ENGLISH-LANGUAGE THEATRES in POST-COMMUNIST PRAGUE By
TITLE PAGE PERFORMING CULTURES: ENGLISH-LANGUAGE THEATRES IN POST-COMMUNIST PRAGUE by Gwendolyn Alaine Orel AB English, AB Classics, Stanford University, 1987 AM English, Stanford University, 1987 Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Faculty of Arts and Sciences in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Pittsburgh 2005 COMMITTEE PAGE UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH FACULTY OF ARTS AND SCIENCES This dissertation was presented by Copyright © by Gwendo lyn Alaine Orel Gwendolyn2005 Alaine Orel It was defended on December 1, 2005 and approved by Nancy Condee, Associate Professor, Slavic Languages and Literatures Attilio Favorini, Professor, Theatre Arts Kathleen George, Professor, Theatre Arts Kiki Gounaridou, Associate Professor, Theatre Studies, Smith College J. Thomas Rimer, Professor Emeritus, Theatre Arts, Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures Dissertation Advisor: Attilio Favorini, Professor, Theatre Arts ii ABSTRACT PERFORMING CULTURES: ENGLISH-LANGUAGE THEATRE IN POST-COMMUNIST PRAGUE Gwendolyn Alaine Orel, PhD University of Pittsburgh, 2005 The presence of English-language theatres (ELTs) in Prague in the nineties coincided with the ongoing transition to a market economy in the Czech Republic, as the English language itself became increasingly the international language of business and culture. Under Communism, Czech theatre had been highly political through veiled protests against the system of power. After 1989, Czech theatre began moving into spheres of commodification and tourism. How the ELTs in Prague negotiated their place in a shifting society reveals a performance of identity. The ELTs tracked the turning points in Czech post-revolutionary history of the 1990s. The history of the ELTs has been constructed through personal and telephone interviews and emails, as well as reviews, articles, manuscripts and production videotapes.
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