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Explores the way in which the stories of the Caesars, and of the Julio-Claudians in particular, can be used to figure the stories of English rulers on the Renaissance stage. This title demonstrates how early modern English dramatists, using Roman modes of literary representation as cover, commented on the issues of the day.

In the early seventeenth century, the London stage often portrayed a ruler covertly spying on his subjects. Commonly dated to the arrival of James I, these plays are typically viewed as synchronic commentaries on the Jacobean regime. This title demonstrates that the disguised ruler motif actually evolved in the 1580s.

Features essays that share a common concern with exploring maternity's cultural representation, performative aspects and practical consequences in the period from 1540-1690. This work includes essays that interrogate how early modern texts depict fertility, conception, delivery, and gendered constructions of maternity.

Unruly Audiences and the Theater of Control in Early Modern London explores the effects of audience riots on the dramaturgy of early modern playwrights, arguing that playwrights from Marlowe to Brome often used their plays to control the physical reactions of their audience.

Focuses on the implications of the archival research which has profoundly changed our view of the continuation of performances of Chester's civic biblical play cycle into the reign of Elizabeth I. This volume includes essays that focus on the performance of 1572 which took place despite the objections of the bishop of Chester.

Offers fresh interpretations of Shakespeare's works in the context of two major contemporary notions of collectivity: the crowd and rumour. This plays illustrates that rumour and crowd are mutually dependent; they also betray a fascination with the fact that crowd and rumour make individuality disappear.

Drawing upon the scholarship in Renaissance studies regarding notions of the body, political, physical and social, this study examines how the satiric tragedians of the English Renaissance employ the languages of sex - including sexual slander, titillation, insinuation and obscenity - in the service of satiric aggression.

Considering major works by Kyd, Shakespeare, Middleton and Webster among others, this book transforms understanding of early modern revenge tragedy. It shows revenge tragedy is not an anti-Catholic and Reformist genre, but one rooted in, and in dialogue with, traditional Catholic culture.

Featuring chapters dealing with Shakespeare and performance culture in modernity, this collection intends to bring better understanding to Shakespeare's imaginative investment in the relationship between theatrical production and the emotional, intellectual and cultural effects of performance broadly defined in social terms.

Some characters in some medieval English mysteries wore masks. Why should this have been and what did it contribute to the plays and their performance? This study seeks to historicize and contextualize the moments and patters of mask-wearing in the Middle Ages.

Investigates significant and unexplored signs of John Marston's literary rivalry with Ben Jonson. This book argues that the anonymous play "The Family of Love", sometimes attributed to Thomas Middleton and sometimes to Lording Barry, was in part the work of John Marston, and that it constitutes a whimsical statement of amity with Jonson.

Offering evidence of women's extensive contributions to the theatrical landscape, this volume sharply challenges the assumption that the stage was "all male" in early modern England. The editors and contributors argue that the pervasiveness of female performance affected cultural production, even on the professional London stages that used men and boys for women's parts. In short, Women Players in England 1500-1660 shows that women were dynamic cultural players in the early modern world.

A study of laughter and weeping in English theatres, broadly defined, from around 1550 until their closure in 1642. This title is concerned both with the representation of these actions on the stage, and with what can be reconstructed about the laughter and weeping of theatrical audiences themselves.

Contends that academic drama represents an important, but understudied, site of cultural production in early modern England. Focusing on plays that were written and performed in academic environments, this work investigates how those plays strive to give coherence to issues of religion, politics, gender, pedagogy, education, and economics.

Focusing on Christopher Marlowe, William Shakespeare, John Webster and John Milton, Martyrs and Players in Early Modern England argues that the English tragedians reflected a crisis within their society over acts of religious violence.

Using the interactions of a range of English Renaissance plays with ancient and Renaissance rhetorics, this study analyzes the conflicted uses of emulation in the period. The author also reassesses and nuances our understanding of the roles and significance of emulation in the Renaissance.

Through fresh and unconventional approaches, including critical/historical, printing/publishing and performance studies, this study mines Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" to produce insights into the early modern family, the individual, and society in the context of early modern capitalism. It also includes a CD-ROM.

Disguise devices figure in many early modern English plays, and an examination of them clearly affords an important reflection on the growth of early theatre as well as on important aspects of the developing nation. In this study, the author considers a range of practical issues related to the performance of disguise.

Emphasizing a performative and stage-centered approach, this book considers early modern European theater as an international phenomenon. It studies various modalities of exchange, including the material and causal influence of one theater upon another, as in the case of actors traveling beyond their own regional boundaries.