The eleven finalists for this year’s Outstanding Book Award from the Association for Theatre in Higher Education are a highly eclectic mix of academic theater books, some of which don’t seem to have much to do with theater at all, viewing “performance” more broadly. They are listed below alphabetically by book title, the titles linked to its page on Amazon for more information or to purchase (some of which are free on Kindle.) The winners will be announced on July 21.
Blues Mamas and Broadway Belters: Black Women, Voice, and the Musical Stage by Masi Asare (Duke University Press, 295 pages) .
Masi Asare explores the singing practice of black women singers in US musical theatre between 1900 and 1970, showing how a vanguard of black women singers including Gertrude “Ma” Rainey, Bessie Smith, Ethel Waters, Pearl Bailey, Juanita Hall, Lena Horne, Eartha Kitt, Diahann Carroll, and Leslie Uggams created a lineage of highly trained and effective voice teachers
Disability Works: Performance After Rehabilitation by Patrick McKelvey, (New York University Press, 337 pages)
Patrick McKelvey explores how disabled artists and activists ingeniously used rehabilitative resources to fuel their performance practices, breaking free from the grasp of rehabilitation
Kinethic California: Dancing Funk and Disco Era Kinships, by Naomi Macalalad Bragin (University of Michigan Press, 241 pages.)
Naomi Macalalad Bragin documents the emergence of new forms of black social and vernacular dance invented by youth living in 1970s California, who helped build the foundations of contemporary hip hop/streetdance culture.
The Lamentations: A Requiem for Queer Suicide by Patrick Anderson (Fordham University Press, 265 pages)
Patrick Anderson examines the phenomenon of queer suicide across various art forms such as film, theatre, and literature, tracing its evolution from the twentieth century to today.
Muscle Works: Physical Culture and the Performance of Masculinity, by Broderick D.V. Chow (Northwestern University Press, 245 pages)
Broderick D. V. Chow recounts the story of fitness culture from its beginnings as spectacles of strongmen, weightlifters, acrobats, and wrestlers to its legitimization in the twentieth-century in the form of competitive sports and health and wellness practices.
Object Performance in the Black Atlantic: The United States, by Paulette Richards (Routledge. 312 pages)
Paulette Richards addresses the question: Is there a traceable connection between traditional African puppets, masks, and performing objects and contemporary African American puppetry?
Performing Corporate Bodies: Multinational Theatre in Global India, by Sarah Saddler (Routledge, 211 pages)
Sarah Saddler takes a first look at corporate theatre, a global management trend that uses dramatic techniques in workplace learning.
Pragmatic Liberation and the Politics of Puerto Rican Diasporic Drama, by Jon D. Rossini (University of Michigan Press, 254 pages)
Jon D. Rossini explores the work of a unique group of playwrights—Puerto Rican dramatists writing in the United States—who offer a model of political engagement. A
Redface: Race, Performance, and Indigeneity, by Bethany Hughes (New York University Press, 288 pages)
Bethny Hughes traces the “Stage Indian” from its early nineteenth-century roots to its proliferation across theatrical entertainment forms and twenty-first century attempts to address its racist legacy,
Revolutionary Stagecraft: Theater, Technology, and Politics in Modern China, by Tarryn Li-Min Chun (University of Michigan Press, 338 pages.)
This history of Chinese theater from the 1920s to the 1980s combines a close look at plays themselves, performance practices, technical theater details, and behind-the-scenes debates over how to make theater amid the political upheavals of China’s 20th century.
Staging Deaf and Hearing Theatre Productions: A Practical Guide, by Andy Head and
Jill Marie Bradbury (Palgrave Macmillan, 342 pages.)
The authors, one hearing, one deaf, offer advice on how to go beyond accessibility towards inclusivity by considering deaf perspectives at every stage of the process: When deaf actors are cast in roles assumed to be hearing, how does this change the world of the play? How does the inclusion of a visual language affect staging decisions? How can truly equal access to two different languages be achieved for diverse production teams and audiences?
Your purchase through some of the links above may generate a small commission, which helps support my work. Many of these books are (or will be) available to borrow at the New York Public Library and other local libraries.
