Examining theatre economics, rhetorical acting, cross-dressing, the staging of 'self', and the alignment of motherhood and work, this book reveals how actresses drew on changing models of gender to achieve phenomenal levels of success over the eighteenth-century. By doing so it sheds new light on the cultural significance of female performance.

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About the Author
Helen E. M. Brooks is Lecturer in Drama at the University of Kent, UK. is Senior Lecturer in Drama at the University of Kent, UK. She is Associate Editor of the Wiley Encyclopedia of British Literature 1660-1789 and has published articles on eighteenth-century women as actresses and theatre managers, on private theatricals, and on performance historiography.

Reviews

"This book provides a new focus through a study of how these actresses negotiated and displayed contemporary concepts of gender in order to create themselves as profitable and marketable commodities. ... Brooks offers an impressive contribution to the study of eighteenth-century actresses, appealing to scholars of theatrical history, eighteenth-century drama and women's history ... ." (Anna Louise Senkiw, The BARS Review, Issue 48, Autumn, 2016)

Book Information
ISBN 9781349334483
Author H. Brooks
Format Paperback
Page Count 201
Imprint Palgrave Macmillan
Publisher Palgrave Macmillan