The Theatre of Naomi Wallace: Embodied Dialogues - Tapa dura

"A crucial and long overdue study of one of the fiercest, most poetic and sensual voices that the American theatre has ever produced. A book that celebrates Wallace's grace, intellectual wit, and probing intelligence." - Lyn Gardner, The Guardian

". . . This volume analyzes and celebrates the playwright's many achievements . . . Throughout the book, Wallace is compared to Tony Kushner, Suzan-Lori Parks, Caryl Churchill, Samuel Beckett, Jane Austen, W.B. Yeats, Walt Whitman, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Bruce Springsteen. This list is a testament to the playwright as well as to those who generated it - the astute, diverse, impassioned writers who recognize and relish the prismatic spectrum that is Naomi Wallace . . . Wallace's own bibliographies . . . send their readers on historical and philosophical journeys. The editors and contributors of The Theatre of Naomi Wallace have extended such journeys into a collective pilgrimage, paying homage to an extraordinary playwright with an extraordinary book." - Modern Drama

Naomi Wallace, an American playwright based in Britain, is one of the more original and provocative voices in contemporary theatre. Her poetic, erotically-charged, and politically engaged plays have been seen in London's West End, off-Broadway, at the Comédie-Française, in regional and provincial theaters, and on college campuses around the world. Known for their intimate, sensual encounters examining the relationship between identity and power, Wallace's works have attracted a wide range of theatre practitioners, including such important directors as Dominic Dromgoole, Ron Daniels, Jo Bonney, and Kwame Kwei-Armah. Drawing on scholars, activists, historians, and theatre artists in the United States, Canada, Britain, and the Middle East, this anthology of essays presents a comprehensive overview of Wallace's body of work that will be of use to theatre practitioners, students, scholars, and educators alike.