This book looks at how a range of women in the theatre - actors, managers, writers and live artists - have used, and still use, autobiography and performance as both a means of expression and control of their private and public selves on the page and on the stage from the late eighteenth century to the present day.

AcknowledgementsNotes on contributorsIntroduction - Women, theatre and performance: Auto/biography and performance - Maggie B. Gale & Viv GardnerPart 1: Telling tales: Autobiographic strategies1. The three nobodies: Autobiographical strategies in the work of Alma Ellerslie, Kitty Marion and Ina Rozant - Viv Gardner2. The disappearing subject in Susan Glaspell's auto/biographical theatre - Nicola ShaugnessyImag(in)ing a life: Adrienne Kennedy's 'People Who Led to My Plays' and 'Deadly Triplets' - Elaine AstonPart 2: The professional/confessional self3. The way to the world: Emma Robinson and the dilemmas of identity - Susan Croft4. Lena Ashwell and auto/biographical negotiations of the professional self - Maggie B. Gale5. Tilly Wedekind and Lulu: The role of her life or the role in her life? - Bella Merlin6. Troubling identities: Claire Dowie's 'Why is John Lennon Wearing a Skirt?' - Gabriele GriffinPart 3: Auto/biography. Identity and performance7. Latina theatre and performance: Acts of exposure - Caridad Svich8. Being her: presence, absence and performance in the art of Janet Cardiff and Tracy Emin - Jen Harvie 9. Peforming lesbians: Constructing the self, constructing the community - Dee Heddon10. Re(ci)petoires of the self: Autobiographical aspects of Bobby Baker's performance works. Bobby Baker interview - Catharine Maclean Hopkins

This groundbreaking book shows how female performers - one of the first groups of professional women - used and still use autobiography and performance as both a means of expression and control of their private and public selves, the 'face and the mask'. It looks at how a range of women in the theatre - actors, managers, writers and live artists - have done this on the page and on the stage from the late eighteenth-century to the present day, testing the boundaries between gender, theatre and autobiographical form. This paperback edition facilitates connections - between texts and performances, past and present practitioners, professional and private selves, individuals and communities, all of which have in some way renegotiated identity through autobiography and the creative act.'Auto/biography and identity' is a landmark in theatre history and performance analysis, in gender and cultural theory, and autobiographical studies.