The Arden Research Handbook of Shakespeare and Contemporary Performance

A major new volume in Shakespeare studies … this research handbook is truly triumphant: Kirwan and Prince have produced an indispensable volume for researchers at all levels. * Shakespeare Survey *
Brilliantly executed, consistently illuminating and abundantly engaging, this is an indispensable, one-stop discussion of Shakespeare and contemporary performance. Whether it is film, digital video or theatre, performance is explored in its multiple manifestations, and via content characterised by global reach and density. Attentive to mediation and reception, and featuring interviews with creatives and practitioners, The Arden Research Handbook of Shakespeare and Contemporary Performance is a rich and revealing achievement. * Mark Thornton Burnett, Professor of Renaissance Studies, Queen's University Belfast, UK *
In focusing on performance as a process that begins well before the proverbial curtain rises and continues long after it falls, this vibrant, politically engaged, and globally oriented collection offers readers an account of Shakespeare in contemporary performance that is at once authoritative and interrogative, comprehensive and open-ended. By foregrounding the different kinds of labour involved in the creation, reception, and history of performance, it creates a space where we can hear a more diverse range of voices talk about what Shakespearean performance means – and why it matters today – than has often been the case. * Erin Sullivan, Senior Lecturer at the Shakespeare Institute, University of Birmingham, UK *
This collection makes for an invigorating read as it injects critical energy into established debates and stretches the edges of the field just that little bit further. Contributors offer committed and thoughtful explorations of anti-racist pedagogies, ethics and cultural competence in the rehearsal room, and the structural changes organisations have to undergo in order to for them to be actively inclusive. Through thoughtful scholarship, interviews with a diverse selection of practitioners, and a range of research resources including an annotated bibliography and tour-de-force mapping of the entire field, this Handbook models what progressive Shakespeare performance studies may achieve in the coming decade. -- Pascale Aebischer, University of Exeter, UK