Theatre and Dance

This book provides clear and practical guidance to help the reader to understand the workings of a play, spot clues that the playwright has planted, imagine how it can be staged, and decide whether it will stand the test of time. Absorbing and informative, whether for purposes of study, staging or simply leisure, it is the ideal guide for students, directors, teachers and anyone who loves the theatre.

These essays ask what the relation is between drama and its critics. Plays both constitute criticism--of society, of ideas, of other plays--and deploy such self-critical gambits as plays within plays, characters who watch other characters, characters feigning roles and personalities, and even the overt inclusion of characters who are critics. Plays, thus, comment both on themselves and on the art of theatre generally. At the same time, drama implies other kinds of critics in the guise of the audience, reviewers, and those who might participate in its ideas. Just as plays produce the seeds of their own critique, so they also spur critique of their aesthetics, the artistry of their performance, and the ideas and conflicts they illustrate. Critics who review play performances are as much an intrinsic part of theatrical events as the audience and the plays themselves.

Popular theatre forms introduced in this sourcebook include cabaret, circus, puppetry, vaudeville, Indian jatra, political satire, and physical comedy. These entertainments are highly visual, itinerant, and readily understood by audiences. Popular Theatre: A Sourcebook follows them around the world, introducing both Western and non-Western popular theatre practices.

Contemporary theatrical productions as diverse in form as experimental performance, new writing, West End drama, musicals and live art demonstrate a recurring fascination with adapting existing works by other artists, writers, filmmakers and stage practitioners. Featuring seventeen interviews with internationally-renowned theatre and performance artists, Theatre and Adaptation provides an exceptionally rich study of the variety of work developed in recent years.

The book contains highly informative chapters on theatre culture in the ancient classical world, the medieval period, the Italian Renaissance, classical Asia, German-speaking Europe, France to 1658, and England to 1642. Following a wide-ranging introduction, chapters allow the uninitiated reader straightforward access to well-researched material, often presented in a humorous and approachable fashion.

Gathering together a uniquely wide-ranging selection of original writings on theatre by its most creative practitioners (directors, playwrights, performers and designers), these key texts span the twentieth century - from the onset of modernism to the present - providing direct access to the thinking behind much of the most stimulating theatre the century has had to offer, as well as guidelines to its present most adventurous developments. Setting theory beside practice, these writings bring alive a number of vital and continuing concerns, each of which is given full scope in five sections which explore the Modernist, Political, Inner and Global dimensions of twentieth century theatre.

Since the beginning of theatre history, scandals have taken place and the variety of causes, processes and types of interactions makes them an interesting object of study. The contributors to this book, all members of the IFTR Theatrical Event Working Group, present in their various case studies a wide cultural and chronological diversity of theatre scandals, all of which were experienced as very shocking moments in theatre history.

Bringing together scholars and practitioners from multiple locations, the book analyses a range of examples – historical and contemporary – of counter-hegemonic theatre and performance. Part 1 offers a diachronic view of the relationship between activism and performance; Part 2 focuses on the changing nature of what constitutes ‘political theatre' today.

This book provides the first comprehensive and critical anthology of texts reflecting on the development of the theater theory of the Prague School—or Prague Linguistic Circle—mostly from the1930s and early 1940s. A substantial afterword places these writings in context, describing the emergence of the Prague School in an effort to promote a deeper understanding of its texts. Organized thematically and structurally rather than chronologically, the Theatre Theory Reader explores issues and themes in the study of the theater as an art form and as artistic practice.

This comprehensive survey and analysis of theatrical presence puts forward a framework for thinking about presence in theatre, enriched by poststructuralist theory, forcefully arguing in favor of ‘presence' as a key concept for theatre studies today.

In this volume, thirteen scholars contribute to illuminate the significance and possibilities of playing within the framework of theatrical events. Playing is understood as an essential part of theatrical communication, from acting on stage to events far from theatre buildings. The book is divided into four sections: Theories, Expansions, Politics, and Conventions.