This thesis investigates the role of arts practitioners in cultural policy activity, both as a general concern for cultural policy studies and in the specific arena of post-war cultural policy in Britain. In so doing it challenges a common perception that arts practitioners have no such involvement, and seeks to discover the extent and form of their activity. it explores the history of practitioners’ participation in cultural policy formation and implementation; what obstacles they have faced and how their involvement could be better facilitated; and, importantly, why it matters whether they are involved. These issues have remained largely unrecognised among cultural policy researchers. Part II of the thesis examines the subject through a case study of new playwriting policy in England. Drawing on unpublished primary documents, interviews, and observation, it pays particular attention to playwrights’ organisations and their history of self-directed activity. These organisations and other agencies concerned with theatre writing are embedded in networks which cross the boundaries of policy and creative practice. The thesis argues that arts practitioners can enhance their place in the policy process through their own actions, and that participation in these networks increases their opportunity for policy input and influence. Of key importance is the question as to why the involvement of practitioners in cultural policy activity is of any significance. The thesis puts forward the view that arts practitioners and their organisations can be seen as part of the fabric of civil society, and their participation in policy activity as contributing to the maintenance and enlargement of democratic life. It is, then, not a marginal issue, nor of concern to the arts alone, but integral to a wider debate about sustaining democratic engagement and the civic arena in the twenty-first century.

This thesis explores the under-theorised and under-mapped area of labour supply within the field of artistic production. It agrees with cultural economists that the neoclassical economic theoretical models used to analyse the behaviour of artistic labour supply are inadequate - hampered by a lack of differentiated understanding of the employment modes, transactional roles and internal market relationships of artistic production. This thesis argues that generating a more powerful dynamic model for artistic labour behaviour depends on factoring in variables associated with work mode and functional role. There is evidence to suggest that artists and in particular, actors and dancers who are the subject of this study, mix a variety of functional roles in a mixed portfolio of entrepreneurial and employed work and the "mix" may change at different points in the career. Moreover, artists make apparently "irrational" work choices which cannot be explained by neo-classical economic theory. The thesis uses an empirical study of the working lives of eight performing artists to investigate the ways in which they act and inter-act within the artistic labour market. It finds that rational work choices are made which balance opportunities for accumulating reputation, investing in expertise, creative engagement and the minimising of financial risk.

The aim of this collaborative doctoral research project, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), is to explore the interrelationships of internationalism and multiculturalism and how they impact upon the aesthetic and ethical practices of the youth theatre groups (The Young REP) fostered by The Birmingham Repertory Theatre. Examining spatial dynamics, this research explores the hypothesis that there are ‘inbetween zones’ generated by internationalism and multiculturalism which may provide ethical as well as aesthetic space for promoting community based theatre projects with young people of varied ethnicities. I focus on three of nine youth theatre groups organised by the theatre and explore their relationship with the theatre and each other. The groups had differing access to the theatre building - occasional audience members (case study one), occasional performers (case study two), and regularly rehearsing/performing at the theatre (case study three). The study discovered that the more insider access a young person has to a theatre the deeper the levels of meaning they ascribe to it. Case study one is based in a community with a majority Muslim Pakistani population. Highlighting the specific realities of being young and Muslim in 2011, the research explores the role that ethnicity has on engagement with the theatre and the youth theatre. Case study two is based in a working class community. Interrogating the young people’s own assessment of their area as ‘chavy’, the research highlights the impact of class on accessing The REP and its youth theatre. The final study explores the relationship to the theatre of a youth theatre group which rehearsed inside the building and the consequences of the theatre closing for refurbishment for two years. It also examines why this centrally based youth theatre group was unrepresentative of city demographics. I conclude by reflecting on the effectiveness of the strategies implemented by the theatre. This study should be relevant to other theatres, youth theatres and organisations seeking to increase their accessibility and cultural representation.

This thesis examines the translation of dialect in drama in German-speaking Europe, exploring the complex influences on the choice of strategies by practitioners. Utilising paradigms of Descriptive Translation Studies, polysystem theory and norms theory, it investigates how the target culture influences dialect translation practice. The study offers, for the first time, a systematic overview of the functions of dialect in drama, and the translation strategies available, identifying the influences on dialect translation practice in northern Germany, German-speaking Switzerland and Scotland. Based on these, three research areas are explored, focussing on northern Germany, German-speaking Switzerland and Luxembourg: - the sociolinguistic situation and the emergence of oral standard; - the use of dialect in German-language drama as a stylistic device in particular genres and, especially, for socio-political functions; - how the translation process illuminates the norms for drama and dialect translation and their connection with both sociolinguistic factors and norms of German drama production. Three case studies exemplify the findings, illustrating the complexity of targetculture- related factors that had an impact on translating three British plays into standard and into Swiss German, Low German and Luxembourgish: Stephen Greenhorn’s Passing Places, John Millington Synge’s The Playboy of the Western World and Ray Cooney’s Run for Your Wife. This study offers a unique insight into drama and dialect translation in Germanspeaking Europe. It demonstrates that the introduction of an oral standard mitigates against dialect use in German original drama and translations; that changing relationships between German-speaking countries, nationalist movements and efforts to raise the status of a dialect encourage its use in drama; and that genres like comedy, murder mystery, farce, but also Naturalist, Realist and folk plays are more likely to use, and be translated into, dialect. It suggests similar projects for other countries, and will be of relevance to theatre and translation practitioners.

The chief objective of this doctoral thesis is to identify the feasibility of interpreting non-Shakespearean plays written during the English Renaissance period in terms of their integral actors’ cued parts. The cued part is defined herein as the prevalent type of theatrical script received by an early modern professional actor. Unlike the familiarly linear, holistic guide to a play typically received by a twenty-first century actor, such a unique text consisted solely of the lines to be spoken by the player on behalf of the individual character he was to represent. Each moment of speech was prefaced by a short cue to facilitate effective timing on the stage. An actor’s cues, visually indicated on the part by ‘cue-tails’, the long horizontal lines which preceded them, would themselves be crucially distinguished from the speaking part, thus forming a detached peripheral ‘cue-text’ of their own (Palfrey and Stern, 2005). This thesis is situated in the context of seminal work by Simon Palfrey and Tiffany Stern (2005, 2007). Although the authors’ ground-breaking publications currently saturate the newly-emerging discipline, their content is almost exclusively confined to the plays of Shakespeare despite the non-Shakespearean provenance of extant early modern cued parts. Originality is demonstrated herein through extension of the field’s existing sphere of influence. The current study thus seeks to resolve whether the practice of performing from cued parts was unique to Shakespeare or common to a cross-section of Renaissance playwrights, united for analysis within the following chapters by one of two factors: the theatrical association of the dramatists’ plays with the Lord Admiral’s Men, the playing company for whom the known part-conversant actor Edward Alleyn performed and/or the existence of their plays in bibliographically inferior yet dramatically enlightening ‘bad’ quarto (Pollard, 1909) or ‘minimal text’ (Gurr, 1999) form. Whilst it has been largely critically overlooked, the cued part is hypothesised within this study to be an all-encompassing complete unit of text, performance and meta-performance. Although the original rationale for its production was firmly rooted in the practical, the revised agenda set by this thesis is predominantly interpretative. Adopting an actor-centred methodology, the present investigation represents an active contribution to understanding within the field, its most innovative inputs centring upon selected key areas. In terms of the dramatic, the study proposes an archetypal technical composition for the early modern professional actor’s customised text, venturing to assert a series of original classifications of cue type with far-reaching semantic repercussions, reinforced by supporting literary and cultural analysis. Establishing new terminology for the analysis of cued parts, the vast editorial potential inherent in the form begins to emerge. The comparative relationship between cued parts and ‘minimal text’ editions of plays written and performed during the period 1590 to 1620 is elucidated, the latter bibliographic grouping critically neglected on account of its compromised literary value. The surprising influence of the actor in shaping the composition, performance and direction of Renaissance plays is subsequently promoted. Finally, in the realm of the meta-dramatic, the thesis recommends the multi-dimensional self-reflexive potential of the cued part form. New evidence is provided for the existence of alternative texts within both play and part, tendering shifting perspectives on the whole play and simultaneously boasting immeasurable creative potential to contemporary directors, actors and scholars alike. Orienteering far beyond the accepted segmentation of the whole play into parts, the cued part itself is dissolved into interior and exterior meta-parts. The reader is ultimately presented with a selection of avant-garde reflections upon the broad interpretative facility of the small and quirky Renaissance theatrical text.

The fundamental similarity between translation and acting can be summarized by the words of translator Ralph Manheim: ‘translators are like actors: we speak lines by someone else’ (cited in Stavans 1998: 176). This common metaphor is a useful tool for translation practitioners and researchers. Although it cannot be fully exhausted, it can be further clarified, analysed and developed by looking into modern and pre-modern theories of theatrical performance, examining their compatibility and incompatibility with the world of translation practice and theory. The first chapter of this thesis deals with mimetic representation in translation and in performance. The issue of disguising oneself as someone else while performing or translating raises practical problems. They are discussed here in relation to the opposite approaches to acting suggested by Denis Diderot and Constantin Stanislavski. The following chapter deals with radical goals of theatrical and textual representations, and discusses ethical and political strategies in relation to Bertolt Brecht and Lawrence Venuti. The next chapter deals with spiritual and metaphysical goals of theatrical and textual representations, and discusses them in relation to Jerzi Grotowski and Walter Benjamin. The final chapter explores the common ground between theatrical space and norms of translation, and shows that in many ways, the use of theatrical space, confining performers yet channelling their communication with their spectators, functions in similar fashion to translation norms.

This thesis explores the presentation of older women on stage from 1558-1625, establishing that the character is predominantly pictured within the domestic sphere, as wife, mother, stepmother or widow. Specific dramatic stereotypes for these roles are identified, and compared and contrasted with historical material relating to older women. The few plays in which these stereotypes are subverted are fully examined. Stage nurse and bawd characters are also older women and this study reveals them to be imaged exclusively as matching stereotypes. Only four plays, Peele’s The Old Wives Tale, Fletcher’s Bonduca, and Antony and Cleopatra and The Winter’s Tale, by Shakespeare, reject stereotyping of the central older women. The Introduction sets out the methodology of this research, and Chapter 1 compares stage stereotyping of the older woman with evidence from contemporary sources. This research pattern is repeated in Chapters 2-4 on the older wife, mother and stepmother, and widow, and subversion of these stereotypes on stage is also considered. Chapter 5 reveals stereotypical stage presentation as our principal source of knowledge about the older nurse and bawd. Chapter 6 examines the subtle, yet comprehensive, rejection of the stereotypes. The Conclusion summarises the academic and ongoing cultural relevance of this thesis.

This thesis considers how and why empathy is important in Anglo-American Holocaust theatre, utilising close readings of selected plays, existing theories of empathy and Holocaust representation, and authorial formulations of new empathic definitions. The first chapter examines the empathic responses of Frances Goodrich & Albert Hackett and Meyer Levin to Anne Frank's Diary of a Young Girl, and how these subsequently affected their stage adaptations of the book. The second chapter interrogates how spectator empathy with child protagonists is problematic in terms of the 'Holocaust fairytale' narrative often used, leading to spectator misinformation in the context of historical fact. The third chapter investigates British critical responses to Bent in both 1979 and 1990 in terms of 'precocious testimony', establishing that Bent was only received in its proper socio-political context upon the emergence of overt contemporary queer oppression. The final chapter explores how 'empty empathy', engendered by 'Holocaust etiquette', can be challenged through inverting Holocaust signs, or 'balagan', in 'Holocaust cabarets' to evoke alternative audience responses. The thesis concludes that empathy is central in Holocaust theatre, enabling spectators to identify and engage with representative characters - fulfilling the didactic purpose of Holocaust theatre in teaching about the genocide and encouraging anti-prejudicial views.

This thesis combines corpus stylistic, literary and historical linguistic approaches to test critical observations about the language of Shakespeare’s late plays. It finds substantial evidence of increased syntactic complexity, and identifies significant linguistic differences between members of the wider group of later plays. Chapter One outlines the critical history of the late works, including consideration of stylometric approaches to Shakespeare’s language. Chapter Two describes the stylistic methodology and corpus techniques employed. Chapter Three reports the finding of salient which frequency in the late plays, and details the analytical categories to be used in the examination of which usage, the results of which are discussed in Chapter Four. Chapter Five describes two further analyses, where a broader group of ten late plays is considered on the basis of their high which frequency. The relativisation syntax of the five post-1608 plays (Cymbeline, The Winter’s Tale, The Tempest, Henry VIII and The Two Noble Kinsmen) is found to distinguish them unequivocally as a group, while Pericles stands out as an anomaly. Finally, in Chapter Six it is argued that Shakespeare’s syntax reflects a stylistic phenomenon unrelated to individual dramatic characterisation, motivated by his re-association with the Elizabethan romance writers of the sixteenth century.

This study is based on plays known to have been produced under the auspices of the Chamberlain's Men (after 19th May 1603 the King's Men) while they were giving their public London performances exclusively at the first Globe theatre. It is limited, therefore, to the period 1599-1608. This study examines the appearance and physical conditions of the theatre and how it would have functioned as a playing space.