"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 different ways: 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."