Theatres of Value

Danielle Rosvally is Assistant Professor of Theatre at the University at Buffalo, the State University of New York. She is the coeditor (with Donovan Sherman) of Early Modern Liveness: Mediating Presence in Text, Stage and Screen.

"While Theatre of Value's primary contribution is to the field of theater history, it also contributes to cultural history. As a resource for scholars thinking about American theater, public Shakespeare, national identity, or American Shakespeare, this book is an illuminating text that will surely advance collective understanding of America's adoption of Shakespeare as our national poet and lead readers to generate new ideas and conclusions about Shakespeare as an economic driver." — Shakespeare Bulletin"Theatres of Value is a fascinating study of branding, marketing, and commodities as values." — CHOICE"In inventing what she calls 'the dramaturgy of value,' Danielle Rosvally examines economic conditions and applies specific business models to both familiar and lesser-known incidents in the creation, marketing, and consumption of nineteenth-century American Shakespearean performance. In doing so, she uncovers layer upon layer of cultural significance, demonstrating how producers, actors, and audiences helped to create America's emerging sense of nationhood and national identity." — Cary M. Mazer, author of Double Shakespeares: Emotional-Realist Acting and Contemporary PerformanceTheatres of Value takes an interdisciplinary approach that enriches historical analysis and helps readers understand familiar Shakespeare archives in new ways. Rosvally's work is conceptually nuanced yet highly readable—her engaging storytelling unfolds against a theoretical backdrop knit from theatre history, social and economic theory, performance studies, cultural studies, and rhetorical history." — Elisabeth H. Kinsley, author of Here in This Island We Arrived: Shakespeare and Belonging in Immigrant New York

• List of IllustrationsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: Deriving a Dramaturgy of Value1. What William Brown Knew: The African Theatre and the Growing Threat of Legitimacy2. The Value of a Name: P. T. Barnum's American Dream3. Taking the Reins: The American Reading Career of Mrs. Fanny Kemble4. Both Booth's Brothers: The Bulletproof Brand5. Our American Shakespeare: The Central Park Statue and National Identity6. Erasing the Lines: Editing the Wallack BenefitConclusion: The Dramaturgy of Value at LargeNotesBibliographyIndex