Staging Queer Feminisms ─ Sexuality and Gender in Australian Performance, 2005-2015

This book examines sexuality, gender and race in Australia’s vibrant independent theatre and performance culture. It analyses selected feminist and queer performances that interrogate the cultural construction of sexuality and gender, challenge the normative trends of mainstream Australian society and culture and open up spaces for alternative representations of gender identity and sexual expression. Offering the first full-length study on sexuality and gender in Australian theatre since 2005, this book reveals a resurgence of feminist themes in independent performance and explores the intersection of feminist and queer politics. Ranging across drag, burlesque, cabaret, theatre and performance art, the book provides an accessible and engaging account of some of the most innovative, entertaining and politically subversive Australian theatrical works from the past decade.

Sarah French is Research Fellow at the University of Melbourne, Australia, where she completed her PhD in Creative Arts. She has lectured in Theatre and Cinema Studies and published in the areas of feminist theatre and performance, film and philosophy, television studies and higher education. This is her first book.