Theatre Culture in America, 1825–1860

Theatre Culture in America, 1825–1860 examines how Americans staged their cultures in the decades before the Civil War, and advances the idea that cultures are performances which take place both inside and outside of playhouses. Americans imaginatively expanded conventional ideas of performance as an activity restricted to theatres in order to take up the staging of culture in other venues - in issues of class, race and gender, in parades and the visits of dignitaries, in rioting and the denomination of prostitutes, and in views of the town, the city and the frontier. Joining historical research with a firm and clear-headed grasp of contemporary critical theory, Theatre Culture in America offers an interesting approach to the complex intersections of American theatre and culture.

• An innovative analysis of the relationship of theatre and culture • Joins historical research and contemporary critical theory • Useful to students of theatre, art, literature, philosophy, history, sociology and American culture

List of illustrations; Acknowledgments; Prologue: universal spaces; 1. The return of Lafayette; 2. The opening of the Erie canal; Part I. Spaces of Representation: 3. The town; 4. The city; 5. The frontier; Part II. Liminal Spaces: 6. Work; 7. Class; Part III. Spaces of Legitimation: 8. Bodying forth; 9. Sensation scenes; 10. Displaced play; Epilogue: simultaneous spaces; Notes; Bibliography; Index.