Elements in Women Theatre Makers – serie

Maya Rao, performer, performance maker and feminist, has not only contributed to Indian feminist theatre, but is a trailblazer, who set new standards in solo performances, mapped an alternate career trajectory for women in theatre and, in the face of right-wing state repression in India, has engaged significantly in performance activism. This Element looks back at her early career in the 1980s when she was creating agit prop theatre for the feminist movement and forward to her performance activism in the twenty-first century, with detailed attention to Rao's acclaimed protest Walk, and her participation in the protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act. The study also encompasses her parallel work in the theatre, from early collaborations with feminist directors to her solo projects. The author traces her creative-political journey towards an egalitarian feminist future.

This Element examines why women makers from equity-owed communities (Indigenous, of colour, Deaf, disabled, trans and non-binary communities among others) choose to work with Shakespeare and his contemporaries at a moment in time when theatres around the world are striving toward equity, inclusion, diversity, and decolonization. It details and explores these creators' processes to learn from them about how to transform plays we know all too well as patriarchy-affirming, ableist, and often racist into vehicles for community storytelling and models for radically inclusive and difference-centred ways of making.

This Element focuses on Xin Fengxia (1927-1998), a star of the regional xiqu form pingju, and her prominent role in transforming the genre from folk entertainment for the lower class to one of the most notable winners of the xiqu reform after the establishment of the People's Republic of China (PRC) in 1949. The Element's four sections expand from this core concept to include the four stages of her life experience and artistry that shaped her legacy: growing up in China's third largest theatre market Tianjin before 1949, national stardom in Beijing (1949-1957), restricted creativity amidst political upheavals (1957-1975), and as a prominent author after a stroke (1977-1998). Rather than following a biographical approach, these sections zero in on the environment before and after 1949 that made her a prominent pingju reformer and the consequent price of such success.

Louise Lowe is a theatre and performance director, writer, choreographer, dramaturge, and, more recently, a television director and short film writer/director, working in Ireland and internationally. She is the Co-Artistic Director of ANU Productions, established with Owen Boss in Dublin in 2009. Lowe is known for facilitating and creating moments of interior reckoning for audiences through immersive performance techniques. These techniques engage spectators in affectively realised moments of understanding that the stories unfolding through performance reflect living histories in need of greater socio-political engagement and intervention. This Element assesses Lowe's creative practice and production history since her days as a drama facilitator in women's prisons and resource centres in Dublin, paying particular attention to the economic struggle of Dublin's north inner-city, the markings of which are potently visible in the work she makes, and how she makes it. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

This is a love story but not as you know it. Should an academic study be framed in this way? Love seems an unlikely bedfellow for critical thinking. Watching an Emma Rice production and being in her rehearsal room you feel the love: a warm and generous welcoming in; a joyful celebration of the theatrical exchange. What produces this pleasurable affect and how might we consider its political potential? This Element positions Emma's theatre-making, a body of work spanning three decades, as feminist acts of love. Drawing on fieldwork research her practice is viewed through the critical lenses of feminisms and affect to consider its contextual tensions, its ethics of affirmation, staging of femininities and contribution to queer worldmaking. Mapping her work from this perspective brings to light her important contribution to UK feminist theatre; its love activism offering an emergent strategy for change.

This Element is the first scholarly study of the theatre of Lauren Gunderson (b. 1982), one of the most produced US playwrights and a self-declared feminist playwright. Her feminist claims and theatrical interventions are assessed through four key strands of her theatre making: parodies of Shakespeare's canon; women-centred revisions to history; women and illness; and 'entertaining' feminism through popular theatre forms. Moving between the mainstream and the experimental, her theatre ranges from realism and quasi well-made plays to the experimental in a postmodern/Brechtian fashion, inviting consideration of the form(s) deployed for staging feminism in the twenty-first century. The Element discusses how Gunderson adapts the legacies of second-wave feminist theatre in the US to provide accessible experimental theatre and how she adopts popular genres in the interest of popular feminisms, giving way to an 'in-between' feminist practice: a feminist-theatre pathway that lies somewhere 'in between' the second-wave past and new directions.

This Element is the first scholarly study of the theatre of Lauren Gunderson (b. 1982), one of the most produced US playwrights and a self-declared feminist playwright. Her feminist claims and theatrical interventions are assessed through four key strands of her theatre making: parodies of Shakespeare's canon; women-centred revisions to history; women and illness; and 'entertaining' feminism through popular theatre forms. Moving between the mainstream and the experimental, her theatre ranges from realism and quasi well-made plays to the experimental in a postmodern/Brechtian fashion, inviting consideration of the form(s) deployed for staging feminism in the twenty-first century. The Element discusses how Gunderson adapts the legacies of second-wave feminist theatre in the US to provide accessible experimental theatre and how she adopts popular genres in the interest of popular feminisms, giving way to an 'in-between' feminist practice: a feminist-theatre pathway that lies somewhere 'in between' the second-wave past and new directions.

This Element examines why women makers from equity-owed communities (Indigenous, of colour, Deaf, disabled, trans and non-binary communities among others) choose to work with Shakespeare and his contemporaries at a moment in time when theatres around the world are striving toward equity, inclusion, diversity, and decolonization. It details and explores these creators' processes to learn from them about how to transform plays we know all too well as patriarchy-affirming, ableist, and often racist into vehicles for community storytelling and models for radically inclusive and difference-centred ways of making.

#WakingTheFeminists was a year-long grassroots campaign for gender equality in Irish theatre. Prompted by the gender disparity of Ireland's Abbey Theatre's 2016 programme, 'Waking the Nation', Lian Bell posted a Facebook message that sparked a surge of feminist fury that ignited the #WakingTheFeminists movement. This Element considers the movement both as digital feminist activism and as part of the growing trend of data feminism, by analysing how its combined use of connective and collective action, and qualitative and quantitative data, was critical to its success. It contextualises the movement historically in relation to a series of feminist controversies in Irish theatre since 1990, before considering its impact on both policy and cultural changes across the Irish arts sector. #WakingTheFeminists' national and international resonance derived from its research-informed strategy which made it the most effective campaign for gender equality in the history of Irish theatre.

#WakingTheFeminists was a year-long grassroots campaign for gender equality in Irish theatre. Prompted by the gender disparity of Ireland's Abbey Theatre's 2016 programme, 'Waking the Nation', Lian Bell posted a Facebook message that sparked a surge of feminist fury that ignited the #WakingTheFeminists movement. This Element considers the movement both as digital feminist activism and as part of the growing trend of data feminism, by analysing how its combined use of connective and collective action, and qualitative and quantitative data, was critical to its success. It contextualises the movement historically in relation to a series of feminist controversies in Irish theatre since 1990, before considering its impact on both policy and cultural changes across the Irish arts sector. #WakingTheFeminists' national and international resonance derived from its research-informed strategy which made it the most effective campaign for gender equality in the history of Irish theatre.

Clean Break Theatre Company is a women-only theatre company that grew out of a prisoner-led drama workshop that took place between 1977-1979 in HMP Askham Grange. In addition to its considerable impact on criminalised women and public understandings of the socio-political impact of their experiences, Clean Break has had a significant but under-acknowledged impact on contemporary British theatre. We examine three areas of Clean Break's theatre making history and organisational practices: its origin stories; its education and engagement work; and how the company's performance practices have, across five decades, 'then' and 'now', adapted to directly intervene in carceral society. By highlighting Clean Break's distinct activist theatre making processes and practices, the book makes explicit the genealogical connections of the company's past work and its impacts on contemporary feminist theatre practices.

Clean Break Theatre Company is a women-only theatre company that grew out of a prisoner-led drama workshop that took place between 1977-1979 in HMP Askham Grange. In addition to its considerable impact on criminalised women and public understandings of the socio-political impact of their experiences, Clean Break has had a significant but under-acknowledged impact on contemporary British theatre. We examine three areas of Clean Break's theatre making history and organisational practices: its origin stories; its education and engagement work; and how the company's performance practices have, across five decades, 'then' and 'now', adapted to directly intervene in carceral society. By highlighting Clean Break's distinct activist theatre making processes and practices, the book makes explicit the genealogical connections of the company's past work and its impacts on contemporary feminist theatre practices.

Pivotal to Caryl Churchill's What If If Only (2021) is the ghost of a democratic future that never happened. Framed by What If If Only, if-only yearnings for a democratic future are seminal to this Element with its primary attentions to the feminist, socialist and ecological values of Churchill's theatre. Arguing for the triangulation of the latter, the study elicits insights into: the feeling structures of Churchill's plays; reparative strategies for the renewal of an eco-feminist-socialist politics; the conceptualisation of the 'political is personal' to understand the negative emotional impact that an anti-egalitarian regime has on people's lives; and relations between dystopian criticality and utopian desire. Hannah Proctor's notion of 'anti-adaptive healing' is invoked to propose a summative understanding of Churchill's theatre as engaging audiences in anti-adaptive, resistant feelings towards a capitalist order and healing through a utopic sensing that an alternative future is desirable and still possible.

Pivotal to Caryl Churchill's What If If Only (2021) is the ghost of a democratic future that never happened. Framed by What If If Only, if-only yearnings for a democratic future are seminal to this Element with its primary attentions to the feminist, socialist and ecological values of Churchill's theatre. Arguing for the triangulation of the latter, the study elicits insights into: the feeling structures of Churchill's plays; reparative strategies for the renewal of an eco-feminist-socialist politics; the conceptualisation of the 'political is personal' to understand the negative emotional impact that an anti-egalitarian regime has on people's lives; and relations between dystopian criticality and utopian desire. Hannah Proctor's notion of 'anti-adaptive healing' is invoked to propose a summative understanding of Churchill's theatre as engaging audiences in anti-adaptive, resistant feelings towards a capitalist order and healing through a utopic sensing that an alternative future is desirable and still possible.

This Element explores how women theatre artists in Ukraine and Poland - separately and together - respond to their dynamically shifting socio-political realities after the early 2010s events: the pro-European Maidan Revolution in Ukraine and the traditionalist, anti-European governance in Poland, both of which ignited mass women's protests. Engaging with diverse works - new writing, adaptations of classics, musicals, puppetry, and devised productions - Feminist Imagining features artists that explore the connections between patriarchy-rooted violence, gendered nationalism, women's reproductive rights, and decolonial critique. These underpin their transcultural and intersectional alliances and their proposals for concrete scenarios that redefine the past, present, and future, creating specific feminist imaginaries and epistemologies situated in Central-Eastern Europe. The Element captures the feminist turns in Polish and Ukrainian theatres, highlighting the practices of women artists from the so-called Eastern Europe, whose voices have long been nationally and internationally silenced.

This Element explores how women theatre artists in Ukraine and Poland - separately and together - respond to their dynamically shifting socio-political realities after the early 2010s events: the pro-European Maidan Revolution in Ukraine and the traditionalist, anti-European governance in Poland, both of which ignited mass women's protests. Engaging with diverse works - new writing, adaptations of classics, musicals, puppetry, and devised productions - Feminist Imagining features artists that explore the connections between patriarchy-rooted violence, gendered nationalism, women's reproductive rights, and decolonial critique. These underpin their transcultural and intersectional alliances and their proposals for concrete scenarios that redefine the past, present, and future, creating specific feminist imaginaries and epistemologies situated in Central-Eastern Europe. The Element captures the feminist turns in Polish and Ukrainian theatres, highlighting the practices of women artists from the so-called Eastern Europe, whose voices have long been nationally and internationally silenced.

Japan's Takarazuka Revue is arguably the most commercially successful all-female theatre company in the world. Renowned for its glamour-laden staging of musicals and revues, the company's signature shows are heterosexual Western romances where women play both male and female roles. Since its audience consists almost entirely of women, Takarazuka creates a space for queer intimacy between performers and ardent female fans. This Element analyses the recent experimental show, The Poe Clan, directed by Koike Shūichirō, which portrays a male homoerotic relationship, argued as a façade for a queer, kin-like relationship between women. It also explores works by the female director Ueda Kumiko, which depict an anti-capitalist shared commons for female intimacy. These shows exhibit resistant girls' aesthetics, expressed in the company's two-dimensional performance style.

Japan's Takarazuka Revue is arguably the most commercially successful all-female theatre company in the world. Renowned for its glamour-laden staging of musicals and revues, the company's signature shows are heterosexual Western romances where women play both male and female roles. Since its audience consists almost entirely of women, Takarazuka creates a space for queer intimacy between performers and ardent female fans. This Element analyses the recent experimental show, The Poe Clan, directed by Koike Shūichirō, which portrays a male homoerotic relationship, argued as a façade for a queer, kin-like relationship between women. It also explores works by the female director Ueda Kumiko, which depict an anti-capitalist shared commons for female intimacy. These shows exhibit resistant girls' aesthetics, expressed in the company's two-dimensional performance style.

While the life and career of Ellen Terry (1847-1928) have attracted decades of attention from theatre historians and feminist biographers, one chapter remains hidden: Terry's tour of her solo Shakespeare lectures to Australia and New Zealand in 1914. This bold venture, made at the age of sixty-six, has been interpreted as an indication of Terry's declining physical andmental health following her 1906 Jubilee. Yet Terry claimed that 'while in Australia, although a woman, I am permitted to be a person', testifying affinity with the geopolitical region in which women had already achieved the right to vote in federal elections and to run for parliament. This Element undertakes the first comprehensive examination of the 1914 tour to reveal Terry's professional agency, her creative autonomy, her skilful navigation of ageist sexism, her eager receptivity to new natural environments, and her friendship with international opera star, Nellie Melba.

While the life and career of Ellen Terry (1847-1928) have attracted decades of attention from theatre historians and feminist biographers, one chapter remains hidden: Terry's tour of her solo Shakespeare lectures to Australia and New Zealand in 1914. This bold venture, made at the age of sixty-six, has been interpreted as an indication of Terry's declining physical andmental health following her 1906 Jubilee. Yet Terry claimed that 'while in Australia, although a woman, I am permitted to be a person', testifying affinity with the geopolitical region in which women had already achieved the right to vote in federal elections and to run for parliament. This Element undertakes the first comprehensive examination of the 1914 tour to reveal Terry's professional agency, her creative autonomy, her skilful navigation of ageist sexism, her eager receptivity to new natural environments, and her friendship with international opera star, Nellie Melba.

This Element examines Tian Qinxin (1969- ), one of the most prominent theatre directors in contemporary China, and her significant contribution to the development of mainstream Chinese theatre in the 21st century. Since her debut productions in the late 1990s, Tian has cultivated a distinctive directorial style, marked by a syncretic fusion of Western and traditional Chinese theatrical elements. While she has worked across a variety of genres, her primary focus has been on stage adaptations. Adaptation is not only a defining feature of her theatrical practice but also a central aspect of her professional life, where shifting political and cultural contexts necessitate her "performance" of various expressions of both femininity and masculinity. Tian's remarkable adaptability enables her to skillfully navigate the evolving landscape of Chinese theatre, the demands of state cultural policy, and the requirements of the commercial theatre sector.

This Element examines Tian Qinxin (1969- ), one of the most prominent theatre directors in contemporary China, and her significant contribution to the development of mainstream Chinese theatre in the 21st century. Since her debut productions in the late 1990s, Tian has cultivated a distinctive directorial style, marked by a syncretic fusion of Western and traditional Chinese theatrical elements. While she has worked across a variety of genres, her primary focus has been on stage adaptations. Adaptation is not only a defining feature of her theatrical practice but also a central aspect of her professional life, where shifting political and cultural contexts necessitate her "performance" of various expressions of both femininity and masculinity. Tian's remarkable adaptability enables her to skillfully navigate the evolving landscape of Chinese theatre, the demands of state cultural policy, and the requirements of the commercial theatre sector.

Louise Lowe is a theatre and performance director, writer, choreographer, dramaturge, and, more recently, a television director and short film writer/director, working in Ireland and internationally. She is the Co-Artistic Director of ANU Productions, established with Owen Boss in Dublin in 2009. Lowe is known for facilitating and creating moments of interior reckoning for audiences through immersive performance techniques. These techniques engage spectators in affectively realised moments of understanding that the stories unfolding through performance reflect living histories in need of greater socio-political engagement and intervention. This Element assesses Lowe's creative practice and production history since her days as a drama facilitator in women's prisons and resource centres in Dublin, paying particular attention to the economic struggle of Dublin's north inner-city, the markings of which are potently visible in the work she makes, and how she makes it. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

This Element focuses on three Chinese productions of The Vagina Monologues (TVM, 1996), a radical-feminist play by the North American artist and activist Eve Ensler: Yin Dao Du Bai (The Vagina Monologues, 2003), Yin Dao Zhi Dao (Vagina's Way, 2013), and Dao Yin (Saying Vagina, 2021). Each production was staged in and informed by the changing landscape of Chinese feminism: from 2003 to the early 2010s, the making of TVM was a process of exploring the subject position of an autonomous citizen, but from 2015, feminist theatre making had to contend with gains being eroded by state neoliberalism, an issue reflected in the third performance, Dao Yin (2021). Drawing on this historical analysis, in the fifth and final section, the author proposes the concept of 'collapsed feminisms' to argue that Chinese feminist theatres from 2003 to 2021 staged an extremely complicated scene where all these feminisms overlapped and 'collapsed' together.