The Changing Room: Varieties of Theatrical Cross-dressing

Description

The answers to these questions - and much, much more - are to be found in The Changing Room , which traces the origins and variations of theatrical cross-dressing through the ages and across cultures. It examines: tribal rituals and shamanic practices in the Balkans and Chinese-Tibet the gender-bending elements of Greek and early Christian religion the homosexual appeal of the boy actor on the traditional stage of China, Japan and England the origins of the dame comedian, the principal boy, the glamour drag artiste and the male impersonator artists such as David Bowie, Boy George, Charles Ludlam, Dame Edna Everage, Lily Savage, Candy Darling, Julian Clary and the New York Dolls. Lavishly illustrated with unusual and rare pictures, this is the first ever cross-cultural study of theatrical transvestism. It is a must for anyone interested in cross-dressing, theatre, and gender.

Laurence Senelick is Fletcher Professor of Drama at Tufts University. He is the recipient of awards from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities. His many publications include lovesick (1998), The Chekhov Theatre, and the Age and Stage of George L. Fox.

""The Changing Room is the first major history of cross-dressing in theater. Award-winning theater historian and critic, Laurence Senelick, synthesizes a vast array of material from archival reserach and a lifetime of theater-going to provide a monumental record of cross-dressing on the stage. With 100 rare photographs, "The Changing Room offers a voyeuristic vision of a lifestyle watched by many, but lived by few, and a compulsively readable, authoritative account of the theater at its most sexual."
"Senelick...has written a work whose comprehensiveness, depth, and originality are only hinted at in the catchy title.."
-"Choice, April 2001
"Senelick's strong opinions, his focus on performace as fundamentally erotic, make the book absorbing and provocative.."
-"Choice, April 2001
..."every serious scholar will want this book and every library collection in the field must own it.."
-"Choice, April 2001
"Hard-bitten libertarians and libertines alike will delight in this encyclopedic work from respected scholar of all things stagy and gay, Laurence Senelick. This is a book that doesn't make a demand for tolerance, just common sense. His prose [is] always droll and incisive. [A] superb piece of research.."
-"Metrotimes