Entertaining Children

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-ix

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2. Setting the Scene: An Introduction

   1. Setting the Scene: An Introduction

      • Gillian Arrighi, Victor Emeljanow

      Pages 1-11

3. Terms of Engagement

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 13-13

      PDF

   2. Musical Education and the Job Market: The Employment of Children and Young People in the Neapolitan Music Industry with Particular Reference to the Period 1650–1806

      • Rossella Del Prete

      Pages 15-32

   3. An American Antebellum Child-Actor Contract: Alfred Stewart and the Shift from Craft Apprentice to Wage Laborer

      • Shauna Vey

      Pages 33-50

   4. Children and Youth of the Empire: Tales of Transgression and Accommodation

      • Gillian Arrighi, Victor Emeljanow

      Pages 51-71

   5. British Child Performers 1920–40: New Issues, Old Legacies

      • Dyan Colclough

      Pages 73-90

4. By Children/for Children

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 91-91

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   2. “How much do you love me?” The Child’s Obligations to the Adult in 1930s Hollywood

      • Noel Brown

      Pages 93-110

   3. Shifting Screens: The Child Performer and Her Audience Revisited in the Digital Age

      • Gilli Bush-Bailey

      Pages 111-127

   4. The Business of Children in Disney’s Theater

      • Ken Cerniglia, Lisa Mitchell

      Pages 129-145

   5. Young Mammals: The Politics and Aesthetics of Long-Term Collaboration with Children in Mammalian Diving Reflex’s The Torontonians

      • Broderick D. V. Chow, Darren O’Donnell

      Pages 147-164

5. Global Perspectives

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 165-165

      PDF

   2. The “little legong dancers” of Bali: The Rise of a Child Star in Indonesian Dance Theater

      • Laura Noszlopy

      Pages 167-184

   3. Child Training and Employment in Taiwanese Opera 1940s–1960s: An Overview

      • Shih-Ching H. Picucci

      Pages 185-200

   4. Higher Wages, Less Pain: The Changing Role of Children in Traditional Chinese Theater

      • Mark Branner

      Pages 201-218

   5. Defying Death: Children in the Indian Circus

      • Jamie Skidmore

      Pages 219-233

6. Back Matter

   Pages 235-251

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Children have been exploited as performers and wooed energetically as consumers throughout history. These essays offer scholarly investigations into the employment and participation of children in the entertainment industry with examples drawn from historical and contemporary contexts.

• education
• theatre
• youth
• childhood studies

"Readers should resist the urge to pick out one or two essays to peruse, since what really sets this collection apart is its global, generic, and methodological inclusiveness. We learn not only about stage plays and musicals but also film, TV, dance, and experimental theatre; not only about what adult viewers make of child performers but what former child performers make of their own experiences. This excellent collection of essays should inspire more theatre historians and cultural critics to pay attention to the centrality of children as makers and consumers of entertainment." - Marah Gubar, Director, Children's Literature Program, University of Pittsburgh, USA

"The participation of children in entertainment industries the world over has been unquestioned for centuries. This volume makes vital progress in addressing aesthetic, economic, and political questions essential for exposing assumptions and practices which have governed the work of juvenile performers across the globe. Surprising by its geographical and chronological reach, from Bali to Toronto, Melbourne to Naples, and with stories from the Renaissance to YouTube, the scholarship here is rigorous, diverse, and challenging." - Anne Varty, Professor, English Department, Royal Holloway, University of London, UK

Rossella Del Prete, Università degli Studi del Sannio, Italy Shih-Ching H. Picucci, University of Durham, UK Mark Branner, University of Hawai'i, Manoa, USA Gilli Bush-Bailey, Royal Holloway, University of London, UK Dyan Colclough, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK James Skidmore, Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada Shauna Vey, City University of New York, USA Laura Noszlopy, Royal Holloway, University of London, UK Noel Brown, Newcastle University, UK Ken Cerniglia, Disney Theatrical Group Lisa Mitchell, Disney Theatrical Group Broderick D.V. Chow, Brunel University, UK Darren O'Donnell, Mammalian Diving Reflex/University of Toronto, Canada

Policies and ethics