Table of Contents

Abbreviations and Conventions
List of Figures
List of Contributors
David Francis Taylor: Introduction
Theatre, Theory, Historiography
Angie Sandhu: Enlightenment, Exclusion, and the Publics of the Georgian Theatre
Betsy Bolton: Theorizing Audience and Spectatorial Agency
Marvin Carlson: Theorizing the Performative Event
David Francis Taylor: Theatre Managers and the Managing of Theatre History
Legislating Drama
David Thomas: The 1737 Licensing Act and its Impact
Julia Swindells: The Political Context of the 1737 Licensing Act
Matthew J. Kinservik: The Dialectics of Print and Performance after 1737
Katherine Newey: The 1832 Select Committee
Jim Davis: Looking Towards 1843 and the End of the Monopoly
The Changing Cultures of Performance
Frederick Burwick: Georgian Theories of the Actor
Heather McPherson: Theatrical Celebrity and the Commodification of the Actor
Gefen Bar-On Santor: Shakespeare in the Georgian Theatre
Kristina Straub: Performing Variety, Packaging Difference
Peter P. Reed: Interrogating Legitimacy in Britain and America
The Whole Show: Spectacles, Sounds, Spaces
Kathryn R. Barush: Painting the Scene
Shearer West: Manufacturing Spectacle
Vanessa L. Rogers: Orchestra and Theatre Music
Erin J. Smith: Dance and the Theatre
Colin Blumenau: Restoring a Georgian Playhouse
Genres and Forms
Misty G. Anderson: Genealogies of Comedy
Felicity Nussbaum: The Challenge of Tragedy
John O'Brien: Pantomimic Politics
Jeffrey N. Cox: The Gothic Drama: Tragedy or Comedy?
Michael Burden: The Writing and Staging of Georgian Romantic Opera
Catherine Burroughs: The Stages of Closet Drama
Matthew S. Buckley: The Formation of Melodrama
Theatre and the Romantic Canon
John Gardner: The Case of Byron's Marino Faliero
Jacqueline Mulhallen: Shelley, Viganò, and Coreodramma
David O'Shaughnessy: William Godwin and the Politics of Playgoing
Penny Gay: Jane Austen's Stage
Women and the Stage
Helen E. M. Brooks: Theorizing the Woman Performer
Thomas C. Crochunis: Women Theatre Managers
Marjean D. Purinton: Women Playwrights
Paula R. Backscheider: Retrieving Elizabeth Inchbald
Performing Race and Empire
Bridget Orr: Empire, Sentiment, and Theatre
Daniel O'Quinn: Theatre, Islam, and the Question of Monarchy
Odai Johnson: The Georgian Theatre in Colonial America
Prathibha Kanakamedala: Staging Atlantic Slavery
Nandini Bhattacharya, Mita Choudhury, Frank Felsenstein, Jean I. Marsden: Colman's Inkle and Yarico: four perspectives
Marcus Wood: Historic Williamsburg: Theatre, Memory, and Colonial Slavery
Index

About the Author

Julia Swindells was a writer and teacher in Cambridge. She authored Glorious Causes: The Grand Theatre of Political Change, 1789-1833 (2001), and co-edited Pickering & Chatto's edition of Eighteenth-Century Women's Theatrical Memoirs (2007-8). David Francis Taylor is Associate Professor of English at the University of Warwick. He is the author of Theatres of Opposition: Empire, Revolution, and Richard Brinsley Sheridan (2012), as
well as a number of articles on the political contexts of theatre in the Georgian period.

Reviews

exceptionally clear ... an indispensable teaching resource ... Showcasing the very latest research in this field in an accessible and detailed manner, and capturing all of the vibrancy and dynamism of the Georgian theatre, this Handbook will remain a vital resource for those teaching and researching Georgian culture for many years to come.
*David Kennerley, BARS Review*

The Oxford Handbook of the Georgian Theatre 1737-1832 is a superb achievement, not only because it is the most comprehensive guide to the period's theatre to date, but also because it showcases a fine and fascinating body of intellectual work--one that extends well beyond its pages and is changing how we view theatre and drama, from the Licensing Act through the Romantic era.
*Terry F. Robinson, Eighteenth-Century Fiction*

Beautifully illustrated, lucidly organized, and, above all, powerfully argued, The Oxford Handbook of Georgian Theatre 17371832 provides not only an authoritative reference guide, but a compelling read from cover to cover.
*Susan Vallandares, Review of English Studies*