Witch Fulfillment: Adaptation Dramaturgy & Casting the Witch for Stage & Screen

Witch Fulfillment: Adaptation Dramaturgy and Casting the Witch for Stage and Screen addresses the Witch as a theatrical type on twenty-first-century-North American stages and screens, seen through the lenses of casting, design, and adaptation, with attention paid to why these patterns persist, and what wishes they fulfil.

Witch Fulfillment examines the Witch in performance, considering how actors embody iconic roles designated as witches (casting), and how dramaturgical choices (adaptation) heighten their witchy power. Through analysis of Witch characters ranging from Elphaba to Medea, classic plays such as The Crucible and Macbeth, feminist adaptations - including Sycorax, Obeah Opera, and Jen Silverman’s Witch - and popular culture offerings, like the Scarlet Witch and Jinkx Monsoon, this book examines the dramaturgical meanings of adapting and embodying witchy roles in the twenty-first century.

This book contends that the Witch represents a crucial category of analysis for inclusive theatre and performance and will be of interest to theatre practitioners and designers, along with theatre, witchcraft, and occult studies scholars.

Jane Barnette is the Head of Dramaturgy and an Associate Professor in the Department of Theatre and Dance at the University of Kansas (KU), where she teaches courses in dramaturgy, theatre history, and script analysis, as well as seminars in theatrical adaptation and the performance of gender and sexuality. Barnette’s research includes feminist adaptations, student-centered pedagogy, and depictions of witchy characters onstage and in popular culture.