This is the fullest single compendium of information on American theater companies. Annals

Contents: High-style vernacular: lifestyles of the colonial elite / Kevin M. Sweeney --Changing lifestyles and consumer behavior in the colonial Chesapeake / Lois Green Carr and Lorena S. Walsh --Housing a nation: the transformation of living standards in early America / Edward A. Chappell --Shopping and advertising in colonial America / Richard L. Bushman --The function of fashion in eighteenth-century America / Karin Calvert --Painters and their customers: aspects of art and money in eighteenth-century America / Margaretta M. Lovell --Music and theatre in the lives of eighteenth-century Americans / Cynthia Adams Hoover --Books and reading in eighteenth-century America / David D. Hall --Early American tourists and the commercialization of leisure / Barbara G. Carson --Sport and the awareness of leisure / Nancy L. Struna --"Baubles of Britain": the American and consumer revolutions of the eighteenth-century / T. H. Breen --The consumer revolution in colonial British America: why demand? / Cary Carson.

Selected by Choice magazine as an Outstanding Academic Title During the eighteenth century, North American colonists began to display an increasing appetite for professional and amateur theatrical performances and a familiarity with the British dramatic canon ranging from the tragedies of Shakespeare, Addison, and Rowe to the comedies of Farquhar, Steele, and Gay. This interest sparked demand for both the latest hits of the London stage and a body of plays centered on patriotic (and often partisan) British themes. As relations between the crown and the colonies soured, the texts of these plays evolved into a common frame of reference for political arguments over colonial policy. Making the transition to print, these arguments deployed dramatic texts and theatrical metaphors for political advantage. Eventually, with the production of American propaganda plays during the Revolution, colonists began to develop a patriotic drama of their own, albeit one that still stressed the "British" character of American patriotism. Performing Patriotism examines the role of theatrical performance and printed drama in the development of early American political culture. Building on the eighteenth-century commonplace that the theater could be a school for public virtue, Jason Shaffer illustrates the connections between the popularity of theatrical performances in eighteenth-century British North America and the British and American national identities that colonial and Revolutionary Americans espoused. The result is a wide-ranging survey of eighteenth-century American theater history and print culture.

The impact of the theater on colonial culture is approached in this study from the viewpoint of the historian rather than the dramatist. From the faded prints of playbills, newspaper advertisements, and court records, the men, women, and children who brought theater to America come to life with their great and petty problems. Originally published in 1965. A UNC Press Enduring Edition -- UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were previously out of print. These editions are published unaltered from the original, and are presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both historical and cultural value.

Jeffrey Richards examines a variety of phenomena connected to the stage, including closet Revolutionary political plays, British drama on American boards, American-authored stage plays, and poetry and fiction by early Republican writers. American theatre is viewed by Richards as a transatlantic hybrid in which British theatrical traditions provide material and templates by which Americans express themselves and their relationship to others. Through intensive analysis of plays, this book confronts matters of political, ethnic, and cultural identity by moving from play text to theatrical context and from historical event to audience demography.

This is a comprehensive attempt to assemble all that is known of theatre at the time of America's political birth. Because many plays performed during the Revolution were overrun with partisan politics, they were not always aesthetically enticing; yet this was one of the only historical eras in which the theatre was used by both sides to help achieve military and political objectives. Whether moralistic or satirical, the plays of the revolution offer unique insights into the sympathies and fears of both loyal and dissident parties, and so serve as a telling document of a socially turbulent age. Brown's extensive research coheres into an invaluable theatrical and historical chronicle which should prove a useful resource for those working in the field.

As America passed from a mere venue for English plays into a country with its own nationally regarded playwrights, William Dunlap lived the life of a pioneer on the frontier of the fledgling American theatre, full of adventures, mishaps, and close calls. He adapted and translated plays for the American audience and wrote plays of his own as well, learning how theatres and theatre companies operated from the inside out. Dunlap's masterpiece, A History of American Theatre was the first of its kind, drawing on the author's own experiences. In it, he describes the development of theatre in New York, Philadelphia, and South Carolina as well as Congress's first attempts at theatrical censorship. Never before previously indexed, this edition also includes a new introduction by Tice L. Miller. William Dunlap (1766-1839) was a playwright, adapter, and producer. He was a partner in William Hallam's American Company-the first theatrical company in the United States-and a founder of the National Academy of Design. Tice L. Miller is a professor of theatre arts at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Guide to American Theatre.

This new edition of the innovative and widely acclaimed Theatre Histories: An Introduction offers overviews of theatre and drama in many world cultures and periods together with case studies demonstrating the methods and interpretive approaches used by today's theatre historians.