Daniel J. Watermeier

Though first performed some 400 years ago, the plays of William Shakespeare still continue to capture the popular imagination and are produced by numerous companies around the world. This reference describes over 140 Shakespeare companies and festivals worldwide. Each company or festival is profiled in a separate entry. Entries are grouped in chapters devoted to particular states or countries, and provide historical, organizational, demographic, and production information. Each profile describes the history of the festival or company; its organization, including staffing and budgeting; its physical facilities and performance site; the demographics of its audience and the community where it is located; and the company's or festival's approach to producing Shakespeare's plays. Each entry begins with a headnote providing essential information, such as the name, address, box office phone number, length of season, principal staff members, facilities, annual attendance, and budget. Each closes with a chronological listing of all Shakespeare's plays produced by the organization, and resources for further information.

When John Wilkes Booth assassinated President Abraham Lincoln, his older brother Edwin was devastated. A leading stage star, Edwin Booth thought his career had ended. But with the support of countless theatergoers, over the next thirty years Booth would overcome the shadow of John Wilkes’s infamy and steadily advance a reputation as America’s greatest-ever Shakespearean actor, the American tragedian par excellence. Daniel J. Watermeier has, through decades of tireless research paired with his own sharp insight, put together the most complete Edwin Booth biography to date. Drawing on a wealth of archival materials and contemporary theatrical scholarship, American Tragedian: The Life of Edwin Booth gives more attention than previous biographies to Booth’s apprentice and journeyman years; his rise in antebellum America to stardom with a new, acclaimed style of acting; his work as an innovative theater builder and theatrical producer; his several foreign tours; and his nationwide tours in the late 1880s. It also addresses Booth’s critical reception in dozens of cities in America and abroad and situates his professional activities within the events and trends of the time. As interesting as it is informative, Watermeier’s book offers an in-depth look at the triumphal career and tumultuous life of one of the American stage’s most celebrated figures.