Introduction: Gender, Cultural Mobility, and Theater History Inquiry

This series of essays takes as its central focus female theatrical agency in early modern Europe across linguistic and geographic borders, both at the heart of commercial theater in capital cities and in less frequently studied settings such as the convent, the court, and the salon. The four essays that make up this special section address women players, theater managers, and playwrights in Italy, Spain, France, and Bavaria, with a particular eye to their circulation of novel theatrical materials, forms, and practices within and across national theater traditions. These essays discuss mixed-gender as well as single sex female troupes and consider their imbrication with cross-gender casting involving male actors both on the “all-male English stage” and on the continent.