The essays gathered together in Volume 15 of the annual journal Theatre Symposium investigate how, historically, the theatre has been perceived both as a source of moral anxiety and as an instrument of moral and social reform. Essays consider, among other subjects, ethnographic depictions of the savage “other” in Buffalo Bill’s engagement at the Columbian Exposition of 1893; the so-called “Moral Reform Melodrama” in the nineteenth century; charity theatricals and the ways they negotiated standards of middle-class respectability; the figure of the courtesan as a barometer of late nineteenth and early twentieth-century moral and sexual discourse; Aphra Behn’s subversion of Restoration patriarchal sexual norms in The Feigned Courtesans; and the controversy surrounding one production of Tony Kushner Angels in America, during which officials at one of the nation’s more prominent liberal arts colleges attempted to censor the production, a chilling reminder that academic and artistic freedom cannot be taken for granted in today’s polarized moral and political atmosphere.

Papers solicited from the presenters for the cancelled 2020 Southeastern Theatre Conference.

The essays in volume 23 of Theatre Symposium offer a rich exploration of depictions of youth in works of theatre as well as the role youth play in the creation and performance of drama.

Peer-reviewed journal of theater history and scholarship published annually by the Southeastern Theatre Conference (SETC)

The eleven original essays in Volume 22 of Theatre Symposium examine facets of the historical and current business of theatre.