Stage Designers in Early Twentieth-Century America

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xiii

   PDF

2. Introduction: Design as Cultural History

   • Christin Essin

   Pages 1-15

3. The Designer as Author

   • Christin Essin

   Pages 17-49

4. The Designer as Cultural Critic

   • Christin Essin

   Pages 51-91

5. The Designer as Activist

   • Christin Essin

   Pages 93-130

6. The Designer as Entrepreneur

   • Christin Essin

   Pages 131-165

7. The Designer as Global Cartographer

   • Christin Essin

   Pages 167-200

8. Back Matter

   Pages 201-264

   PDF

By casting designers as authors, cultural critics, activists, entrepreneurs, and global cartographers, Essin tells a story about scenic images on the page, stage, and beyond that helped American audiences see the everyday landscapes and exotic destinations from a modern perspective.

• America
• cultural history
• design
• history
• history of literature
• landscape
• landscapes
• nation
• stage

"The originality of this lucid study by Essin is how she places that aesthetic movement in a broader cultural context . . . Essin's research is thorough, her writing is engaging, and her insights are rewarding. Summing Up: Recommended. For all academic, general, and professional/practitioner audiences." - CHOICE

"Stage Designers in Early Twentieth Century America offers a bounty of new insights into the lives and artistry of the scenic designers who conceptualized, practiced, and promulgated the New Stagecraft. Christin Essin approaches their innovative work in the best possible way: within broader developments of material culture across the first half of the twentieth century. Discoursing with histories of the labor movement, mass production, consumerism, and imperialism, Essin elucidates the social complexities of this vital development in American theatre history." - James Peck, Department Chair and Associate Professor of Theatre, Muhlenberg College, USA, and editor, Theatre Topics

"Christin Essin offers a new and valuable perspective on evolution of the designer's role in the modern American theatre. Adventurously conceived and meticulously researched, Essin's study draws on a wide range of archival sources to provide a much-needed historicization of the New Stagecraft movement. By emphasizing the dual status of designers as both artists and working professionals, the book prompts fresh consideration of legendary figures such as Robert Edmond Jones and Jo Mielziner while recognizing the contributions of lesser-known artists such as Aline Bernstein and Howard Bay. It should be required reading in any survey of American theatre history."- Henry Bial, Associate Professor of Theatre Studies and American Studies, University of Kansas, USA

Christin Essin is Assistant Professor of Theatre and Theatre History at Vanderbilt University, USA.

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