The Palgrave Handbook of Theatre Censorship

This is an extraordinary and often eye-opening set of insightful, wide-ranging and oftentimes disturbing essays, each of which offers unique insights into theatre censorship practices and their impact within a specific political and moral culture. The collection repeatedly breaks fresh ground.

­- Steve Nicholson, Emeritus Professor, University of Sheffield, UK

In its impressive and well-realised ambition, demonstrated by the well-focused intelligence and academic flair of its many contributors, this collection is both magisterial and vital. It is an essential contribution to censorship studies, fascinating and inspiring, a must-read for anyone interested in the subject.

- Aleks Sierz. Theatre critic and author

At a time in the world where many governments are increasingly seeking to limit artistic expression, this book is a necessary reminder of the many freedoms that have been fought for in theatres around the globe, and how the power of being unsilenced must never be taken for granted.

- Caridad Svich. Playwright and translator

This book incorporates a wide theoretical, cultural, literary and historical engagement in exploring the tension between dramatic productions and the forms of censorship they encounter from creation to reception. The Palgrave Handbook of Theatre Censorship offers global new insights into censorship practices, examining attempts at repression motivated either by fears that audiences gathering together to watch live dramatic events will lead to sedition and mass uprisings, or by moral or religious squeamishness requiring the establishment of institutional systems of censorship to curb or suppress the stage. As such, the Handbook aims to initiate redefinitions of what we understand or experience as censorship.

Anne Etienne is Lecturer in Modern and Contemporary Drama in the Department of English at University College Cork, Ireland.

Graham Saunders is the Allardyce Nicoll Chair of Drama in the Department of Drama and Theatre Arts at the University of Birmingham, UK.

They are series co-editors of Palgrave Studies in Cultural Censorship.