This is the first full-length critical study of country house entertainment, a genre central to late Elizabethan politics. It shows how the short plays staged for the Queen at country estates like Kenilworth Castle and Elvetham shaped literary trends and intervened in political debates, including whether women made good politicians and what roles the church and local culture should play in definitions of England. In performance and print, country house entertainments facilitated political negotiations, rethought gender roles, and crafted regional and national identities. In its investigation of how the hosts used performances to negotiate local and national politics, the book also sheds light on how and why such entertainments enabled female performance and authorship at a time when English women did not write or perform commercial plays. Written in a lively and accessible style, this is fascinating reading for scholars and students of early modern literature, theatre, and women's history.

'… its virtue is that it assembles such a wide array of materials that Kolkovich has researched comprehensively. This monograph will appeal to readers with interests in performance studies, print history, gender politics, and the uneven development of English nationhood.'

Eric Song Source: Modern Philology

'Kolkovich’s detailed and well-researched study of Elizabethan country-house entertainments places them within a variety of relevant contexts, showing how these events, though sometimes rather gnomic, can illuminate the interweaving of gender, nation, family, and hierarchy in Elizabethan politics and culture. … an excellent starting point for further investigation of these fascinating performances and the texts and other forms of evidence that remain of them.'

Susan L. Anderson Source: Renaissance Quarterly

'Recent interdisciplinary studies have done much to deepen our understanding of the significance of such entertainments, yet there remains room for a work that synthesizes and expands on such studies and explores the entertainments in the context of broader academic debates. Elizabeth Zeman Kolkovich’s detailed critical study of Elizabethan country house entertainment achieves this by exploring how the entertainments staged for the Queen functioned in the formation and negotiation of religious, gender, regional, and national identities.'

Susan Flavin Source: Sixteenth Century Journal