This podcast keeps returning to the question of how we can reconstruct theatrical performances from bygone days. For the last few years, the website 19thcenturyacts.com has done just that. It was developed by a team led by Anita Gonzalez, of the University of Michigan, as well as Project Manager and Designer Clara McClenon. The site allows visitors to both see and hear what it was like to watch some of the most prominent stars of the nineteenth century perform onstage.

We all know the classic Christmas song “Jingle Bells” —or at least we think that we do. Dr. Kyna Hamill of Boston University has been looking into the origins of this beloved holiday classic, and what she’s discovered about its creator and its first known public performance may cause us to look at the song in a rather different light.

When we think of Irish theatre, we tend to think primarily of playwrights and theatre companies from the Republic of Ireland, not northern part of the island. Those Northern Irish playwrights we do know, such as Brian Friel, tend to be men. Fiona Coffey’s new book, Political Acts: Women in Northern Irish Theatre, 1921-2012, challenges these preconceptions, exploring how female playwrights and theatre practitioners have navigated the difficult political and social landscape of Northern Ireland.

Sholem Asch’s God of Vengeance is a provocative classic of the Yiddish stage, and it’s recently come back into the public eye, with an upcoming revival by New Yiddish Rep and a new drama by Paula Vogel, titled Indecent, that tells the fascinating backstory behind the play’s premiere. In this episode, we talk with David Mandelbaum, artistic director of New Yiddish Rep, about Asch’s powerful play and about the new revival.

Of all the various eras of theatrical history, the Middle Ages might seem like one of the least immediately relevant to the concerns of the 21st century. However, Kyle A. Thomas and Dr. Carol Symes of the University of Illinois think that medieval theatre’s never been more timely, and they’re staging a fascinating work, known as the The Play of Adam, to prove it. In this episode, Kyle and Carol discuss their production, which will run December 17-18 at The Cloisters at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, as well as the dynamic, inventive theatrical context that gave rise to plays like Adam.

How can we better understand musicals through music theory? Adam Roberts talks about how we can grasp nuances of character and theme in classical musicals by exploring the theory behind the music.

The recent success of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton has led to some casting controversies as regional theatres mount productions of his previous hit musical, In the Heights. As this week’s guest, Princeton University’s Brian Eugenio Herrera, shows, these controversies have a long history, as Latinx actors have unsettled the simplistic racial categories perpetuated by white-dominated American society.

Theatre was an integral part of the struggle against apartheid in South Africa. Performers such as John Kani and Winston Ntshona, as well as playwrights such as Athol Fugard, created some of the most vital political theatre of the twentieth century. But what are we to make of such theatre when the immediate circumstances that led to its creation have passed? What is the enduring legacy of works such as Sizwe Banzi Is Dead, the international hit that stemmed from Kani, Ntshona, and Fugard’s collaboration?

The images of the chaos at the Democratic National Convention of 1968 have become iconic representations of the turmoil of the 1960s in our nation’s collective memory. However, not many people think of those turbulent events in terms of theatre. In this episode, Dr. Susanne Shawyer of Elon University discusses her research (a version of which will appear next year in the book Performance in a Militarized Culture) and looks at the “Battle of Michigan Avenue” through the lens of Antonin Artaud’s Theatre of Cruelty, showing how the protests staged by groups such as the Yippies were meant to create an impromptu performance that would lead to social change.

When Jorge Huerta became involved with El Teatro de la Esperanza, Chicano theatre was only beginning to emerge. The famous Teatro Campesino had begun producing short plays about political and social issues confronting Chicanos in 1965, but it wasn’t until much later that theatre practitioners and scholars began paying close attention to their work. Now at the University of California, San Diego, Dr. Huerta looks back over the history of Chicano theatre, including his own experience in producing activist work in the 1970s, and provides valuable insights into how theatre by, for, and about the Chicano community has changed over five decades.