Dr. Eero Laine Publishes New Book on Sports in The Theatre

Congratulations to Assistant Professor Eero Laine, PhD, on the publication of his most recent book Sports Plays, a volume about sports in the theatre and what it means to stage sports.

https://www.routledge.com/Sports-Plays/Laine-Chow/p/book/9780367409425

The book examines sports plays through a range of critical and theoretical approaches that highlight central concerns and questions both for sports and for theatre. The plays cut across boundaries and genres, from Broadway-style musicals to dramas to experimental and developmental work. The chapters examine and trouble the conventions of staging sports as they open possibilities for considering larger social and cultural issues and debates.

This broad range of perspectives make the volume a compelling resource for students and scholars of sport, theatre, and performance studies whose interests span feminism, sexuality, politics, and race.

Laine is Director of Graduate Studies and an Assistant Professor of Theatre in the Department of Theatre and Dance at the University at Buffalo, State University of New York. His first book "Professional Wrestling and the Commercial Stage," engages the often peculiar performance form of professional wrestling to examine issues of labor, class, and the financial and global influence of live, popular entertainment.

Professor Laine teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in theatre history and theory and has directed Sophie Treadwell’s Machinal, Anne Washburn’s 10 Out of 12, and Jaclyn Backhaus’ Men on Boats.