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Popular Performance

Popular Performance

by Louise Peacock (Author), Louise Peacock (Author), Adam Ainsworth (Author), Oliver Double (Author), Adam Ainsworthand (Editor)

  • New

    Hardcover 2017

    $157.30
Synopsis

There is no fourth wall in popular performance. The show is firmly rooted in the here and now, and the performers address the audience directly, while the audience answer back with laughter, applause or heckling. Performer and role are interlaced, so that we are left uncertain about just how the persona we see onstage might relate to the private person who presents it to us. Popular Performance defines and surveys varieties of performance where the main purpose is to entertain, and where there is no shame in being trivial, frivolous or nonsensical as long as people go home happy at the end of the show. Contributions by new and established scholars focus particularly on how it is made, explaining the techniques of performance and production that make it so appealing to audiences. With sections examining how popular performance works in a range of historical and contemporary examples, readers will gain insights into: * performance forms associated with the variety tradition: music hall, vaudeville, cabaret, variety * performance forms associated with circus: wild west shows, clowning * issues relating to the identity of the performer in relation to magic, burlesque, pantomime in contemporary performance * issues relating to venue and audience in relation to contemporary street theatre, stand-up, and live sketch comedy.

$157.30

Quantity

20+ in stock

More Information

Format: Hardcover
 Pages: 304
 Publisher: Bloomsbury Methuen Drama
Published: 20 Apr 2017
ISBN 10: 1474247342
ISBN 13: 9781474247344
Book Overview: Popular Performance provides an essential overview and analysis of a wide range of historical and contemporary performance forms, including music hall, vaudeville, variety, cabaret, pantomime, wild west shows, clowning, and street performance,

Media Reviews
An interesting collection of academic treatments of areas of performance that perhaps do not get as much attention, which has to be welcomed. * British Theatre Guide *
Author Bio
Adam Ainsworth is senior lecturer in Drama at Kingston University, London, UK. His research interests include 19th-century pantomime, music hall and variety theatre and he is currently undertaking doctoral research that will produce the first detailed history of the Empire Theatre at Kingston-upon-Thames. He co-convenes the TaPRA Popular Performance Working Group. Oliver Double started his career as a professional comedian before lecturing on and teaching drama and comedy at the University of Kent, UK. He is the author of many journal articles on stand-up comedy and comedians. His publications include Stand Up: On Being A Comedian (2005) and Getting the Joke (2nd edition, 2014). Louise Peacock is assistant professor of theatre practice at the University of Southern California, USA. She is the author of Serious Play: Modern Clown Performance (2009) and Slapstick and Comic Performance: Comedy and Pain (2014). She is a member of the editorial board of Comedy Studies.