Popular in their own time, the 27 plays included here--by Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, John Webster, Thomas Middleton, among many others--reveal why these playwrights' achievements, like Shakespeare's, deserve reading, teaching, and performing afresh in our time.

Violent and recurrent confrontations between disorderly women and patriarchal power are a major feature of the tragedies of Shakespeare, Webster, and Middleton. This study interrelates racial and sexual differences to explore the construction of Renaissance authority and the politics of English studies in postcolonial education. These recurrent confrontations between women and the patriarchal status-quo are discussed in light of the historical and theoretical interweaving of race and gender.

This collection of essays examines the relationship between dramatic performance and audience in the work of Shakespeare and his contemporaries. The authors combine theatre history and cultural analysis with examinations of plays and productions to explore how those involved in early modern productions conceived of their audience; how audiences shaped the dramas they watched; and even how the roles of actor and audience member sometimes merged.

This collection asks pressing questions about how and why we study performances of Renaissance drama, challenging prevailing views and suggesting new methodologies for the field. How does an emphasis on Shakespeare limit us? What can we learn from non-traditional theatre? Why should we rethink the value of studying what happens onstage?

This multidisciplinary work examines the cultural situation of popular drama in Elizabethan and Jacobean England. Relying upon a dynamic model of cultural production, the author defines an original and historically grounded perspective on the emergence of popular theater and illustrates the critical, revisionary role it played in the symbolic economy of Renaissance England.

This text provides a comprehensive account of professional theatre in early modern England, exploring the plays in relation to the culture and society of the period. The author examines how plays participate in and respond to changing anxieties - e.g. English nationhood, the monarchy, or the role of the family.

This unique volume demonstrates the wide range of theatrical activity in which women were involved during the Renaissance period. It includes full-length plays; a translated fragment by Queen Elizabeth I; a masque; and a substantial number of historical documents.

While film adaptations of Shakespeare's plays captured the popular imagination at the turn of the last century, independent filmmakers began to adapt the plays of Shakespeare's contemporaries. This text provides the only comprehensive analysis of early modern drama on screen to date, looking beyond Shakespear. The text also provides an extensive annotated filmography listing forty-eight surviving adaptations.