Cattell, Tracy Catherine (2015) The living language of stage management : an interpretative study of the history and development of professional stage management in the United Kingdom, 1567-1968. PhD thesis, University of Warwick.

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Abstract

Stage management is a professional, technical craft which is essential to the product of the professional British theatre. Yet with no dedicated academic study into its development and no published resources chronicling its history, stage managers of the present age have no means of accessing their professional heritage. As a profession committed to practising and preserving theatrical traditions within their daily activities, it is anomalous that its practitioners have not the means to explore and understand the roots of many aspects of their daily practice, and regrettable that scholarship has not access to an academic study of its evolution or the contextual catalysts for its development in order to inform the wider body of research into British theatre history.

This study aims to address this complete absence of scholarship in the field by providing the first dedicated academic research into the development of professional stage management in Britain. It will draw upon the primary evidence of stage management documents such as prompt manuscripts and interpret them from the perspective of a professional practitioner, tracing the development of stage management from the support offered to the early modern companies of the Elizabethan age to the professionalisation and unionisation of stage management which emerged in the second half of the twentieth century. By so doing, this thesis constitutes an entirely original contribution to knowledge in relation to this important yet neglected aspect of the history of the British theatre, and will enable professional practitioners to access their professional heritage for the first time.

Item Type:	Thesis or Dissertation (PhD)
Subjects:	D History General and Old World > DA Great Britain P Language and Literature > PN Literature (General) > PN2000 Dramatic representation. The Theater
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):	Stage management -- Great Britain, Theater management -- Great Britain -- History, Theater -- Great Britain -- History
Official Date:	July 2015
Dates:	Date Event July 2015 Submitted
Institution:	University of Warwick
Theses Department:	School of Theatre, Performance and Cultural Policy Studies
Thesis Type:	PhD
Publication Status:	Unpublished
Supervisor(s)/Advisor:	Davis, Jim, 1949-
Extent:	xvii, 429 leaves : illustrations
Language:	eng

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