(M)Other Perspectives: Staging Motherhood in 21st Century North American Theatre & Performance

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Acknowledgements
Contributors Bio
INTRODUCTION: Mothers on Stage, in the House, and Behind the Scenes
Lynn Deboeck and Aoise Stratford
PART ONE: RESCRIPTING REPRODUCTION AND THE PREGNANT BODY
Introduction / Mother's To Do List
(1) We Are BRAVE: Performed Motherhood as Sexual and Reproductive Justice Activism
Roberta Hunte
(2) Queer Mothering: You Don't Have To Emerge From Nothing
Michelle Hayford
(3) Embodied Dramaturgy of Pregnancy and Motherhood in Grounded and Gloria
Sarah Johnson
(4) "You just know": Fertility-as-Currency in Expecting Isabel
Lynn Deboeck
(5) Representations of (Non) Choice: Birthmother Narratives from Marginalized Mothers in Contemporary Theatre
Tamar Neumann
PART TWO: MATERNAL/THEATRICAL LEGACIES
Introduction / Mother's To Do List
(6) Persistent Anxiety and Absent Mothers in Lucas Hnath's A Doll's House, Part 2
Alison Walls
(7) "Unnatural" Mothers in Global Capitalism: Snow in Midsummer by Frances Ya-chu Cowig
Daphne P. Lei
(8) Abortion and the Monstrous Maternal in Suzan-Lori Parks's Red Letter Plays
Aoise Stratford
(9) Scripting and Staging Immigrant Motherhood in Heather Raffo's Noura
Suzi Elnaggar
(10) Mourning Mothers: Madness as Deviant Motherhood in Next to Normal
Lindsey Barr
PART THREE: MOTHERHOOD / NATIONHOOD
Introduction / Mother's To Do List
(11) Negotiating Mothers: Exploring the Maternal Landscape in Danai Gurira's Eclipsed
L. Bailey McDaniel
(12) "Mothers are the trickiest thing" Staging Undocumented Motherhood in Miss You Like Hell
Diana Benea
(13) Laboring for Their Country: Mother-Soldiers in Grounded and Welcome Home Jenny Sutter
Jacqueline Viskup
(14) Motherhood/Motherland: Performing Maternity and the Creation of a Citizen
Melissa Flower
(15) The Ties that Bind: Motherhood, Veiling, and Diasporic Subjectivity in Rohina Malik's Unveiled
Megan Stahl
PART FOUR: MOTHERHOOD AS THEATRICAL LABOR
Introduction / Mother's To Do List
(16) Radical Inclusivity: Rachel Hewitt and The Parent Artist Advocacy League
Daniella Vinitski Mooney
(17) Performing Performance Moms
Teresa Simone
(18) ASTR Field Conversation: Black Motherhood
Mysia Anderson, Maisha Akbar, Shondrika Moss-Bouldin, Nicole Hodges Persley
(19) No Further: Staging Motherwork and Maternal Relationships
Kristyl Tift
(20) A manifesto for care in the rehearsal room and the birthing room
Shawna Mefferd Kelty
(21) Jewish Mothers
Christina Hurtado-Pearson and Jessie Mills
CONCLUSION
Aoise Stratford and Lynn Deboeck
APPENDIX - Play List for Further Reading
Index

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This anthology examines maternity in contemporary performance at the intersection of a wide range of topics from nationhood to mental health, queer parenting, embodied dramaturgy, cultural practice, and immigration.

Across the breadth of these themes, we interrogate the cultural implications and politics of how we script, perform, receive, and define mothers, challenging many of the normalizing and patriarchal tropes associated with the mother-as-character. This book includes critical essays examining twenty-first century dramatic literature, first-hand ethnographic accounts of motherhood in practice, interviews, feminist manifestos, and artist reflections. In its deliberately curated variety, this collection seeks to resist homogeneity and offer instead a range of approaches to key questions: what versions of motherhood get staged, and why? And what do dramatic representations tell us about the role of mothers in our own fraught contemporary moment?

This collection will be of great interest to those in academia who are teaching, researching, or studying in the fields of Theatre and Performance Studies, American Studies, and Feminist and Gender Studies.

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