Directors and collaborators assess and comment on the production of plays by West Africa's Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka and East Africa's most influential author Ngugi wa Thiong'o.

Compelling inside views of what characterises opera and music theatre in African and African diasporic contexts.

Highlighted in this volume is the detective play The Inspector and the Hero by Femi Osofisan, one of Africa's leading playwrights. The play has until now only been published in Nigeria.

African dance is discussed here in its global as well as local contexts as a powerful vehicle of aesthetic and cultural exchange and influence.

Drawing on expertise from across the African continent this collection reflects the realities for women working and making theatre: how Egyptian director Dalia Basiouny has documented the "Tahrir Stories" of the Egyptian Revolution; how in Uganda women have used various theatrical devices, such as oral poetry, to seek common ground in a rural-urban inter-generational theatre project; and the use of physical theatre to examine disavowed memory in South Africa. The contributors also look at how practitioners are re-thinking performance space and modes of performance for gendered advocacy in Botswanan theatre, and how women are addressing gender-based violence and rape culture, comparing performance and street-based activism in South Africa and India. A particular strength of the volume is its interviews: with Jalila Baccar of Tunisia, by Marvin Carlson; six Ethiopian actresses are interviewed and introduced by Jane Plastow and Mahlet Solomon; and Ariane Zaytzeff explores "Making art to reinvent culture" with Odile Gakire Katese of Rwanda. The new play to be published is The Sentence by Sefi Atta, introduced and contextualized by Christine Matzke.

Volume Editors: JANE PLASTOW & YVETTE HUTCHISON Guest Editor: CHRISTINE MATZKE Series Editors: Martin Banham, Emeritus Professor of Drama & Theatre Studies, University of Leeds; James Gibbs, Senior Visiting ResearchFellow, University of the West of England; Femi Osofisan, Professor of Drama at the University of Ibadan; Jane Plastow, Professor of African Theatre, University of Leeds; Yvette Hutchison, Associate Professor, Department of Theatre & Performance Studies, University of Warwick

This volume takes as its starting point an interrogation of the African contributions to the Globe to Globe Festival staged in London in 2012, where 37 Shakespeare productions were offered, each from a different nation. Five African companies were invited to perform and there are articles on each of these productions, examining issues of interculturalism, postcolonialism, language, interpretation and reception. The contributors are both Shakespeare and African theatre scholars, promoting discourse from a range of geographical and cultural perspectives. A critical debate about the process of the Globe to Globe Festival is initiated in the form of a discussion article featuring some of its directors and actors. Two further articles look at Shakespeare productions made purely for Africa, from Mauritius and Cape Verde, and leading Nigerian playwright and cultural commentator Femi Osofisan provides an overview article examining Shakespeare in Africa in the 21st century. The playscript in this volume of 'African Theatre' is Femi Osofisan's 'Wesoo, Hamlet! or the Resurrection of Hamlet'. Series Editors: Martin Banham, Emeritus Professor of Drama & Theatre Studies, University of Leeds; James Gibbs, Senior Visiting Research Fellow, University of the West of England; Femi Osofisan, Professor at the University of Ibadan; Jane Plastow, Professor of African Theatre, University of Leeds; Yvette Hutchison, Associate Professor, Department of Theatre & Performance Studies, University of Warwick.

'Diasporas', as used in the title of this volume, refers to a multitude of groups and communities with widely differing histories, identities and current locations. This book brings together essays on theatre by people of African descent in North America, Cuba, Italy, the UK, Israel and Tasmania. Several chapters present overviews of particular national contexts, others offer insights into play texts or specific performances. Offering a mix of academic and practitioner's points of views, Volume 8 in the African Theatre series analyses and celebrates various aspects of African diasporic theatre worldwide. Guest Editors: CHRISTINE MATZKE, Lecturer in African Literatures and Cultures, Humboldt-University, Berlin; and OSITA OKAGBUE, Senior Lecturer in the Department of Drama, Goldsmiths, University of London. Series Editors: Martin Banham, Emeritus Professor of Drama & Theatre Studies, University of Leeds; James Gibbs, Senior Visiting Research Fellow, University of the West of England; Femi Osofisan, Professor at the University of Ibadan; Jane Plastow, Professor of African Theatre, University of Leeds; Yvette Hutchison, Associate Professor, Department of Theatre & Performance Studies, University of Warwick.