The English Theatrical Avant-Garde 1900 - 1925 brings to light an extensive range of hitherto forgotten or ignored theatre practices, uncovering a new look at some of the well-known figures of the early Twentieth-Century English theatre. This book discovers an intensity of innovation and experiment that combined make the Edwardian theatre rather more queer than you might think. Where the majority of writing on the early Twentieth-Century theatrical avant-garde is concerned with European movements and experiments, English activity of the period is instead seen as parochial and conservative - mainly realism and issues-based drama. This book presents a new model of how avant-gardes might work; a model based not on masculine individualism but on communal inclusion. In describing this fascinating material, the author introduces us to many new figures and shows familiar ones in new light: there's Florence Farr, independent woman; Bob Trevelyan, radical pacifist and music drama pioneer; Granville Barker doing fairy plays while de-dramatising drama; Laurence Housman, socialist, homosexual, scripting St Francis; and the oddly modern J.M. Barrie. Together they made theatre practices rich in their diversity but consistent in their attempt to be new, producing a theatrical avant-garde unlike any other.This is a vital and indispensable new study for scholars and students of early Twentieth-Century theatre in England and beyond.

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