MACMILLAN Educational Theatre for Women in Post-World War II Italy: A Stage of Their Own

This book explores an important moment in Italian women’s theatre and cultural history: plays written for all-women casts between 1946 and the mid-1960s, authored for the most part by women and performed exclusively by women. Because they featured only female roles, they concentrated on aspects of specifically women’s experience, be it their spirituality, their future lives as wives and mothers, their present lives as workers or students, or their relationships with friends, sisters and mothers. Most often performed in a Catholic environment, they were meant to both entertain and educate, reflecting the specific issues that both performers and spectators had to confront in the years between the end of the war and the beginning of the economic miracle. Drawing on material never before researched, Educational Theatre for Women in Post-World War II Italy: A Stage of Their Own recovers the life and works of forgotten women playwrights while also discussing the role models that educational theatre offered to the young Italian women coming of age in the post-war years.  Review “The book explores the guiding principles and practices of all-women Catholic educational theatre from 1946 to the late 1960s, and surveys educational plays for all-women casts, analyzing their genres, content, and the publications in which they appeared. … Historians of Italy and theatre, feminist scholars, and those interested in women playwrights, educational theatre, and post-Fascist Italy will surely find Cavallaro’s book thoroughly engaging.” (Francesca Spedalieri, Annali d’italianistica, Vol. 35, 2017) Translated from Italian: “For the originality of the sources considered, the relevance of its topic and the methodological precision of its analysis, Educational Theatre for Women in Post-World War II Italy offers a contribution of great interest for the social and cultural history of Italy in the post-war years, as well as for theatre studies and gender studies.” (Laetitia Dumont-Lewi, Spunti e ricerche, Vol. 32, 2017) From the Back Cover This book explores an important moment in Italian women’s theatre and cultural history: plays written for all-women casts between 1946 and the mid-1960s, authored for the most part by women and performed exclusively by women. Because they featured only female roles, they concentrated on aspects of specifically women’s experience, be it their spirituality, their future lives as wives and mothers, their present lives as workers or students, or their relationships with friends, sisters and mothers. Most often performed in a Catholic environment, they were meant to both entertain and educate, reflecting the specific issues that both performers and spectators had to confront in the years between the end of the war and the beginning of the economic miracle. Drawing on material never before researched, Educational Theatre for Women in Post-World War II Italy: A Stage of Their Own recovers the life and works of forgotten women playwrights while also discussing the role models that educational theatre offered to the young Italian women coming of age in the post-war years.  About the Author Daniela Cavallaro is Senior Lecturer in Italian at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, where she teaches courses in Italian language, fiction, and drama. She has published in the fields of Italian fiction, film and theatre; women’s revision of the classics; and South Pacific literature. Her 2011 book Italian Women’s Theatre 1930-1960: An Anthology of Plays recovered the life and works of four Italian women playwrights.