The Colonial Public and the Parsi Stage is the first comprehensive study of the Parsi theatre, colonial South and Southeast Asia’s most influential cultural phenomenon and the precursor of the Indian cinema industry.
Rashna Darius Nicholson is Assistant Professor of Theatre Studies at the University of Hong Kong. She has published works on colonial and postcolonial South Asian performance, theatre historiography, and cultural development.
Chapter 1: Parsi compradors and the public sphere.- Chapter 2: Social reform, law-making and the origins of the Parsi theatre.- Chapter 3: Corporeal discipline.- Chapter 4: Science, secular mythology and the professionalization of the Parsi theatre.- Chapter 5: The expansion of the Parsi theatre.- Chapter 6: The reformers in need of reforming.- Chapter 7: Race-thinking and the parsi social drama.