Women theatre and performance

The first in a new annual series Women Theatre and Performance that will consist of themed volumes on diverse aspects of women's engagement with theatre and performance. Ranging across three hundred years the essays in this volume address key questions in women's theatre history and retrieve a number of hitherto 'hidden' histories of women performers. Resituates women's largely neglected creative contribution within theatre and cultural history and seeks to challenge orthodox readings of both history and text. Topics include: Susanna Centlivre and the notion of intertheatricality; gender and theatrical space; the repositioning of women performers such as Wagner's Muse Willhelmina Schröder-Devrient the Comédie Français' 'Mademoiselle Mars' Mme Arnould-Plessey and the actresses of the Russian serf theatre.