Patricia Ybarra

This updated fourth edition of Theatre Histories offers a critical overview of global theatre, drama, and performance, spanning a broad wealth of world cultures and periods, integrating them chronologically or thematically, and showing how they have often interacted. Bringing together a group of scholars from a diverse range of backgrounds and approaches to the history of global theater, this introduction to theatre history places theatre into its larger historical contexts and attends to communication’s role in shaping theatre. Its case studies provide deeper knowledge of selected topics in theater and drama, and its “Thinking Through Theatre Histories” boxes discuss important concepts and approaches used in the book. Features of the fully updated fourth edition include:Deeper coverage of East Asian and Latin American theater. Richer treatment of popular culture. More illustrations, photographs, and information about online resources. New case studies, include several written by authoritative scholars on the topic. Pronunciation guidance, both in the text and as audio files online. Timelines. An introduction on historiography. A website with additional case studies, a glossary, recordings of the pronunciation of important non-English terms, and instructor resources. A case studies library listing, including both those in print and online, for greater instructor choice and flexibility. This is an essential textbook for undergraduate courses in theatre history, world theatre and introduction to theatre, and anyone looking for a full and diverse account of the emergence, development, and continuing relevance of theatre to cultures and societies across the world.

This updated fourth edition of Theatre Histories offers a critical overview of global theatre, drama, and performance, spanning a broad wealth of world cultures and periods, integrating them chronologically or thematically, and showing how they have often interacted. Bringing together a group of scholars from a diverse range of backgrounds and approaches to the history of global theater, this introduction to theatre history places theatre into its larger historical contexts and attends to communication’s role in shaping theatre. Its case studies provide deeper knowledge of selected topics in theater and drama, and its “Thinking Through Theatre Histories” boxes discuss important concepts and approaches used in the book. Features of the fully updated fourth edition include:Deeper coverage of East Asian and Latin American theater. Richer treatment of popular culture. More illustrations, photographs, and information about online resources. New case studies, include several written by authoritative scholars on the topic. Pronunciation guidance, both in the text and as audio files online. Timelines. An introduction on historiography. A website with additional case studies, a glossary, recordings of the pronunciation of important non-English terms, and instructor resources. A case studies library listing, including both those in print and online, for greater instructor choice and flexibility. This is an essential textbook for undergraduate courses in theatre history, world theatre and introduction to theatre, and anyone looking for a full and diverse account of the emergence, development, and continuing relevance of theatre to cultures and societies across the world.

"A new and important analysis of the ways in which plays, festivals, pageants and political events have long exhibited public conformity while, at times, critiquing and challenging their own performance. It will be enthusiastically received by those who study performance, Latin America, and resistance movements."---Diana Taylor, New York University Tlaxcala is unique among the states of Mexico. Because of its fierce independence during the pre-Columbian era (it was never conquered by the Aztecs) and its strategic alliance with the Spanish invaders in Cortez's conquest in the early sixteenth century, Tlaxcala has played a significant role in Mexican history. Performing Conquest examines the distinct Tlaxcalan identity that has evolved over the last five centuries and the way that performance---especially political speech---has been inextricably linked to its creation. The book focuses on theatrical performances, political events, texts that "perform" despite themselves, and state-sponsored performances designed to foment local and/or national identity. The theatrical strategies included the re-imagination of civic space, the combination of aural, oral, and visual means of communication to create meaning, and the blurring of the line between representation and reality, which made everyday citizens into "actors" in their spectacles. Performing Conquest shows not only that these strategies were deeply embedded cultural practices, learned from and developed within religious conversion plays, political entry ceremonies, festival displays, tragic hero dramas, and state-sponsored patriotic pageants, but also that they transformed at crucial historical moments in response to various wars, national cultural policies, and debt crises. Patricia A. Ybarra is Assistant Professor of Theater, Speech, and Dance at Brown University.