“Slings and Arrows of Outrageous Fortune”: Post-Pandemic Anglophone Theatre and Drama

Abstract

Since the days of their conception and for most of their history, theatre institutions and the dramatic genre have indelibly reflected their immediate socio-historic contexts, including epidemics. Although forced to close for a full year during the 1918 outbreak of Spanish flu, however, modern Anglophone theatres and authors deliberately avoided exploiting the pandemic in their works. Conversely, the COVID-19 pandemic directly affected the birthing of new genres and individual plays that included it in their settings and contents, and also motivated discussions on the future of dramatic literature and theatre establishments, particularly with regard to hybrid drama. Building on its author’s previous research, this paper examines British and American dramatic literature and theatre establishments one year after the end of the pandemic, to detect whether Anglophone drama has embraced the new genres, and whether its authors have continued to reflect the pandemic in their works.