Victorian women used strategies that allowed them to not only work as actresses but also as directors, producers, translators, and playwrights, thus transforming theatre at the cusp of the New Drama. Female friendships were particularly integral to these strategies as women employed secretiveness and anonymity, charm and shrewdness, networking and collaborating in small and large groups to meet their creative and professional goals. Through these means of sociability women enlarged their spheres of influence beyond the stage. Elizabeth Robins is a superb example of these strategies, particularly when theatrical realism was her primary focus. Though she also collaborated well with men, William Archer and Henry James among them, it was Robins’s female friends who helped her to establish a London career. This project shows how Robins and her women friends contributed to the New Drama in dynamic, critical, and often-secret ways. Marion Lea and Robins finagled the rights to Hedda Gabler in 1891. Lea and Florence Bell helped Robins to translate plays for production and to develop new acting techniques suited to realism. After Lea left England, Robins and Bell joined Grein’s Independent Theatre Society to present their anonymously written protest play Alan’s Wife. These efforts illustrate the adaptive functions of female friendships. Through closer examination of their relationships, particularly the one Robins and Bell called a sisterhood, we see the nurturing functions of female friendships. This project explains some of the reasons why, despite being famous in their day, these women disappeared from history. It was not just because of male control of the theatre, but was also a product of their own desires to protect themselves. Secrecy had served them well in the 1890s, but their fame faded as even friends forgot them. Yet, since female socialization taught them to be group-focused, these women’s stories are highly pertinent to the history of the theatre, an art form that is collaborative by its nature. Through study of their work and their relationships, we can fill some gaps in theatre history, women’s history, and nineteenth-century history, adding resonance to their voices that may carry to coming generations.

The original plan for research was to make a comparative study of plays written in the twenty year span before the theaters closed and in the twenty year period after the theaters reopened - a comparative study of Jacobean and Restoration drama. However, the availability of play copies limited the number of plays read and the authors used. Therefore the twenty year plan proved to be quite cumbersome and the plays were reduced roughly to a twelve year period. The subject for research then became "A Comparative Study of Caroline and Restoration Drama."

The legitimate theater, vaudeville, and burlesque presentations that composed the 1918-1919 theatrical season in Cincinnati, Ohio, were investigated. In order to understand the business practices that brought performers and productions to the Queen City, a study of the various entertainment circuits and the power brokers who controlled them was included. Cincinnati and its climate for professional entertainment in 1918-1919 also warranted attention. Such items as the theaters that housed the entertainment, the transportation systems that brought patrons to the entertainment, and the competition that rivaled the entertainment were probed so hat the foundations of the 1918-1919 season might he understood. A week h.N. week account of the season revealed the caliber of talent and quality of shows that stopped in Cincinnati. It demonstrated the kind of comedy, dancing, drama, and music that was enjoyed by Cincinnatians. Furthermore, the impact of such diverse occurrences as war, peace, labor difficulties, and health disorders was duly recorded.

This thesis outlines my research and creative process of how to direct modern theatre under the structure of the Ancient Greek chorus, specifically through movement. I include a brief history of how the chorus functioned in Ancient Greek theatre; how movement shaped the chorus’ role as well as the story for the audience. Using the parameters of the chorus, I directed two theatrical productions, Jason Robert Brown’s Parade, and Sarah Ruhl’s adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s Orlando. Through exploration and analysis I conclude that using Ancient Greek choral movement in modern theatre helps to create a more specific story through gesture and space, bridges the gap between the audience and action onstage, and should be the foundation of how directing is taught in academic settings.

This study theorizes the origins and history of the professional female playwright and director from the Restoration period to the present day through the stage history of Behn's most popular play, The Rover. Part one is comprised of two chapters: the first in this section argues the importance of appreciating Behn's proto-directorial function in the Restoration theatre and her significance to the history of feminism and women in professional theatre; the second chapter in this section examines the implications of casting practices and venue changes to eighteenth-century revivals of Behn's canon with a particular eye towards what a contemporary director can glean from 18th century revivals. Part II draws on archival research and personal interviews with directors, actors, and dramaturges to examine the historical significance of two particular twentieth-century, woman-directed revivals of The Rover: the 1989 revival at the Goodman directed by Kyle Donnelly and the 1994 revival at the Guthrie directed by Joanne Akalaitis. This study argues the synergistic impact at the time of woman-directed revivals of the most popular play by the first professional female playwright to the emergence of the professional woman director in America in the 1980s and 1990s. Part III consists of three chapters that examine woman-directed revivals of The Rover against the backdrop of theatre practice and sexual politics in the 2000s: one chapter analyzes cross-gender revivals of The Rover by Queen's Company in Brooklyn, NY (2001) and Woman's Will in San Francisco (2003); the next chapter examines a 2011 site-specific, panoramic production of The Rover at the World Financial Center directed by Karin Coonrod for New York Classical Theatre; the final chapter in this section analyzes a 2013 gender parodic production that I directed for Thinking Cap Theatre in Fort Lauderdale. This study argues for the importance of contemporary archiving and revival activism to historicizing the concept of the glass curtain and the gender parity movement in professional theatre and to improving the rate of employment of female directors and playwrights.

What role did identification play in the motives, processes, and products of select post-colonial authors who "wrote back" to William Shakespeare and colonialism? How did post-colonial counter-discursive metatheatre function to make select post-colonial adaptations creative and critical texts? In answer to these questions, this dissertation proposes that counter-discursive metatheatre resituates post-colonial plays as criticism of Shakespeare's plays. As particular post-colonial authors identify with marginalized Shakespearean characters and aim to amplify their conflicts from the perspective of a dominated culture, they interpret themes of race, gender, and colonialism in Othello (1604), Antony and Cleopatra (1608), and The Tempest (1611) as explicit problems. This dissertation combines post-colonial theory and other literary theory, particularly by Kenneth Burke, to propose a rhetoric of motives for post-colonial authors who "write back" to Shakespeare through the use of counter-discursive metatheatre. This dissertation, therefore, describes and analyzes how and why the plays of Murray Carlin, Aimé Césaire, and Derek Walcott function both creatively and critically, adapting Shakespeare's plays, and foregrounding post-colonial criticism of his plays. Chapter One analyzes Murray Carlin's motivations for adapting Othello and using the framing narrative of Not Now, Sweet Desdemona (1967) to explicitly critique the conflicts of race, gender, and colonialism in Othello. Chapter Two treats why and how Aimé Césaire adapts The Tempest in 1969, illustrating his explicit critique of Prospero and Caliban as the colonizer and the colonized, exposing Prospero's insistence on controlling the sexuality of his subjects, and, therefore, arguing that race, gender, and colonialism operate concomitantly in the play. Chapter Three analyzes A Branch of the Blue Nile (1983) as both a critique and an adaptation of Antony and Cleopatra, demonstrating how Walcott's framing narrative critiques the notion of a universal "Cleopatra," even one of an "infinite variety," and also evaluates Antony as a character who is marginalized by his Roman culture. The conclusion of this dissertation avers that in "writing back" to Shakespeare, these authors foreground and reframe post-colonial criticism, successfully dismantling the colonial structures that have kept their interpretations, and the subjects of their interpretations, marginalized.

In this thesis I will discuss the influence of Sartrean themes found in Jean-Paul Sartre’s plays: No Exit (Huis clos), Les Mouches (The Flies), and Dirty Hands (Les Mains sales), on the theater of Alfonso Sastre, particularly in the plays: Death Squad (Escuadra hacia la muerte), and In the Net (En la red). In No Exit, the famous quote “Hell is other people,” sets the standard for what type of discussion Sartre initiates in his theater. I will compare the historical context and the Hells that Sartre and Sastre both experienced during their time as active playwrights and how this influences the Hellish environments the two playwrights create for their characters in each of their plays. Following this study of context, I will compare the diabolical atmospheres created in the plays, how they are created and their impacts on the characters and text.

This dissertation project, which recovers the feminist invention of 19th-century actress and author Adah Menken, proves the efficacy of conducting historigraphic recoveries of heretofore forgotten and elided female rhetors. I situate Adah’s visual and written performances within the materiality of Victorian social codes, positioning her as a feminist commentator worthy of inclusion in our remembrances of feminist discourses. I use archival sources including carte de visites (CDVs) and Adah’s letters and poetry as heuristics for gendered critique, to analyze how she resisted the master narrative of Victorian society and its accompanying codes governing public and private feminine behavior. My objectives are three-fold: to use archival recovery as a method to unearth and evaluate what feminist inquiry can accomplish; to argue for the feminist intentions of a previously unknown female writer; and to offer an opportunity to discover cross-disciplinary connections for rhetorical recoveries. Feminist inquiry is itself an exemplar of rhetorical invention, the idea of making a path. In my dissertation project, I illustrate how Adah Menken blazed a path in her personal and public rhetorics. For my principal goal of asserting Adah’s importance as a feminist rhetor, I use primary sources to demonstrate that her invention and resistance provide fertile ground for vital feminist inquiry. As a secondary means of asserting the significance of archival feminist research, I also offer my Adah Menken recovery as a case study for examining ideas of resistance and subversion to dominant master narratives. For this application, I use Judith Butler’s theory of performativity and Michel Foucault’s ideas surrounding the topic of resistance. Ultimately, the convergence of theoretical and practical applications for rhetorical recoveries, both of which I describe in-depth in my dissertation, serve to re-connect fields of inquiry and make them relevant to scholars across the Academe.

MSTISLAW DOBUZHINSKII’S WORK AT THE STATE THEATRE [KAUNAS, LITHUANIA] By Živilė Ambrasaitė Stage designer Mstislaw Dobuzhinskii is best known as Russian artist in Western countries. But not less important part of his works (almost 40 stage settings for opera, ballet, drama plays) were done in 1925, 1929-1939 years in Lithuania – a country that Dobuzhinskii’s roots come from. Alas, the Dobuzhinskii’s Lithuanian period activity and artistic achievements are not well known abroad. Yet studies of his works in The State Theatre in Kaunas (temporary capital of Lithuania) wish to hope the comprehensiveness even in Lithuania. The author of this study discusses the main Dobuzhinskii’s works for The State Theatre in different contexts, reviews and artist’s influence on theatre scenography perception. Dobuzhinskii established main aesthetic ideas of World of Art society – revival of cultural traditions, neo-romantic stylization and retrospectivism. His art of stage decoration encouraged young Lithuanian artists to come out with their own ideas of all main components of a play uniting.

The Montreal Repertory Theatre mounted a regular series of play productions every year from 1930 to 1961. They deliberately set out to follow the Little Theatre tradition of Antoine while profiting from later developments in England, Ireland and the United States. At a time when no alternatives existed in Montreal they provided theatre education at a high level and helped in the formation of many distinguished careers. / This study examines the work of MRT in a historical context, and as revealed in the company's surviving documents and in contemporary reports. The written record is supplemented by interviews with persons who worked with MRT. A number of these have made contributions on a national scale to Canadian theatre.