Text & Presentation, 2021

This volume is the seventeenth in a series dedicated to presenting the latest findings in the fields of comparative drama and performance. Featuring eleven essays from the 2021 Comparative Drama Conference in Orlando, it includes new research on contemporary plays by Anne Washburn, Will Arbery, Matthew Lopez, Anna Deveare Smith and Qui Nguyen. Chapters also present new research for classic plays such as Measure for Measure and Cyrano, arguments for teaching science through drama, changing approaches for training actors, and using the insights of neuroscience to lure audiences back to live theatre. This year’s volume also features a new interview with playwright Anne Washburn and seven book reviews centered on drama and theatre studies.

Amy Muse is a professor of English at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota. She has written a book on Sarah Ruhl as well as essays on drama, intimacy, and travel.

Edited by Amy Muse
Format: softcover (6 x 9)
Pages: 244
Bibliographic Info: notes, bibliographies, index
Copyright Date: 2023
pISBN: 978-1-4766-8289-1
eISBN: 978-1-4766-4966-5
Imprint: McFarland
Series: The Comparative Drama Conference Series

Acknowledgments vii
Preface 1
A Conversation with Anne Washburn
Laura Snyder 5
“Shakespeare’s #MeToo Play”? Shakespeare and Sexual Politics on the Contemporary Stage
Lee Conderacci 29
The Embodied Cartoon: The Move Toward Universal in Anne Washburn’s Mr. Burns: A ­Post-Electric Play
Ian Downes 50
The Play in the Bubble: Heroes of the Fourth Turning and Political Isolation in the Time of Covid
Bess Rowen 66
“It takes a lot of time”: Immediacy, Crisis, and the Narrativity of Health in Anna Deavere Smith’s Let Me Down Easy
Jeffrey M. Brown 83
Matthew Lopez’s The Inheritance: A Queer Adaptation of Forster’s Howards End
David Pellegrini 104
Rap Battles with David Henry Hwang: The Playwright’s Voice in Qui Nguyen’s The Inexplicable Redemption of Agent G
Dan Bacalzo 125
Including the Excluded: Dramatizing Historical Struggle Narratives Reveals Science’s Hidden Figures
Denise Gillman, Danielle Hartman,
and Shannon McNeely 135
A Distant Princess and a Mystic’s Well: Forerunners of Cyrano’s Tragicomedy
Jeffrey B. Loomis 155
An Actress Prepares: How Typecasting for Women in Theatre Perpetuates Cycles of Trauma
Sarah Elizabeth Keyes 170
Power Dynamics in Theatre Education: How Classroom Practices Act as Psychological Grooming for Damaging Systems in Professional Theatre
Hilary M.K. Moore 183
The Body Electric: Using Neuroscience and Theater to Reclaim Empathy in the ­Twenty-First Century
Tracy Bersley 194
Review of Literature: Selected Books
Kevin Winkler. Everything Is Choreography: The Musical Theater of Tommy Tune
Jay Malarcher 211
Henry Schvey. Blue Song: St. Louis in the Life and Work of Tennessee Williams
Benjamin P. Stanford 214
Laura Bissell and Lucy Weir, eds. Performance in a Pandemic
Maria-Elena Doyle 216
Pamela Bickley and Jenny Stevens. Studying Shakespeare Adaptation: From Restoration Theatre to YouTube
Verna A. Foster 219
Chantal Bilodeau and Thomas Peterson, eds. Lighting the Way: An Anthology of Short Plays About the Climate Crisis
Ben Stasny 223
Anne Bogart. The Art of Resonance
Thomas L. Rothacker 225
Miriam M. Chirico and Kelly Younger, eds. How to Teach a Play: Essential Exercises for Popular Plays
Deana Nichols 228
Index 231

From previous volumes: “Edited with care…preserves the conference experience by extending its scholarly dialogue to the wider reading community…many fine essays”—New England Theatre Journal.