Author: Eileen Karen KuehnlPublisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 480
Book Description
Maude Adams, an American Idol : True Womanhood Triumphant in the Late-nineteenth and Early-twentieth Century Theatre
Author: Eileen Karen KuehnlStrange Duets
Author: Kim MarraPublisher: University of Iowa Press
ISBN: 1587297418
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 379
Book Description
Autocratic male impresarios increasingly dominated the American stage between 1865 and 1914. Many rose from poor immigrant roots and built their own careers by making huge stars out of “undiscovered,” Anglo-identified actresses. Reflecting the antics of self-made industrial empire-builders and independent, challenging New Women, these theatrical potentates and their protégées gained a level of wealth and celebrity comparable to that of Hollywood stars today. In her engaging and provocative Strange Duets, Kim Marra spotlights three passionate impresario-actress relationships of exceptional duration that encapsulated the social tensions of the day and strongly influenced the theatre of the twentieth century. Augustin Daly and Ada Rehan, Charles Frohman and Maude Adams, and David Belasco and Mrs. Leslie Carter reigned over “legitimate” Broadway theatre, the venue of greatest social cachet for the monied classes. Unlike impresarios and actresses in vaudeville and burlesque, they produced full-length spoken drama that involved special rigors of training and rehearsal to sustain a character’s emotional “truth” as well as a high level of physical athleticism and endurance. Their efforts compelled fascination at a time when most people believed women’s emotions were seated primarily in the reproductive organs and thus were fundamentally embodied and sexual in nature. While the impresario ostensibly exercised full control over his leading lady, showing fashionable audiences that the exciting but unruly New Woman could be both tamed and enjoyed, she acquired a power of her own that could bring him to his knees.Kim Marra combines methods of cultural, gender, and sexuality studies with theatre history to explore the vexed mutual dependency between these status-seeking Svengalis and their alternately willing and resistant leading ladies. She illuminates how their on- and off-stage performances, highly charged in this Darwinian era with “racial” as well as gender, sexual, and class dynamics, tapped into the contradictory fantasies and aspirations of their audiences. Played out against a backdrop of enormous cultural and institutional transformation, the volatile romance of Daly and Rehan, closeted homosexuality of Frohman and Adams, and carnal expiations of Belasco and Carter produced strange duets indeed.
May Irwin
Author: Sharon AmmenPublisher: University of Illinois Press
ISBN: 0252099095
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 409
Book Description
May Irwin reigned as America's queen of comedy and song from the 1880s through the 1920s. A genuine pop culture phenomenon, Irwin conquered the legitimate stage, composed song lyrics, and parlayed her celebrity into success as a cookbook author, suffragette, and real estate mogul. Sharon Ammen's in-depth study traces Irwin's hurly-burly life. Irwin gained fame when, layering aspects of minstrelsy over ragtime, she popularized a racist "Negro song" genre. Ammen examines this forgotten music, the society it both reflected and entertained, and the ways white and black audiences received Irwin's performances. She also delves into Irwin's hands-on management of her image and career, revealing how Irwin carefully built a public persona as a nurturing housewife whose maternal skills and performing acumen reinforced one another. Irwin's act, soaked in racist song and humor, built a fortune she never relinquished. Yet her career's legacy led to a posthumous obscurity as the nation that once adored her evolved and changed.
Dissertation Abstracts International
Author: Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Dissertations, Academic
Languages : en
Pages : 348
Book Description
People in History: A-M
Author: Susan K. KinnellPublisher: Santa Barbara, Calif. : ABC-Clio
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 456
Book Description
America, History and Life
Author: Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Canada
Languages : en
Pages : 1214
Book Description
Vols. 11-25 issued in parts: America, history and life. Part A, Article abstracts and citations; America history and life. Part B, Index to book reviews; America, history and life. Part C, American history bibliography, books, articles and dissertations; and America, history and life. Part D, Annual index.
Comprehensive Dissertation Index
Author: Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Dissertations, Academic
Languages : en
Pages : 860
Book Description
American Doctoral Dissertations
Author: Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Dissertation abstracts
Languages : en
Pages : 574
Book Description
Literary Criticism Register
Author: Women in World History
Author: Anne CommirePublisher:
ISBN: 9780787640804
Category : Women
Languages : en
Pages : 848
Book Description