Table of Contents

Acknowledgements Notes on Contributors Introduction; Penny Farfan and Lesley Ferris PART I: HISTORIES 1. Feeling the Loss of Feminism: Sarah Kane's Blasted and an Experiential Genealogy of Contemporary Women's Playwriting; Elaine Aston 2. Female Alliances and Women's Histories in Contemporary Mexican and Argentine Drama; Ana Elena Puga 3. Chronic Desires: Theatre's Aching Lesbian Bodies; Sara Warner 4. Women Playwrights in Egypt; Nehad Selaiha with Sarah Enany 5. Transcultural Dramaturgies: Latina Theatre's Third Wave; Natalie Alvarez 6. Black Women Playwrights Making History: Katori Hall's The Mountaintop; Soyica Diggs Colbert PART II: CONFLICTS 7. The Gendered Terrain in Contemporary Theatre of War by Women; Sharon Friedman 8. Enough! Women Playwrights Confront the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict; Amelia Howe Kritzer 9. Women Playwrights in Post-Apartheid South Africa: Yael Farber, Lara Foot-Newton, and the Call for Ubuntu; Yvette Hutchison 10. Writing Across Our Sea of Islands: Contemporary Women Playwrights from Oceania; Diana Looser 11. Ecodramaturgy in/and Contemporary Women's Playwriting; Wendy Arons and Theresa J. May PART III: GENRES 12. Making the Bones Sing: The Feminist History Play, 1976–2010; Katherine E. Kelly 13. Performing (Our)Selves: The Role of the Actress in Theatre-History Plays by Women; Lesley Ferris and Melissa Lee 14. Historical Landscapes in Contemporary Plays by Canadian Women; Penny Farfan 15. Asian American Women Playwrights and the Dilemma of the Identity Play: Staging Heterotopic Subjectivities; Esther Kim Lee 16. Deb Margolin, Robbie McCauley, Peggy Shaw: Affect and Performance; Elin Diamond Bibliography.

Promotional Information

This carefully curated, compelling collection considers women playwrights' work through history and nation, theory and theme, and regard the plays as prescient documents of their cultural moment. Farfan and Ferris cast across the globe for women playwrights with dramatically different ideological and technical concerns. The critics commenting here illuminate the playwrights' particular perspectives while they excavate the universal human challenges, joys, and sorrows evident in their work. Why women, yet again? Because the well-spring of aesthetic innovation, artistic energy, and political insight the capable critics and historians engage in these pages demands to be seen, heard, and known. Attention must be paid to this rewarding work.' - Jill Dolan, Professor of Theatre, Princeton University, USA 'This is a terrific and very timely book that includes contributions from some of the strongest 'next generation' thinkers.' - Peggy Phelan, Ann O'Day Maples Professor in the Arts, Professor of English and Theatre and Performance Studies, Stanford University, USA

About the Author

Penny Farfan is Professor of Drama at the University of Calgary, Canada. She is the author of Women, Modernism, and Performance as well as many articles and book chapters on modernism and performance and on contemporary women playwrights. She is currently the editor of Theatre Journal. Lesley Ferris is Arts and Humanities Distinguished Professor of Theatre at The Ohio State University, USA. Her publications include numerous essays on gender and performance and Caribbean-derived carnival. Her recent devised work was The Camouflage Project, which focused on British women undercover agents in occupied France in World War II.

Reviews

'This carefully curated, compelling collection considers women playwrights' work through history and nation, theory and theme, and regard the plays as prescient documents of their cultural moment. Farfan and Ferris cast across the globe for women playwrights with dramatically different ideological and technical concerns. The critics commenting here illuminate the playwrights' particular perspectives while they excavate the universal human challenges, joys, and sorrows evident in their work. Why women, yet again? Because the well-spring of aesthetic innovation, artistic energy, and political insight the capable critics and historians engage in these pages demands to be seen, heard, and known. Attention must be paid to this rewarding work.' - Jill Dolan, Professor of Theatre, Princeton University, USA 'This is a terrific and very timely book that includes contributions from some of the strongest 'next generation' thinkers.' - Peggy Phelan, Ann O'Day Maples Professor in the Arts, Professor of English and Theatre and Performance Studies, Stanford University, USA