How has theatre engaged with the nation-state and helped to formulate national identities? What impact have migration and globalisation had on the relationship between theatre and nation?

Theatre & Nation explores how theatre institutions, playwrights, theatre-makers and performance artists engage with the nation, nationalism and national identity in their work.

The book argues that theatrical representations of the nation are constantly in flux and that the way theatre engages with the nation changes according to different geographical, political, economic, social and cultural circumstances. Foreword by Nicholas Hytner.

'[a] brilliant series...these mini paperbacks each give an insightful, focused overview of a key topic...start collecting now.' - Whatsonstage.com 'Nadine Holdsworth's excellent book offers a persuasive overview of the ways nation and national identity have been present in a whole range of theatrical practices.' - Nicholas Hytner, Director, The National Theatre, London '...Palgrave Macmillan's excellent new outward-looking, eclectic Theatre& ... series.These short books, written by leading theatre academics, do much to reintroduce some of the brightest names in theatre academia to the general reader. Plus, the matrix of references to bigger books soon builds quite a comprehensive catch-up reading list for those of us who graduated more than a decade ago and are interested in where contemporary thinking is at...' - Guardian Theatre Blog, September 2009, http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/theatreblog/2009/sep/10/theatre-critics-academics-artists

NADINE HOLDSWORTH is Associate Professor of Theatre and Performance Studies at the University of Warwick, UK. She is the author of Joan Littlewood and co-editor of The Blackwell Companion to Contemporary British and Irish Drama (with Mary Luckhurst).