Figure of the Monster in Global Theatre

Michael M. Chemers is Professor and Chair of the Department of Performance, Play & Design at the University of California Santa Cruz, USA. He is the author of more than 70 peer-reviewed pieces (including seven books) on theatre history, theory, adaptation, and dramaturgy. Most relevant to this project, he is the author of Staging Stigma: A Critical Examination of the American Freak Show (Palgrave MacMillan, 2008) and The Monster in Theatre History: This Thing of Darkness (Routledge, 2017), served as editor for a double issue of Disability Studies Quarterly on freak shows, and edited Alexander Iliev’s Towards a Theory of Mime (Routledge, 2014) and Luis Valdez’s Theatre of the Sphere: The Vibrant Being (Routledge, 2021).Analola Santana is Associate Professor in the Department of Theater at Dartmouth College, USA. She is the author of Teatro y Cultura de Masas: Encuentros y Debates (2010) and Freak Performances: Dissidence in Latin American Theatre (2018), the latter of which considers the significance of theatrical practices that use the "freak" as a medium to explore the continuing effects of colonialism on Latin American identity. She is also the co-editor of Theatre and Cartographies of Power: Repositioning the Latina/o Americas (2018) and Fifty Key Figures in Latinx and Latin American Theatre (Routledge, 2022). She works as a professional dramaturg and is a company member of Mexico’s famed Teatro de Ciertos Habitantes.

• List of ContributorsIntroduction: A Global Epistemology of the Monster in PerformanceChapter 1. Gender and Performing a Spider Spirit in Jingju (Beijing Opera) Pansidong (Cave of the Silken Web) Chapter 2. Yakshi - A Bizarre Double from South Asia Chapter 3. The Resignification of La Llorona in Mexican and Chicano Culture Chapter 4. Spectral Monster/Haunting Presence: Decolonial Re-imaginings of Sycorax Chapter 5. Cuentos de la Tumbona: A Teatro-cabaret Tale of Trans Monstrosity and Resistance Chapter 6. When is the Time of No More Deaths? Forced Migration, Untimely Ghosts, and the Sounds of Haunting Performance Chapter 7. Blood, Sweat, and Fears: The Values of Work and Community in the Haunting Profession Chapter 8. The Ghost at the Top of the Stairs: Apparitions of Trauma and White Supremacy in Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ Appropriate Chapter 9. More than Monsters: Black Horror and the Whole Humanity of Her (1925) and Nope (2022) Chapter 10. A Tale of Golem DemocracyChapter 11. ‘Something Coming to Eat the Whole World’: The monstrous nostalgia of Little Shop of Horrors Chapter 12. The Ghosts of War: Trauma and the Supernatural Chapter 13. ‘In the puppet or in the god’: Annie Baker’s John, Numinous Dread,and Unknowable Others Chapter 14. Snap Chat Filters, Dissonant Cockatoos, and Total Blackouts: Conjuring Monsters in Australian Gothic TheatreChapter 15. The Wicked Witch of the Web: Technology and Monstrosity in The Builders Association’s Elements of Oz Index