Theatre and celebrity in Britain, 1660-2000 / edited by Mary Luckhurst and Jane Moody.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Luckhurst, Mary.

Moody, Jane, 1967-2011

Horace Howard Furness Memorial Fund.

Horace Howard Furness Memorial Library (University of Pennsylvania)

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Actors--Great Britain--Biography.

Actors.

Great Britain.

Fame.

Genre:

Biographies.

Physical Description:

xi, 248 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

New York : Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.

Summary:

Theatre has always been a site for selling outrage and sensation, a place where public reputations are made and destroyed in spectacular ways. This is the first book to investigate the construction and production of celebrity in the British theatre. These original and exciting essays explore aspects of fame in a wide range of performers and playwrights including David Garrick, Ellen Terry, Oscar Wilde, Edmund Kean, Laurence Olivier and Sarah Kane. Theatre and Celebrity in Britain, 1660-2000 is a pioneering volume which sets out to examine the ingenious ways in which stars have negotiated and defined their own fame. Organized around the themes of public intimacy, notoriety, markets and the nation, the essays in this innovative and wide-ranging collection reveal the critical position of celebrity in the history of British theatre.

Contents:

Introduction : the singularity of theatrical celebrity / Mary Luckhurst and Jane Moody

Public intimacy : the prior history of "it" / Joseph Roach

Wilde : the remarkable rocket / Peter Raby

The many masks of Clemence Dane / Maggie B. Gale

Stolen identities : character, mimicry and the invention of Samuel Foote / Jane Moody

The celebrity of Edmund Kean : an institutional story / Jacky Bratton

Infamy and dying young : Sarah Kane, 1971-1999 / Mary Luckhurst

Celebrity and rivalry: David [Garrick] and Goliath [Quin] / Peter Thomson

Actresses and the economics of celebrity, 1700-1800 / Felicity Nussbaum

Private lives and public spaces : reputation, celebrity, and the late Victorian actress / Sos Eltis

Siddons, celebrity, and regality : portraiture and the body of the ageing actress / Shearer West

"Some of you might have seen him" : Laurence Olivier's celebrity / Peter Holland.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 233-237) and index.

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the Horace Howard Furness Memorial Fund.

ISBN:

1403946825

OCLC:

60776842

Publisher Number:

9781403946829