"Play'd to Great Applause"

Early Modern Audience and Audiences of Early Modern Drama

Editors seek articles of 5000-7000 words, including notes, for a proposed book-length collection entitled "Play'd to Great Applause": Early Modern Audience and Audiences of Early Modern Drama

We seek essays discussing the behaviors, beliefs, attitudes or composition of either contemporary or current audiences of early modern drama. Part One will look at audiences from 1580-1640, while Part Two will focus on late-twentieth and twenty-first century productions of early modern drama. This collection will focus on live performance, not film and television productions.

Articles may address such issues as:

. the audience and civic pageants
. the audience and dumb shows
. the audience and censorship
. the audience and other "entertainments" (hangings, bear-baitings, and sermons)
. antitheatrical tracts' definition of audience
. actors as audience, audience as actors
. cult of personality
. power of the spectator
. non-Shakespearean plays and the modern viewer
. Shakespeare festivals
. modern staging in reconstructed theatres (London Globe)
. directing the early modern play for the 21st century audience

We welcome submissions from scholars, actors, directors, and others.
Send detailed proposals and brief CVs by January 31, 2009 to both editors, preferably electronically. Completed essays will be expected by May 31, 2009.

Annalisa Castaldo, Humanities Division, 1 University Place, Widener University, Chester, PA 19050 acastaldo@mail.widener.edu

Rhonda Knight, Department of Communications, Language, and Literature, 300 E. College Ave., Coker College, Hartsville, SC 29550 rknight@coker.edu