The Golden Thread: Irish Women Playwrights, Volumes 1 & 2

Sold as a multi-volume set the individual volumes are also available for purchase. This two-volume edited collection illuminates the valuable counter-canon of Irish womens playwriting with forty-two essays written by leading and emerging Irish theatre scholars and practitioners. Covering three hundred years of Irish theatre history from 1716 to 2016, it is the most comprehensive study of plays written by Irish women to date. These short essays provide both a valuable introduction and innovative analysis of key playtexts, bringing renewed attention to scripts and writers that continue to be under-represented in theatre criticism and performance. Volume One covers plays by Irish women playwrights written between 1716 to 1992, and seeks to address and redress the historic absence of Irish female playwrights in theatre histories. Highlighting the work of nine women playwrights from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, as well as thirteen of the twentieth centurys key writers, the chapters in this volume explore such varied themes as the impact of space and place on identity, womens strategic use of genre, and theatrical responses to shifts in Irish politics and culture. Volume Two contains chapters focused on plays by sixteen Irish women playwrights produced between 1992 and 2016, highlighting the explosion of new work by contemporary writers. The plays in this volume explore womens experiences at the intersections of class, sexuality, disability, and ethnicity, pushing at the boundaries of how we define not only Irish theatre, but Irish identity more broadly. CONTRIBUTORS: Conrad Brunstrm, David Clare, Thomas Conway, Margurite Corporaal, Mark Fitzgerald, Shirley-Anne Godfrey, na Kealy, Sonja Lawrenson, Cathy Leeney, Marc Mac Lochlainn, Kate McCarthy, Fiona McDonagh, Deirdre McFeely, Megan W. Minogue, Ciara Moloney, Justine Nakase, Patricia O'Beirne, Kevin O'Connor, Ciara O'Dowd, Clona Gallchoir, Anna Pilz, Emilie Pine, Ruud van den Beuken, Feargal Whelan, Nelson Barre, Mary Burke, Shonagh Hill, Mria Kurdi, Jos Lanters, Dorothy Morrissey, Brian Conchubhair, Brenda O'Connell, Shane O'Neill, Graham Price, Siobhn Purcell, Carole Quigley, Sarah Jane Scaife, Melissa Sihra, Clare Wallace