher, researcher, theatre-maker or performer of Shakespeare’s works today.
Julius Caesar William Shakespeare Edited by Andrew James Hartley, University of North Carolina, Charlotte, USA Tyranny, imperialism and political authority define Shakespeare’s enduring dramatic depiction of ruling power and regime change in ancient Rome. A touchpoint for characterising tyrannical leaders throughout the world, Julius Caesar has told a cautionary tale of the uneasy relationship between political leaders and citizens from the time it was first performed up to the 21st century. The Arden Shakespeare Fourth Series Julius Caesar provides: - A critical introduction to the play's textual, cultural and performance history - An edition that is rooted in the first known performance of the play in London, 1599 - Detailed on-the-page notes explaining language, character and performance The Arden Shakespeare Fourth Series UK May 2026 • US May 2026 384 Pages • 18 bw illus HB 9781350110854 • £90.00 / $120.00 PB 9781350110861 • £9.99 / $12.95 ePDF 9781350110847 • £8.99 / $11.65 ePub 9781350110878 • £8.99 / $11.65 The Arden Shakespeare
- A clear page layout with an easy-to-read font and single-column notes - Images of relevant productions, paintings and texts The Arden Shakespeare Fourth Series includes a new edition of every Shakespeare play, the poems and sonnets. Each volume is edited afresh by a leading scholar specialising in cutting-edge research on performance, gender, sexuality and race. These editions cover everything you need to know as a student, teacher, researcher, theatre-maker and performer of Shakespeare’s works today.
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DRAMA & PERFORMANCE STUDIES COLLECTIONS
Julius Caesar Edited by Paul Sugarman Shakespeare for Two by John Russell Brown, Once More unto the Speech, Dear Friends by Neil Freeman, The Applause Shakespeare Library, and Applause First Folio Editions, we've created the must-have workbook series for Shakespeare plays. Along with tips on approaching and working on the play and tackling the speeches, Applause Shakespeare Workbook: Julius Caesar includes highlighted essential passages.
To fully appreciate Julius Caesar, it is essential to understand the play as a living text that must be spoken aloud to be fully understood. This workbook provides the tools to more fully explore the text through commentary and understand the rhetorical tradition that Shakespeare was part of, as well as clues offered from the First Folio. Applause Shakespeare Shakespeare Workbook Series UK February 2026 • US February 2026 92 Pages PB 9781493057023 • £14.99 / $24.95 ePDF 9798765158050 • £13.49 / $22.45 ePub 9781493057030 • £13.49 / $22.45 Bloomsbury Academic
Workbook: Julius Caesar includes Marc Antony's forum speech and the Brutus/Cassius scene. This workbook will open your appreciation for the many diverse possibilities of interpreting the text, which is the key to Shakespeare's longevity.
COLLECTIONS
Othello Edited by Paul Sugarman Curating material from Applause's Shakescenes: Shakespeare for Two by John Russell Brown, Once More unto the Speech, Dear Friends by Neil Freeman, The Applause Shakespeare Library, and Applause First Folio Editions, we've created the must-have workbook series for Shakespeare plays. Along with tips on approaching and working on the play and tackling the speeches, Applause Shakespeare Workbook: Othello includes highlighted essential passages.
To fully appreciate Othello, it is essential to understand the play as a living text that must be spoken aloud to be fully understood. This workbook provides the tools to more fully explore the text through commentary and understand the rhetorical tradition that Shakespeare was part of, as well as clues offered from the First Folio. Applause Shakespeare Shakespeare Workbook Series UK February 2026 • US February 2026 78 Pages PB 9781493057061 • £14.99 / $24.95 ePDF 9798765158067 • £13.49 / $22.45 ePub 9781493057078 • £13.49 / $22.45 Bloomsbury Academic
Workbook: Othello includes essential speeches from Othello and Iago as well as the Desdemona/Emilia scene. This workbook will open your appreciation for the many diverse possibilities of interpreting the text, which is the key to Shakespeare's longevity.
COLLECTIONS
The Tempest Edited by Paul Sugarman Curating material from Applause's Shakescenes: Shakespeare for Two by John Russell Brown, Once More unto the Speech, Dear Friends by Neil Freeman, The Applause Shakespeare Library, and Applause First Folio Editions, we've created the must-have workbook series for Shakespeare plays. Along with tips on approaching and working on the play and tackling the speeches, Applause Shakespeare Workbook: The Tempest includes highlighted essential passages. To fully appreciate The Tempest, it is essential to understand the play as a living text that must be spoken aloud to be fully understood. This workbook provides the tools to more fully explore the text through commentary and understand the rhetorical tradition that Shakespeare was part of, as well as clues offered from the First Folio. Applause Shakespeare Shakespeare Workbook Series UK February 2026 • US February 2026 110 Pages PB 9781493057108 • £14.99 / $24.95 ePDF 9798765155431 • £13.49 / $22.45 ePub 9781493057115 • £13.49 / $22.45 Bloomsbury Academic
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Workbook: The Tempest includes speeches from Prospero, Caliban, and Miranda, as well as the Antonio/Sebastian scene. This workbook will open your appreciation for the many diverse possibilities of interpreting the text, which is the key to Shakespeare's longevity.
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DRAMA & PERFORMANCE STUDIES COLLECTIONS
Zoomers and Other Plays Matthew Gasda With his breakout hit play Dimes Square, dramatist Matthew Gasda was instantly anointed as the chronicler of the downtown set, a satirist-cum-anthropologist of TikTok microcelebrities, reactionary edgelords, and hapless hangers-on. But what happens after the party’s over, after talent is celebrated, envied, mocked, and memed? Where do you go from there? In Zoomers and Other Plays, Gasda serves up sharply observed, richly ambivalent depictions of a perpetually hungover present. Across these four new plays—One-Winged Dove, Morning Journal, the Dimes Square sequel Afters, and the collection’s title play—spiritual longing and unbearable loss sit uneasily alongside meretriciousness and naked cruelty. Through a generational haze of pot, porn, and video games, Gasda memorably captures our era in all its glory and UK October 2025 • US October 2025 320 Pages PB 9781493090228 • £17.99 / $27.95 ePDF 9798765161234 • £16.19 / $25.15 ePub 9781493090235 • £16.19 / $25.15 Bloomsbury Academic
confusion.
David Auburn Collected Plays
Proof; The Columnists; Lost Lake; The New York Idea; Summer, 1976 David Auburn Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning author David Auburn is an American dramatist who never fails to write astute and compelling dramas that grapple with large questions. In this collection of his work spanning 23 years his celebrated plays are anthologised together for the first time, showing him to be one of the most important contemporary dramatists of his generation. From the Pulitzer Prize-winning Proof (2000) to his latest Broadway smash-hit Summer 1776, published for the first time, this collected works offers a comprehensive overview to Auburn's work for Broadway and beyond. Methuen Drama Play Collections UK April 2026 • US April 2026 304 Pages HB 9781350439061 • £75.00 / $100.00 PB 9781350439054 • £24.99 / $34.95 ePDF 9781350439085 • £22.49 / $31.45 ePub 9781350439078 • £22.49 / $31.45 Methuen Drama
The Methuen Drama Book of Trans Plays Volume 3 Young Adult Edition
Edited by Leanna Keyes, Lindsey Mantoan, Linfield College, USA & Angela Farr Schiller, Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre, USA Playwrights in Volume 3 agree: “These are the plays we wish we had.” The third volume in the Methuen Drama Book of Trans Plays series offers nine new plays by trans playwrights featuring trans characters. This volume focuses on young characters whose ages range from twelve to late twenties. Following the critical and commercial success of the first two volumes, this edited collection supports the expanding landscape of contemporary American trans theatre, which represents a variety of performance modes and genres. These plays address themes such as coming of age, parents and family (found and biological), athletics, dating , and navigating hostile political Methuen Drama Play Collections
and social terrains. This third volume also includes short introductory essays that accompany each of the plays to support a
UK May 2026 • US May 2026 512 Pages HB 9781350514867 • £75.00 / $100.00 PB 9781350514874 • £24.99 / $34.95 ePDF 9781350514898 • £22.49 / $31.45 ePub 9781350514881 • £22.49 / $31.45 Methuen Drama
deeper understanding of the work. The Interrobangers by M. Sloth Levine; Magic Girl!... And Her Demons by Charlotte Snow; t4t by Jessica Scott; The Brunch Crowd by Dillon Yruegas; The More The Man by Jameson P. Murray; Man and Moon by Siena Marilyn; Caeneus by Samuel Achilles; Unfair Advantage by Tyler Rocio Ecoña; Tides by Eliana Rubin.
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Sound of the Moon and Other Plays by Myung-Wha Kim Myung-Wha Kim, The Nanhee, Korean Theatre company Edited by Walter Byongsok Chon, Ithica College, New York, USA Translated by Walter Byongsok Chon, Ithica College, New York, USA Myung-Wha Kim is an acclaimed playwright, critic, and director. In this book, the first English language play collection by a female Korean playwright, her individual style and powerful drama is captured across different performance texts. This collection contains four plays by contemporary Korean playwright Myung-Wha Kim, translated into English by Walter Byongsok Chon, in collaboration with English language consultant Anne M. Hamilton. Birds Don’t Use a Crosswalk (1998) explores the role of theatre in society, wherein the protagonist is a director who returns to his college to helm a production. It navigates the generational conflicts in Korean society between the 1980s and the end Methuen Drama Play Collections UK May 2026 • US May 2026 192 Pages HB 9781350572720 • £65.00 / $90.00 PB 9781350572713 • £21.99 / $29.95 ePDF 9781350572737 • £19.79 / $26.95 ePub 9781350572744 • £19.79 / $26.95 Methuen Drama
of the century, which is still reflected in the present day. Oedipus: The Fate of the Story (2000) is a reimagination of Sophocles’ Oedipus and explores the political and personal affairs that might have occurred behind closed doors. Sound of the Moon (2006), set in the late sixth century during Korea’s Three Kingdoms period, portrays the romance between an aspiring gayageum musician and the Princess of Silla, which creates intrigues with diplomatic, cultural, and socio-political implications. And The Wind’s Desire (2007) tells the story of a middle-aged television writer in crisis in modernday Seoul, who financially supports her family abroad and starts an affair with a young photographer, which reignites her passion for life.
David Eldridge Trilogy Beginning; Middle; End David Eldridge "Eldridge combines a hugely sympathetic sensibility with rare dramatic power, and one leaves this exceptional play rejoicing in his talent and impatient for his next." Telegraph Written and produced over a decade, this critically acclaimed trilogy of plays explores the loneliness that exists both in and out of relationships over time with poignancy and humour. First presented at the Royal National Theatre between 2017 and 2025 these sharp and astute two-handers track the movement of love in real-time, in all its fragility and beauty. Beginning: Every story starts somewhere. It’s the early hours of the morning and Danny is the last straggler at Laura’s party. Methuen Drama Play Collections UK February 2026 • US January 2026 240 Pages PB 9781350609471 • £19.99 / $26.95 ePDF 9781350609488 • £17.99 / $24.25 ePub 9781350609495 • £17.99 / $24.25 Methuen Drama
The flat is in a mess. And so are they. One more drink? Middle: Every relationship reaches a crossroads at some time. As dawn breaks, Maggie is heating some milk and Gary wonders what she’s doing out of bed. Maybe it’s time for an honest conversation – but how much honesty can this marriage take?
Christopher Shinn Plays 3
Teddy Ferrara; An Opening in Time; Against; The Narcissist Christopher Shinn Christopher Shinn is one of America’s most fearless and incisive playwrights, known for his nuanced explorations of power, identity, and human connection in an uncertain world. This third collection of his contemporary plays brings together four of his most provocative works each grappling with the tensions between public and private lives, personal responsibility, and the shifting dynamics of modern society.
Contemporary Dramatists UK June 2026 • US June 2026 384 Pages PB 9781350573871 • £21.99 / $29.95 ePDF 9781350573895 • £19.79 / $26.95 Methuen Drama
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Australian One-Act Plays for Young Adults Brady Lloyd, Teacher in Adelaide, Australia Five compelling and theatrically dynamic plays that celebrate the strength of the human spirit, blending hope, humour and heart. Australian One-Act Plays for Young Adults is a collection of original plays has been crafted to serve as a valuable and pragmatic resource for educators and theatre-makers seeking engaging and adaptable scripts for young people. In each story are universal themes and strongly defined characters, offering young actors ample stage time and the opportunity to showcase their skills. From kooky wellness expert hiding a secret to a corrupt prison guard thwarting the Plays for Young People UK June 2026 • US June 2026 248 Pages HB 9781350588738 • £65.00 / $90.00 PB 9781350588721 • £19.99 / $26.95 ePDF 9781350588745 • £17.99 / $24.25 ePub 9781350588752 • £17.99 / $24.25 Methuen Drama
system, each play provides a platform for young actors to shine. Originally written for, and tested by, senior drama classes, the plays can be utilised as standalone pieces or as part of the anthology and are all largely flexible, accommodating varying cast sizes, gender and cultural demographics and the diverse skills and abilities of the group. Each play also contains a set of questions, prompting discussion around central themes, key characters and significant moments in the script to guide young people to think critically about dramaturgy, representation and theatricality.
Dweeb-A-Mania Sarah Middleton If we sneak in to Bentley’s party and present an undeniable routine of wrestling excellence, everyone will see. We’ll lay the foundations for the rest of our lives. Not as dweebs, but as heroes. Kemi and Norah are mega-nerds through and through. They think they know a lot about... everything! But when popular boy Bentley refuses to invite them to his wrestling-themed party, they discover, to their horror, that he thinks they are dweebs! It Plays for Young People UK November 2025 • US November 2025 64 Pages PB 9781350598195 • £9.99 / $12.95 ePDF 9781350598201 • £8.99 / $11.65 ePub 9781350598218 • £8.99 / $11.65 Methuen Drama
turns out that they have a lot to learn – especially about wrestling. Together, they secretly launch a plan to become champion wrestlers, crash Bentley’s party, and prove to everyone that they are, in fact, extremely cool. Dweeb-A-Mania is a punchy, powerful new comedy for ages 8-13 years which celebrates being exactly who you want to be. Get ready for flying kicks, body slams and a mind-blowing number of barbecued chickens!
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Three Sisters After Chekhov
Anton Chekhov Edited by Oladipo Agboluaje, University of East London, UK Adapted by Inua Ellams Owerri, Nigeria, 1967, on the brink of the Biafran Civil War. Sisters Lolo, Nne Chukwu and Udo are grieving the loss of their father. Months before, two ruthless military coups plunged the country into chaos. Fuelled by foreign intervention, the conflict encroaches on their provincial village, and the sisters long to return to their former home in Lagos. This Student Edition of Inua Ellams’s adaptation looks at how Anton Chekhov’s original play has been transposed to an African context, the background to the Biafran War and how its politics and people’s experiences are represented in the play. Student Editions UK April 2026 • US April 2026 152 Pages PB 9781350473188 • £12.99 / $17.95 ePDF 9781350473195 • £11.69 / $16.15 ePub 9781350473201 • £11.69 / $16.15 Methuen Drama
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The Constant Wife W. Somerset Maugham & Laura Wade, British playwright I can’t help it if you were careless with your cigarette case. I was extremely careful with your heart Constance has everything. A loving family, a beautiful home, a fulfilling career, and a husband as devoted to her as he is to his mistress. When her perfect set up is threatened, Constance fights back but refuses to play by the rules. Can she withstand society’s expectations? And can society withstand the force of a woman determined to do things her own way? Laura Wade (Posh, Rivals) reunites with RSC Co-Artistic Director Tamara Harvey (Pericles) after their Olivier Award-winning collaboration, Home, I’m Darling, to reimagine Somerset Maugham’s subversive comedy, The Constant Wife, in a sparkling Modern Plays UK August 2025 • US August 2025 112 Pages PB 9781350584594 • £10.99 / $15.95 ePDF 9781350584600 • £9.89 / $14.35 ePub 9781350584617 • £9.89 / $14.35 Methuen Drama
new version. This edition was published to coincide with the RSC production at the Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, in June 2025.
Bacchae Nima Taleghani & Euripides This ain’t no classic play. The Bacchae aren’t standing on the sidelines whilst the men have all the fun. These fangirls may be a pack but they’re not animals… They are stage-storming powerhouses ready to cause chaos in Thebes. Whilst the Bacchae maraud in the mountains, their god Dionysos is taking part in his own f*cked-up family Olympics. He’s here to bring down his cousin King Pentheus. All to prove to the chorus of women that he’s more than just the god of rhyme, wine and a good time. Modern Plays UK October 2025 • US October 2025 128 Pages PB 9781350592605 • £10.99 / $15.95 ePDF 9781350592612 • £9.89 / $14.35 ePub 9781350592629 • £9.89 / $14.35 Methuen Drama
The first ever playwright debut on the National Theatre's Olivier Stage, Nima Taleghani’s exciting new version of Euripides’ ultimate tragedy is brought to life through rhythm, movement and music. This edition was published to coincide with the world premiere production in September 2025, directed by Artistic Director of the National Theatre Indhu Rubasingham.
Hedda Tanika Gupta & Henrik Ibsen Finally, I'm being brave. London, 1948. The war is over, India is newly independent, and Hedda Gabler has retired: early, elegantly, and with secrets. Once a Hollywood star, now the wife of rising British film director George Tesman, Hedda lives in Chelsea, hiding behind drawn curtains. But the past is beginning to stir. An old friend has written a screenplay that cuts too close to the truth. And there’s a powerful producer in town who never takes no for an answer. Modern Plays UK November 2025 • US November 2025 112 Pages PB 9781350597679 • £10.99 / $15.95 ePDF 9781350597686 • £9.89 / $14.35 ePub 9781350597693 • £9.89 / $14.35 Methuen Drama
Inspired by the story of screen legend Merle Oberon, Hedda is a bold new version of Henrik Ibsen’s classic drama about blackmail, secrecy and power. Written by Tanika Gupta (Tupperware of Ashes) this edition was published to coincide with the Orange Tree Theatre production in October 2025, directed by BAFTA-winning director Hettie Macdonald (Normal People) and starring Pearl Chanda (I May Destroy You) in the title role.
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The Line of Beauty Alan Hollinghurst Adapted by Jack Holden I can’t explain it. I can’t explain any of it to you. The line of beauty which led me to him… to here. London. Summer, 1983. Nick Guest moves into the grand Notting Hill home of his university friend Toby — and into the dazzling world of Toby’s father Gerald, a newly elected Tory MP, his elegant wife Rachel, and their troubled daughter Cat. From private gardens to country estates, glittering parties to political dinners, Nick is swept up in a world of money, power and privilege. A world that promises everything — and exacts a cost. Modern Plays UK December 2025 • US December 2025 144 Pages PB 9781350603073 • £10.99 / $15.95 ePDF 9781350603080 • £9.89 / $14.35 ePub 9781350603097 • £9.89 / $14.35 Methuen Drama
As he pursues beauty in all its forms, Nick finds himself caught between the freedoms of desire and the rigid boundaries of class, sexuality and public image in a rapidly changing Britain. Olivier Award nominee Jack Holden’s (Cruise; Kenrex) new adaptation of The Line of Beauty is a captivating portrait of Thatcher’s Britain at its most decadent and divisive, based on the Booker Prize-winning novel by Alan Hollinghurst.
End David Eldridge Every love story has a final chapter Alfie and Julie’s love story has been one of music, laughter, and heartache. On one early morning in June, they must write their ending. Following the critically acclaimed Beginning and Middle, End is the final play in David Eldridge’s trilogy exploring love and relationships. This edition was published to coincide with the National Theatre production in November 2025, directed by Rachel O'Riordan Modern Plays UK December 2025 • US December 2025 80 Pages PB 9781350609389 • £10.99 / $15.95 ePDF 9781350609396 • £9.89 / $14.35 ePub 9781350609402 • £9.89 / $14.35 Methuen Drama
(Romeo and Julie) and starring Clive Owen (Closer) as Alfie and Saskia Reeves (Slow Horses) as Julie in this touching and funny play on a life well lived.
The Burning Cauldron of Fiery Fire Anne Washburn If you're not ready there's still hope for you. The change we aren't ready for transforms us. I'm ripping it down. Somewhere in foggy Northern California, an intentional community tries to live off the land and keep an unsteady world at bay. But when one of their own dies unexpectedly, ideals are tested and faith in their independence is rocked. The Burning Cauldron of Fiery Fire is a tender, funny, probing story about a death, a pageant, a rescue, a resurrection, pigs, and the act of saying grace. The kids may not be all right. Published to coincide with the world-premiere production at the Vineyard Theatre in New York, renowned American Modern Plays UK November 2025 • US November 2025 104 Pages PB 9781350625198 • £10.99 / $15.95 ePDF 9781350613867 • £9.89 / $14.35 ePub 9781350613874 • £9.89 / $14.35 Methuen Drama
playwright Anne Washburn re-unites with Obie-Award winning director Steve Cosson, following their acclaimed collaborations on Mr. Burns, A Post-Electric Play (“downright brilliant”, NYT) and A Devil at Noon.
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DRAMA & PERFORMANCE STUDIES 2ND EDITION
The Spy Who Came In From The Cold John le Carré Adapted by David Eldridge All cats are alike in the dark. For the first time ever, a novel by John le Carré is brought to life in a thrilling stage adaptation by award-winning playwright David Eldridge (Beginning, Middle & End). Alec Leamas is ready to come in from the cold but when Control, the Head of the British Secret Intelligence Service, presents one final mission he agrees to stay in the game. However, Leamas has committed a cardinal error: he’s fallen in love. And what is veteran spymaster George Smiley’s role in the operation? After a lifetime of deception and betrayal, can Modern Plays UK January 2026 • US January 2026 112 Pages PB 9781350618305 • £10.99 / $15.95 ePDF 9781350618312 • £9.89 / $14.35 ePub 9781350618466 • £9.89 / $14.35 Methuen Drama
there be room for humanity in the ruthlessly manipulative world of international espionage? Following a sold-out run at Chichester Festival Theatre, this edition was published to coincide with the West End premiere production at @sohoplace in November 2025.
You Will Get Sick Noah Diaz A young man with a secret. An older woman who will listen. A predatory flock of birds. An upcoming audition for The Wizard of Oz. You Will Get Sick is a wildly imaginative new play that traces the hilarious and deeply moving saga of one man’s illness and his unlikely caretaker’s pursuit of her dreams. Admired as “lively, surreal and surprising” by the New York Times, Noah Diaz’s play is equal parts buddy-comedy, formbending experiment and sober meditation on mortality. Modern Plays UK January 2026 • US January 2026 128 Pages PB 9781350618725 • £10.99 / $15.95 ePDF 9781350618732 • £9.89 / $14.35 ePub 9781350618749 • £9.89 / $14.35 Methuen Drama
After premiering off Broadway at the Roundabout Theatre in 2022, where it was a New York Times Critic's Pick, it has had numerous productions across America, including a run at Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago in summer 2025. A finalist for both the Henry Award for Outstanding New Play and The John Gassner Award for New American Play at the Outer Critics Circle Awards, this is a dark comedy in second person about learning how to live within your body as you find your way home.
Private View Jess Edwards You’ve changed me. You’ve fundamentally altered the fabric of my existence. Two women collide and soon become so entangled it’s hard to tell where one starts and the other begins. It’s messy, magnetic, and disturbingly familiar. Private View offers an intimate look into a cataclysmic love that burns hot and fast – and leaves a mark. This edition was published to coincide with the original production at Soho Theatre in December 2025. Modern Plays UK January 2026 • US January 2026 96 Pages PB 9781350607354 • £10.99 / $15.95 ePDF 9781350607378 • £9.89 / $14.35 ePub 9781350607385 • £9.89 / $14.35 Methuen Drama
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Before the Millennium Karim Khan A snowwoman from Pakistan – full of songs, hopes, and dreams… As the final days of 1999 draw near, Pakistani migrants, Zoya and Iqra, work side by side in Woolworth’s Oxford Cowley branch – anxious and excited for what’s to come in the new millennium. At their Christmas staff party, the pair encounter a mysterious new girl – Faiza – who threatens to alter everything they thought they knew about their friendship and their future. Magical, tender and quietly radical, Before the Millennium is a lyrical new play from award-winning playwright, Modern Plays UK January 2026 • US January 2026 112 Pages PB 9781350614055 • £10.99 / $15.95 ePDF 9781350614062 • £9.89 / $14.35 ePub 9781350614079 • £9.89 / $14.35 Methuen Drama
Karim Khan – charting the joys of a lifechanging friendship, the icy bitterness of homesickness and the sacrifice of migration. This edition was published to coincide with the production at Old Fire Station, Oxford, in December 2025.
Dublin Gothic Barbara Bergin Finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn prize 2026. Because everyone has a story to tell. Dublin Gothic is a loser’s history of the city and its people, told through a joyous mix of literary styles. This extraordinary tragicomedy follows three generations of residents in one Dublin 1 house across a century of social upheaval. Set against the backdrop of a transforming city and teeming with Dublin wit and character, generations of losers tumble through time, struggling against the villain of circumstance to create a shadow history of a city both strange and familiar. Modern Plays UK January 2026 • US January 2026 176 Pages PB 9781350620858 • £14.99 / $15.95 ePDF 9781350620865 • £13.49 / $14.35 ePub 9781350620872 • £13.49 / $14.35 Methuen Drama
This edition was published to coincide with the production at the Abbey Theatre in November 2025.
Liberation Ntombizodwa Nyoni Shortlisted for the Alfred Fagon Award 2025. To liberate anyone, you must first overthrow what you fear within yourself, Nkrumah. (Beat) It was never going to happen over one week in Manchester. (Beat) It is your life’s work. (Beat) It is a marathon. Modern Plays UK August 2025 • US August 2025 120 Pages PB 9781350586468 • £10.99 / $15.95 ePDF 9781350586475 • £9.89 / $14.35 ePub 9781350586482 • £9.89 / $14.35 Methuen Drama
It’s 15 October 1945, Manchester. Africa’s freedom and future is in the hands of her descendants at the Fifth Pan-African Congress at Chorlton-on-Medlock Town Hall. Emerging African & Caribbean activists and scholars offer new radical ideas of liberation. However, the organiser, Trinidadian activist George Padmore is unsure who to pass the baton to. Kwame Nkrumah is fuelled by an idealistic desire to become the first Black president of the Gold Coast. Resourceful Jamaican social worker Alma La Badie is grappling with who must be sacrificed for the cause. And what of the revered Amy Ashwood-Garvey how does she ensure the voices of Black women are heard? With generational shifts and gender politics added to a swirling mix of power dynamics, Liberation asks timeless questions about revolution, freedom, and what it means to be an activist.
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DRAMA & PERFORMANCE STUDIES COLLECTIONS
The Screen Actor's Audition
The Craft of Film & Television Auditioning in Any Medium Jay Scully, Casting director and teacher, Los Angeles, USA Few teachers in Hollywood bring the range of experience to their work that Jay Scully does. For decades, Jay Scully has worked with veteran and novice actors alike in virtually every area of today’s business. He's worked as a casting director for over 50 feature films and television shows. He's been an instructor of acting technique at the university level and in private one-on-one instruction. He's even worked as an on-set coach for feature films with acclaimed directors like J.J. Abrams (Super 8), James Wan (Furious 7), Judd Apatow (This Is 40), and Davis Guggenheim (Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie). The Screen Actor’s Audition is Scully’s brisk, practical handbook for screen actors at all career stages. It shares indispensable guidance on wowing directors, producers, and casting directors to land roles at a time of unprecedented UK February 2026 • US February 2026 208 Pages PB 9781493090181 • £14.99 / $19.95 ePDF 9798765160640 • £13.49 / $17.95 ePub 9781493090198 • £13.49 / $17.95 Bloomsbury Academic
technological and economic tumult in the industry. It covers: - How to quickly analyze audition sides for an effective self-tape. - How to brand and market yourself as a professional actor. - The critical differences between auditioning for stage and screen roles - How to read between the lines of casting notices, breakdowns, and appointment sheets to determine what directors are really looking for - How to field “curveballs” thrown at you in the middle of an audition - The essentials of navigating your career through every single audition. - And much more!
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BOR
The Integrated Actor
Imagination, Body, Breath, Voice Alex Taylor Combining work on physical and vocal embodiment with exercises in imagination and interpretation, this book facilitates a fuller, freer and more complete use of the self when it comes to creating a role. Building on established methodologies and existing research, such as the Alexander Technique, Estill Voice Craft, polyvagal theory and works by major practitioners – including Michael Langham, Niamh Dowling, Glen Park, Carolyn Serota, Sally Grace, Patsy Rodenburg, Cicely Berry, Kristin Linklater and Josephine Estill – this book offers a holistic approach to voice work and acting.
UK April 2026 • US April 2026 256 Pages • 3 bw illus HB 9781350441330 • £70.00 / $95.00 PB 9781350441323 • £22.99 / $30.95 ePDF 9781350441347 • £20.69 / $27.85 ePub 9781350441354 • £20.69 / $27.85 Methuen Drama
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Discovering the Michael Chekhov Technique In the Studio with Ted Pugh and Fern Sloan Danielle Carter This book unpacks the Michael Chekhov acting technique as interpreted and taught by 2 of the great American teachers Ted Pugh and Fern Sloan - who have collectively taught the Michael Chekhov Technique for over 80 years across the world and who jointly founded the Michael Chekhov School in 2014. The author brings Pugh's and Sloan's own interpretations of, and first-hand access to, Michael Chekhov to the reader and, through doing so, makes the Technique fluid, simple, clear and concise. We come to understand key Chekhov methods and how to implement them in the classroom, in rehearsal and in performance. UK May 2026 • US March 2026 216 Pages • 20 bw illus HB 9781350320604 • £60.00 / $80.00 PB 9781350320598 • £18.99 / $25.95 ePDF 9781350320628 • £17.09 / $23.35 ePub 9781350320611 • £17.09 / $23.35 Methuen Drama
The book is structured in 6 parts (Beginning; The Michael Chekhov Tools; Classes; When in Rehearsals and Performance; Teaching; and The Michael Chekhov Discussion). It offers an in-depth study - through the breathtaking work of these 2 master teachers - of the methods that Chekhov developed to inform the actor's process and which should become central to the reader's own acting toolkit, to be used in stage craft, camera work and voice-over and teaching work.
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The Anatomy of Art
Unlocking the Creative Process for Theatre and Dance Alexandra Beller The Anatomy of Art reconnects you with the creative current already moving through you. A choose-your-own-adventure for performing artists, it offers 1000+ questions, frameworks, and field-tested scores that reveal options, deepen rigor, and help you trust yourself. Twelve elements—Time, Space, Relationship, Meaning, Environment, Process, Facts, Faith, Communication, Material, Context & Culture, and Priorities—create a working map for practice and performance. Built from three decades in devised dance and theater, it fits complex rooms and real lives: a ten-minute spark, a day of practice, a season-long arc. This is a companion for the first step and the begin-again—listening to desire, doubt, and faith while calibrating environment, UK June 2026 • US June 2026 208 Pages • 20 b&w HB 9781350564183 • £60.00 / $80.00 PB 9781350564176 • £18.99 / $25.95 ePDF 9781350564190 • £17.09 / $23.35 ePub 9781350564206 • £17.09 / $23.35 Methuen Drama
collaborators, and audience. When the work asks for more than you can name, these pages offer discerning questions, actionable practices, and grounded companionship—cultivating the courage to meet yourself, hear your voice, and make art that matters to you. With a preface by Marisa Tomei and contributions from Brenda Dixon Gottschild, Deborah Hay, Kate Hamill, Liz Lerman, Bebe Miller, and others, offering lenses on context, care, and craft.
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Kicking Up a Storm
The Living Theatre Troupe in 1970s New Zealand Ken Rea, Guildhall School of Music and Drama, UK The sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll frenzy of the counterculture movement is brought vividly to life in this often hilarious, uncensored account of a hippie theatre troupe in 1970s Aotearoa New Zealand. In their gaily painted old bus, the ‘troupies’ brought their disruptive, sometimes scandalous, brand of performance to parks and theatres, streets and beaches. The Living Theatre Troupe story, told by the people who made it happen, embraces political satire, psychedelic rock circus, nudity and an innocent optimism based on peace, love and flower power. But it also shows how theatre, as part of the anti-war protest movement, challenged social attitudes and helped change the politics of the time. Theatre Makers UK April 2026 • US April 2026 272 Pages • 32 bw illus PB 9781350569690 • £28.99 / $39.95 HB 9781350569683 • £90.00 / $120.00 ePDF 9781350569713 • £81.00 / $108.00 ePub 9781350569706 • £81.00 / $108.00 Methuen Drama
Drawing on diary excerpts and interviews, this inspirational book gives a startling glimpse of Kiwi culture, ‘can do’ spirit and ancient Maori traditions set against a backdrop of The Lord of the Rings landscapes. The bigger story concerns the importance of belonging; how we build on what has gone before us and how we pass on a powerful legacy to those who come after us – as captured in the Maori concept of whakapapa (genealogy).
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Skolt Saami Dance
The Transformative Journey of Tradition, Resilience, and the Arctic Quadrille Petri Hoppu, Oulu University of Applied Sciences, Finland & Marko Jouste This is the first book in English exploring the quadrille as danced among the Skolt Saami, one of the indigenous Saami peoples in Northern Europe. The Skolt quadrille - the focus of this book - offers a fascinating case of transnational movement of dance forms, as well as insights on a living dance tradition in a specific indigenous culture. Today, the Skolts’ quadrille is a social dance with six figures, and it is most often danced by four couples. The dance resembles quadrilles in northern Russia, but its historical roots are in the imperial French quadrille. Dance in the 21st Century
This book traces the history of the Skolt Saami through the lens of their dance and what is known of the Skolt quadrilles from
UK February 2026 • US February 2026 216 Pages • 58 bw illus HB 9781350249424 • £65.00 / $90.00 PB 9781350249417 • £19.99 / $26.95 ePDF 9781350249431 • £17.99 / $24.25 ePub 9781350249448 • £17.99 / $24.25 Bloomsbury Academic
historical sources. This is contrasted with contemporary narratives and practices, including interview materials with practitioners. The Skolt quadrille is examined as embodied action and as performance, taking place amid changing historical, social and cultural discourses. The book considers how the dance represents issues attached to the Skolt people's identity as a religious minority, both among the Finnish majority and the Saami; an evacuated community, living amid other Saami groups and Finns; and as Finnish citizens, most speaking Finnish as their first language.
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Choreographing Rebellion
Dance Practice from South Africa to Japan jackï job An auto-ethnographic account of a choreographic praxis developed outside of a Western framework, which engages with identity, decoloniality and transformation from a feminist perspective. Choreographing Rebellion details the methodologies and thinking-processes employed in the dramaturgy and performance of 24 choreographic works, produced by the author over almost three decades in South Africa and Japan. Drawing throughout on lived experiences and their socio-political contexts, the author's starting point is the crafting of a signature dance language to respond to the oppressive socio-political system of apartheid in their native South Africa. The second part speaks to choreographies to have come out of Japan, where elements of daily life and principles of Butoh UK May 2026 • US May 2026 184 Pages • 15 b&w PB 9781350452107 • £28.99 / $39.95 HB 9781350452060 • £85.00 / $115.00 ePDF 9781350452077 • £76.50 / $103.50 ePub 9781350452084 • £76.50 / $103.50 Bloomsbury Academic
are applied to making dance performance, and uniquely offers a first-hand understanding of Butoh in the line of Kazuo Ohno from a South African perspective. The book concludes again in South Africa, where the author's experience of Butoh in Japan assimilates into an already existent dance practice, with that synergy enabling new meanings of personhood in a post-apartheid context.
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NEW IN PB
(Post)Socialist Dance
A Search for Hidden Legacies Edited by Annelies Van Assche, Dunja Njaradi, Igor Koruga & Milica Ivic This book sets out to search for the Second World — the (post)socialist context — in dance studies and examines the way it appears and reappears in today’s globalized world. It traces hidden and invisibilized legacies over the span of one century, probing questions that can make viewers, artists, and scholars uncomfortable regarding dance histories, memories, circulations and production modes in and around the (post)socialist world. The contributions delve into a variety of dance practices (folk, traditional, ballet, modern, contemporary), modes of dance production (institutionalization processes, festivalmaking and market logics), and dance circulations (between centres and peripheries, between different genres and styles). The main focus is Eastern Europe (including Russia) but the book also addresses Cuba and China. The book’s historical examples make the reader aware, too, of the (post)socialist bodies’ influence in today’s dance, including in contemporary UK April 2026 • US April 2026 230 Pages • 22 bw illus HB 9781350408159 • £90.00 / $120.00 PB 9781350408197 • £28.99 / $39.95 ePDF 9781350408166 • £81.00 / $108.00 ePub 9781350408173 • £81.00 / $108.00 Bloomsbury Academic
dance scenes. The (post)socialist context promises to be a prosperous laboratory to explore uncomfortable questions of legitimacy. In view of reclaiming the Second World through dance, this book thus probes questions that should be asked today but are not easy to answer; questions that dance practitioners, facilitators, critics, and researchers, including ourselves, are often not at ease with either. In doing so, the cracks of dance history begin to be sealed, and neglected dance practices are written back into history, provided with the academic recognition that they deserve.
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The Industry Guide to Musical Theatre Auditions
Interviews with West End Creatives on How to Get the Part Shaun Aquilina 'When we're seeing hundreds of hundreds of people, you just stood out, and now I'm intrigued.' Laurence Connor, director Be the one standing out in your next audition, through the insight and experience of an elite group of West End creatives who have cast hundreds of shows. In The Industry Guide to Musical Theatre Auditions, sixteen directors, musical directors, choreographers, and casting directors, reveal what the casting panel is truly looking for. They discuss the whole audition process from submissions and first rounds to recalls, finals, and casting. They explain what makes an effective self-tape, how to stand out in a dance call, what song to choose, and how to work with a director. And they reveal the values that matter most to them when casting a UK February 2026 • US February 2026 208 Pages HB 9781350573505 • £65.00 / $90.00 PB 9781350573499 • £19.99 / $26.95 ePDF 9781350573512 • £17.99 / $24.25 ePub 9781350573529 • £17.99 / $24.25 Methuen Drama
performer so that you can be the artist and the professional they are looking for. Get first-hand guidance and advice from Sir Matthew Bourne, international directors Laurence Connor, Rupert Goold, and Sir Richard Eyre, three-time Olivier Award winning choreographer Stephen Mear, Tony Award-winning musical director Sarah Travis, casting directors Jim Arnold (Wicked), Pippa Ailion (The Lion King), Stuart Burt (Cabaret) and David Grindrod (Mamma Mia!), and more. This book is for anyone interested in performing in Musical Theatre, from students to professionals. It also gives valuable insight to teachers, coaches, and researchers, looking to shape Musical Theatre education to today’s industry standards. Shaun Aquilina is a writer, director, and performer. He has taught on the Musical Theatre degrees of many of the UK’s leading conservatoires and universities. He is also the author of Musical Theatre for the Female Voice: The Sensation, Sound, and Science, of Singing.
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Casting the Art of Rhetoric with Theater and Drama Taking Center Stage
Edited by Adrienne E. Hacker Daniels Casting the Art of Rhetoric with Theater and Drama: Taking Center Stage explores rhetoric and theater as they relate to one another, developing the understanding of rhetoric as theory and praxis. This book addresses rhetorical themes and cultural resonances, as well as the oft overlooked symbiosis of rhetoric and theater. Rather than addressing audiences as either observers of rhetorical artifacts or theatrical performance, this work demonstrates the intersection of the two, which strengthens theatrical events and their cultural significance. Overall, the volume showcases the many ways in which an understanding of the relationship between rhetorical and poetic theories can benefit dramatic convention and the breaking thereof.
UK June 2025 • US June 2025 456 Pages • 15 bw illus PB 9781666942040 • £31.99 / $39.95 HB 9781666942026 • £100.00 / $130.00 ePDF 9798765154281 • £90.00 / $117.00 ePub 9781666942033 • £90.00 / $117.00 Bloomsbury Academic
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God's Fools
Saints, Prophets, Martyrs, and the Making of Modern Comedy Jason Crawford, Union University, Jackson, TN, USA Comedians play a complicated role in modern culture. They get up on public stages to talk about nothing in particular, with no expertise. They go out of their way to put their flaws, failures, and shabbiness on display. They break social taboos and orchestrate their own persecution. And through it all, they seem to be touched with a kind of spiritual charisma. Sometimes they seem like prophets, speaking truths that no one else would dare. Sometimes they seem like children, wide-eyed and innocent. We can’t stop listening to what they have to say. In God’s Fools, Jason Crawford tells the stories of these strange figures. He ranges over a motley crew of modern comedians, from the pioneers of early cinema to the provocateurs of contemporary stand-up. But he also follows the story of UK February 2026 • US February 2026 256 Pages • 20 bw illus HB 9781493080595 • £26.00 / $35.00 ePDF 9798765161340 • £23.40 / $31.50 ePub 9781493080601 • £23.40 / $31.50 Bloomsbury Academic
the comedian further back, into a surprising history of holy fools, wild prophets, and mischief-making saints. In his account, comic performers from Charlie Chaplin to the present mingle with older figures like Francis of Assisi, Symeon the Fool, the laughing martyrs Perpetua, Lawrence, and Akiva, and the weird hermit Thecla of Iconium. As he uncovers the through-lines that connect these ancient lives to the world of modern comedy, Crawford asks how comedians still fashion themselves as prophetic and sacred characters.
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Rachel Crothers
Broadway Innovator, Feminist Pioneer John Bassett, president emeritus, Clark University This is the story behind one of the most important – yet largely forgotten – women in American theater during the early 20th century. Rachel Crothers was renowned for her ability to command all aspects of a stage production—unusual for playwrights and even more so for a woman of this time period. Rachel Crothers: Broadway Innovator, Feminist Pioneer celebrates her remarkable skill and feminism, from her experiences as a young actress in Illinois and New York to the success of her first play in 1906 and beyond. Crothers integrated themes of double standards, prostitution, and women’s rights in her work, and she went on to become President of the Stage Women’s War Relief Fund through both World Wars and the Great UK August 2025 • US August 2025 216 Pages • 10 b/w photos HB 9798881804916 • £25.00 / $36.00 ePDF 9798765148730 • £22.50 / $32.40 ePub 9798881804923 • £22.50 / $32.40 Bloomsbury Academic
Depression. Incorporating extensive archival material, this book also discusses each of Crother’s plays with careful consideration for her attention to detail, character influences, motivations for social justice, and creative vision.
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Physicality and Acting
Movement Training as a Catalyst for Change Shona Morris Movement teachers, from outliers to pioneers, have changed theatre and physical expression for ever. In recognition of the movement pioneers, this book is part-memoir and part-historical research as author Shona Morris traces the roots of her own pedagogy for movement training in drama schools from these radical beginnings. She acknowledges some of the shadows, which affected her own practice, the provenance of Laban in particular, and the current need for discourse to review these approaches, through practice-based research. The book includes exercises and approaches developed by the author in the classroom and the studio that illustrate how UK April 2026 • US April 2026 280 Pages • 12 bw illus HB 9781350369153 • £75.00 / $100.00 PB 9781350369146 • £24.99 / $34.95 ePDF 9781350369177 • £22.49 / $31.45 ePub 9781350369160 • £22.49 / $31.45 Methuen Drama
actors can link their physicality to the craft of transformation and interpretation. The exercises accessibly cover both technical and expressive work, and offer principles for transformation through animal study, mask work, and character work. The book also includes numerous practical examples, interviews and cases studies of how to teach and apply movement to theatre making. It also offers ways to facilitate your own vision and actor’s movement course in response to the present moment.
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The In-Between
Intimate and Candid Moments of Broadway Stars Jenny Anderson In a world of marquee names and big personalities, Jenny Anderson is a legend in her own right. As a celebrated Broadway photographer, she has worked with the most important performers in theatre and used the power of photography to tell the stories behind the stories: what happens backstage on a Broadway show.
The In-Between: Intimate and Candid Moments of Broadway Stars has been years in the making. It is Anderson’s personal ode to the theatre community, including more than 100 of her photographs taken behind the scenes of the most iconic shows UK May 2025 • US May 2025 144 Pages • 126 Color Photos HB 9781493088119 • £35.00 / $45.00 ePDF 9798765160664 • £31.50 / $40.50 ePub 9781493088126 • £31.50 / $40.50 Applause
of the last decade: Hamilton, Wicked, The Lion King, Kinky Boots, Sweeney Todd, Waitress, Hadestown, Phantom of the Opera, and many, many more. With a foreword from Tony Nominee and Oscar Winner Ariana DeBose and rare photography of performers like Patti LuPone, Hugh Jackman, Chita Rivera, Jonathan Groff, and Gavin Creel, this gorgeous book gives Broadway fans a privileged glance behind the curtains of the world’s most prestigious theaters and the stars who grace their stages.
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New British Drama in 15 Scenes Adventures in Theatre Criticism
Aleks Sierz, Freelance arts journalist, UK This is a wide-ranging and accessible account of new writing in British theatre during the 2010s, written in a boldly experimental style. A guide to the key plays and playwriting innovations, it enlightens, amuses and provokes in equal measure. Across 15 chapters, each written in a different form, it takes the reader on an engaging tour of new drama in British theatre from 2010 until the arrival of COVID-19. It considers mega hits such as Fleabag and Matilda the Musical, as well as offering accounts of some 250 plays that premiered in those years. Structured around the big concerns of the decade, it explores social issues, politics, Brexit, dystopias, experimental theatre, family, gender, race, history, adaptations and the West End. UK April 2026 • US April 2026 200 Pages HB 9781350567924 • £50.00 / $68.00 PB 9781350567917 • £16.99 / $22.95 ePDF 9781350567931 • £15.29 / $20.65 ePub 9781350567948 • £15.209 / $20.65 Methuen Drama
A decade of drama is thrown into sharp relief through the symphony of literary styles and voices that characterize the chapters: from dialogues, monologues, a diary and a listings magazine, to an experimental A to Z, informal notes, quotations from real-life interviews, a documentary script and a memoir. The variety of perspectives mirrors the richness of our contemporary culture and the innovations in theatre that are celebrated in New British Drama in 15 Scenes.
Nonconforming Criticism
Political Practices and Poetics at the Borderlands of Performance Diana Damian Martin Nonconforming Criticism examines forms of thinking at the borderlands of performance that defy, dispute and resist the category of criticism. Against the backdrop of forms of governance and regulation of thought under late liberalism, this open access book looks to those who refuse to reproduce colonial logics in criticism by investing in unruly experiments in thinking from, and through, performance. Focusing on the period between the early noughties and early twenty-twenties, the book analyses critical practices such as live writing, artist-led publications, zines, gatherings and experiments with video, sound and publishing from cultural workers and thinkers migrating across borders, knowledges and contexts. These practices are often peripheralized from established forms of criticism, yet they shape criticality as a form of political imagination. Thinking Through Theatre UK June 2026 • US May 2026 224 Pages PB 9781350565906 • £28.99 / $39.95 HB 9781350178595 • £85.00 / $115.00 ePDF 9781350178618 • £0.00 / $0.00 ePub 9781350178601 • £0.00 / $0.00 Methuen Drama
Unpacking the logics that shape professionalised criticism, and in dialogue with decolonial, abolitionist and feminist theorisations of politics and knowledge, the book focuses on nonconforming criticism as a practice of unlearning. Structured into three parts, the book constitutes a partial lexicon of Borders, Experiments and Practices. It moves through forms of thinking-in-public that reconfigure relations of sensing and meaning between criticism, performance and political life, against the imperial and separatist logics of criticism and its entanglements.
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Pioneering Theatre-in-the-Round
The Victoria Theatre in Stoke-on-Trent, 1962-1986 Rachel Walker, Independent scholar, UK Offering a comprehensive examination into the Victoria Theatre in Stoke-on-Trent under its then director Peter Cheeseman, this book provides the first detailed history of a theatre-in-the-round and demonstrates its profound influence on the careers of prominent actors, directors and writers throughout the UK. As the longest serving director of a regional theatre and creator of verbatim theatre, Peter Cheeseman’s contribution to the arts is undeniable. He was a pioneering director, having been described as ‘the most influential practitioner of theatre-in-theround’, and yet his contribution has not received the attention it warrants. This book offers a comprehensive critical history of Cheeseman’s work at the Victoria Theatre in Stoke-on-Trent, and of the establishment of Europe’s first theatre-in-the-round Cultural Histories of Theatre and Performance UK April 2026 • US April 2026 224 Pages • 15 bw illus PB 9781350448001 • £28.99 / $39.95 HB 9781350447967 • £85.00 / $115.00 ePDF 9781350447981 • £76.50 / $103.50 ePub 9781350447974 • £76.50 / $103.50 Methuen Drama
in the industrial region of 1960s Staffordshire. Offering an initial explanation of the formative years of the theatre under Cheeseman, right up until the establishment of the New Vic in 1986, Pioneering Theatre-in-the-Round provides a fascinating insight into the importance of the work that took place under Cheeseman’s direction. Drawing on largely untouched archival resources and original interview material, the book recovers Cheeseman's significance, the formation of theatre-in-the-round at the Victoria Theatre, and highlights the significance of work taking place in theatres outside London during the period 1962-1986.
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OPEN ACCESS
Medicine as Theatre, Theatre as Medicine Edited by Marlene Goldman, University of Toronto, Canada, Alice Flaherty, Harvard Medical School, USA & Lawrence Switzky, University of Toronto, Canada This open access book argues there are deep connections between theatre and medicine which guide transformative insights in both disciplines. While contemporary theatre has embraced its links to the healing arts, doctors and patients may prefer to forget the relationship between theatre and medicine, but this book argues that understanding the performative aspects of caregivers’ and patients’ roles can actually help improve medical outcomes. It features chapters and interviews not only from scholars in the medical and health humanities and theatre, performance, and disability studies, but also from key stakeholders such as doctors, medical educators, disability activists, home caregivers and patients. The volume maintains that patients’ and doctors’ performances cannot be understood in isolation, nor does interpretation happen in only one direction. Performance and Science: Interdisciplinary Dialogues UK June 2026 • US June 2026 368 Pages • 24 bw illus PB 9781350460768 • £39.99 / $54.95 HB 9781350460720 • £130.00 / $175.00 ePDF 9781350460744 • £0.00 / $0.00 ePub 9781350460737 • £0.00 / $0.00 Methuen Drama
By analyzing the ensemble drama of illness, by proposing enhancements to medicine’s “hidden curriculum” through roleplay, dramaturgy, and actor-training in theatre and social performance theory, and by bringing patients into the conversation, the book offers rigorous research and real-world benefits. The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com.
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Performing the Radical India in the 21st Century
Edited by Ashis Sengupta, University of North Bengal, India This volume redefines the radical by exploring a range of contemporary theatre and performance produced in response to the politico-cultural climate of 21st-century India. Offering a critique of dominant power structures in India, this book showcases how the rise in censorship and intolerance of dissent has brought forth new forms of political and aesthetic radicalism. Theatre has found many ways to perform the radical as a form of resistance, intersecting with other art forms as well as the political itself in its performative articulations. Chapters include discussions of the performance of protest; creation of an alternative worldview through indigenous rituals Methuen Drama Agitations: Text, Politics and Performances UK May 2026 • US May 2026 256 Pages • 10 bw illus PB 9781350465657 • £28.99 / $39.95 HB 9781350465619 • £85.00 / $115.00 ePDF 9781350465633 • £76.50 / $103.50 ePub 9781350465626 • £76.50 / $103.50 Methuen Drama
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and cultural festivals; world-making through transformative encounters; devised plays and documentary theatre as tools of dissent; radical imperatives of care in animated videos and short films; scenography and the actor’s body as sites of resistance, the performance of faith as survival in a hostile world and conversations with artists. The radical in contemporary Indian theatre and performance is shown to lie in creating a new ‘transgressive aesthetic,’ often formally hybrid, to project alternative perspectives and possibilities.
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Metamodernism in Contemporary British Theatre A Politics of Hope/lessness
Tom Drayton, University of East London, UK Postmodern theatre is dead. A new theatre is rising – one that combines the well-worn postmodern aesthetics of irony, detachment, and deconstruction with a paradoxical interest in authenticity, engagement, and re-construction. Whilst recent scholarship has treated these evolving interests as unrelated shifts in performance aesthetics, this volume proposes a new understanding: that these are part of a wider emerging cultural paradigm – metamodernism. Metamodernism in Contemporary British Theatre is the first book to focus on metamodernism and performance, offering a pioneering framework by which to identify and understand metamodern theatre. By drawing critical links between the works of performance theorists such as Anne Bogart and Andy Lavender and the metamodern as defined by Timotheus Vermeulen and Robin van den Akker, this book makes a clear, vital, and urgent case for the use of the term metamodernism within mainstream theatre scholarship. Methuen Drama Engage UK May 2026 • US May 2026 224 Pages • 10 bw illus HB 9781350286429 • £90.00 / $120.00 PB 9781350286467 • £28.99 / $39.95 ePDF 9781350286443 • £81.00 / $108.00 ePub 9781350286436 • £81.00 / $108.00 Methuen Drama
Focussing on small-scale theatre companies across the UK – including Poltergeist, YESYESNONO, Middle Child and The Gramophones, many of whom have not been documented in academia before – this book also provides a unique analysis of the theatre made by British millennials, a generation who have been distinctly affected by specific structures of contemporary precarity coinciding with this wider cultural shift. Through this, Metamodernism in Contemporary British Theatre makes a crucial contribution towards understanding emergent developments in post-millennial theatre practice across Britain and beyond.
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Staging the Lyric
Modern and Contemporary Experiments with Verse Drama Sarah Berry, University of Dallas, USA Verse drama is not a dead form, but very much alive on the contemporary stage. Drawing on plays from throughout the English-speaking world, including the United States, United Kingdom, Ireland, and the Caribbean, Staging the Lyric seeks to explain the 21st-century resurgence of Anglophone verse drama, tracing it back to an experimental impulse that is present in the modernist verse drama of a century ago. Covering major writers including Derek Walcott, Seamus Heaney, Sylvia Plath, Samuel Beckett, Dorothy Sayers, Djuna Barnes, and Ntozake Shange, it also encompasses lesser known and more recent poets and playwrights. This modern verse drama differs from its ancient and Elizabethan antecedents as it is understood not as a genre in its own right, but as a hybrid of the lyric and the dramatic. Both modernist and contemporary writers take advantage of this hybridity as fertile ground for experimentation. While they differ in their ideology and form, this book contends that they are united by exploring Critical Companions UK June 2026 • US June 2026 240 Pages • 8 bw illus HB 9781350420380 • £85.00 / $115.00 PB 9781350420465 • £28.99 / $39.95 ePDF 9781350420403 • £76.50 / $103.50 ePub 9781350420397 • £76.50 / $103.50 Methuen Drama
the relationship between lyric and dramatic elements on stage and what these two different modes afford. To demonstrate this continuity, it traces a genealogy from contemporary plays by Joanna Laurens, Joyelle McSweeney, and David Grieg back to W.B. Yeats, Gertrude Stein, T.S. Eliot, and W.H. Auden, to reveal that the tensions that animate verse drama have stayed the same, even as the strategies for staging them have evolved. The book is divided into three sections—‘Voice,’ ‘Words,’ and ‘Time’—each treating one feature that has been used to define the lyric. Within these sections, the chapters compare contemporary plays with modernist ones that experiment with the same point of tension between the lyric and the dramatic.
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Harold Pinter, Fascism, and Outrage Aesthetic and Moral Implications Dennis Eugene Russell This book locates Harold Pinter’s controversial anti-fascism, overtly political plays not as revolutionary works designed to mobilize the masses, but as cries of moral outrage against the authoritarian forces of oppression. Displaying on stage the plight of political prisoners facing illegal detainment, brutal interrogation, and torture, Pinter employs an aggressive, graphic style seeking to shock spectators out of their apathy and denial, and encourage awareness of such documented realities of fascist rule. Russell argues that Pinter’s political plays are not propagandistic screeds, but rather reflect a level of quasi-journalistic facticity about the global rise of fascism. The author emphasizes that Pinter develops a fictional framework in an effort to reach a level of truth beyond the mere compilation of facts. Pinter seeks to abrasively drill UK September 2025 • US September 2025 200 Pages PB 9781666943962 • £17.99 / $39.95 HB 9781666943948 • £80.00 / $100.00 ePDF 9798216197836 • £72.00 / $90.00 ePub 9781978770522 • £72.00 / $90.00 Bloomsbury Academic
down through the facts of political torture to expose the truth that lies at the rotting core of fascism. Russell interprets Pinter’s fascism plays as artifacts of anti-theatre that abandon conventional theatrical narrative in favor of a sensorial assault on spectators to raise consciousness of the rising threat of fascist rule. He argues that by compelling audiences to witness fascist brutality, Pinter paints spectators into a corner of moral perplexity.
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Applied Puppetry
The Theory and Practice of Object Ecologies Matt Smith, University of Portsmouth, UK Drawing on thirty years of making theatre with objects, this field-defining book maps the terrain of applied puppetry. Through a range of case studies both personal and practical, Matt Smith offers a reflective and engaging study which provides makers, thinkers and students alike with a toolkit for thinking about and making puppetry in community settings. Through eight chapters, Smith muses on the nature of creativity, explores approaches to puppetry through ecology, and considers how puppets and objects affect the act of making and – in turn – how they affect those who make, use and experience them in performance. UK May 2026 • US May 2026 200 Pages • 20 bw HB 9781350279407 • £90.00 / $120.00 PB 9781350279445 • £28.99 / $39.95 ePDF 9781350279421 • £81.00 / $108.00 ePub 9781350279414 • £81.00 / $108.00 Methuen Drama
Along the way, Applied Puppetry offers practical exercises in theatre-making, demonstrates the political power of puppetry beyond borders, and interrogates the limitations and possibilities of puppetry and object theatre in local communities, volatile contexts and difficult circumstances.
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Placeness and the Performative Production of Space Aleksandar Sasha Dundjerovic, Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, Birmingham City University, UK & María José Martínez Sánchez, Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, UK Marrying theory with a series of international case studies of performance practice and interviews with practitioners, this interdisciplinary study examines how space is performatively produced to create a sense of ‘placeness’. Offering multiple perspectives on space and place, this book investigates the connections between space and the construction of social and cultural narratives. It focuses on the multiple ways performative actions produce space, including theatre, installations, site-specific work, visual arts and digital performance. Combining interdisciplinary approaches to contemporary performance, architecture and digital media studies, this study UK April 2026 • US April 2026 216 Pages • 8 colour and 20 bw illus HB 9781350349810 • £90.00 / $120.00 PB 9781350349858 • £28.99 / $39.95 ePDF 9781350349834 • £81.00 / $108.00 ePub 9781350349827 • £81.00 / $108.00 Methuen Drama
builds on a clear theoretical framework that draws on the work of Walter Benjamin, Michel Foucault, Henri Lefevre, Richard Schechner, Hans-Thies Lehmann, Lev Manovich and Slavoj Žižek. It offers themed sections comprising theory, studies of practice and interviews with practitioners. Case studies include site-specific work by Catalan collective La Fura Dels Baus, Barcelona, Spain, the Prague Quadrennial, community engagement in Praça Roosevelt in Sao Paulo, Brazil, the Portland Inn Project in Stoke-on-Trent, UK, Campo de la Cebada in Madrid, Spain, and digital spaces created by artists in India and Bosnia and Herzegovina.
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Orders & Customer Services Hachette UK Distribution Hely Hutchinson Centre Milton Road Didcot OX11 7HH T +44 (0)1235 759555 E academic@hachette.co.uk
Middle East and North Africa Jennifer Ebende International Sales Executive Bloomsbury Publishing Plc E jennifer.ebende@bloomsbury.com
Matthew Emery Academic & Professional Sales Director, UK and Export Bloomsbury Publishing Plc M +44 (0)7979 524704 E matthew.emery@bloomsbury.com Aline Bischof Sales Administrator Bloomsbury Publishing Plc E aline.bischof@bloomsbury.com Madiha Qureshi UK & Ireland Sales Assistant Bloomsbury Publishing Plc E madiha.qureshi@bloomsbury.com
DIGITAL RESOURCES – INSTITUTIONAL SALES North and South America E OnlineSalesUS@bloomsbury.com UK, Europe, Middle East, Africa, and Asia E OnlineSalesUK@bloomsbury.com
AFRICA
Australia and New Zealand E OnlineSalesANZ@bloomsbury.com BLOOMSBURY OFFICES WORLDWIDE
Southern Africa (Lesotho, Botswana, Namibia, Republic of South Africa, and Swaziland) Jonathan Ball Publishers PO Box 33977 Johannesburg 2043 South Africa T +27 21 469 8900 F +27 21 469 8901 E academic@jonathanball.co.za Rest of Africa Tula Publishing Ltd Wychwood House, 14 Hanborough Business Park Witney, OX29 8LH, UK T +44 (0)1993 886719 E julian@tulapublishing.co.uk ASIA
ADOPTION SALES: South East of England and London Susannah Spillman E susannah.spillman@bloomsbury.com ADOPTION SALES: South West of England, Midlands, and Wales Francesca Jenkinson E francesca.jenkinson@bloomsbury.com ADOPTION SALES: North of England and Scotland Stephanie Roberts E stephanie.roberts@bloomsbury.com EUROPE Jasmin Atkins International Sales Manager Bloomsbury Publishing Plc T +44 (0)2076 315865 E jasmin.atkins@bloomsbury.com Scandinavia Fazi Ramjhun International Sales Manager Bloomsbury Publishing Plc T +44 (0)770 832 4291 E fazi.ramjhun@bloomsbury.com Central and Eastern Europe Jacek Lewinson Nowogrodzka 18m.20 PL-00-511 Warszawa Poland M +48 (0)502 603290 E jacek@jaceklewinson.com Austria, Cyprus, Greece, and Israel Phil Tyers Tyers Book Sales Ltd Kioutachias 7 14231 Nea Ionia, Athens, Greece T +30 6977 558872 E philip@ptyers.com Spain, Portugal, and Gibraltar Charlotte Prout Iberian Book Services Sector Islas, 12, 1B 28760 Tres Cantos Madrid, Spain T +34 91 8034918 F +34 91 8035936 E cprout@iberianbookservices.com
USA, Canada, Latin America
Chris Cheung International Sales Manager Bloomsbury Publishing Plc E chris.cheung@bloomsbury.com
Canada Login Canada 300 Saulteaux Crescent Winnipeg, MB R3J 3T2 Canada E custserv@lb.ca T + 1-800-665-1148 For examination copies in Canada, please contact askacademic@ bloomsbury.com
China April Zheng International Sales Representative Bloomsbury Publishing Plc T +86 135 2056 3987 E april.zheng@bloomsbury.com Pakistan M. Anwer Iqbal Book Bird Lower Ground 36B Abdalians Society Nazaria - e - Pakistan Avenue Lahore 54770, Pakistan T +92 42 3595 6161 M +92 313 846 4747 E anwer.bookbird@gmail.com
For all other international queries please contact exportorders@ bloomsbury.com RIGHTS Joanna Sharland Rights Director E joanna.sharland@bloomsbury.com
South Korea Information and Culture Korea 49, Donggyo-ro 13-gil, Mapo-gu Seoul 03997 South Korea T +822 3141 4791 F +822 3141 7733 E cs.ick@ick.co.kr
Isabel López Ruiz Senior Rights Manager China simplified and complex, Spain and Latin America, Portugal and Brazil E Isabel.LopezRuiz@bloomsbury.com
Philippines CRW Marketing Services for Publishers, Inc 01 Topaz Road, Greenheights, Barangay San Isidro Taytay, Rizal, Philippines 1920 T +63 (0)2584 8448 / +63 2660 5480 E crwmarketing@pldtdsl.net Mongolia Internom LLC Inter Office, Amar’s street-4 Sukhbaatar district, 14200 Ulaanbaatar Mongolia T +97 (0)6757 77700 E service@internom.mn
Alison Faulkner Rights Manager Germany, France, Netherlands, Italy, Scandinavia, Balkans, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Greece, Slovenia, Romania, TV and Dramatisation E alison.faulkner@bloomsbury.com Isabelle Cowles Rights Manager Japan, South East Asia, Central and South Asia, US, Canada and English language globally, Digital E isabelle.cowles@bloomsbury.com Izabella Pearson Rights Executive Turkey, West Asia incl Middle East, Baltics, Ukraine, Africa E izabella.pearson@bloomsbury.com
LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN
Noelle Lee Rights Assistant Korea, Permissions and General Inquiries, Rowman & Littlefield E noelle.lee@bloomsbury.com
Jim Papworth itsabook Ltd T +44 7802848778 E james.papworth@itsabook.com ADOPTION SALES: Latin America, the Caribbean, and Mexico Kirby Pendergast Higher Education Sales Representative T + 1 212 419 5354 C + 1 646 369 3348 E kirby.pendergast@bloomsbury.com
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Australia and New Zealand Bloomsbury Publishing Pty Ltd Level 6 387 George St Sydney 2000 NSW Australia T +61 (0)288 204900 E au@bloomsbury.com USA Bloomsbury Publishing 1385 Broadway, 5th Floor New York, NY, 10018 USA T +1 (0)2124 195407 E askacademic@bloomsbury.com
UK AND IRELAND Sarah Ailsby Head of UK & Ireland Sales Bloomsbury Publishing Plc M +44 (0)7824 435717 E sarah.ailsby@bloomsbury.com
India, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Sri Lanka Bloomsbury Publishing India Pvt. Ltd. DDA Complex, LSC, Building No. 4, 2nd Floor, Pocket C-6&7, Vasant Kunj New Delhi 110070 India T +91 11 4057 4957 / +91 11 4057 4954 E academic-in@bloomsbury.com
888-330-8477
Sophie Flint Vázquez Rights Assistant Permissions and General Inquiries E sophie.flintvazquez@bloomsbury.com
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