This book, first published in 1993, is the first full-length analysis of Samuel Beckett's later drama in the context of contemporary critical and performance theory. It employs a close, textual examination of the later plays as a springboard for exploring ideas around authority, gender and the ideology of performance. Recent work in the world of critical theory has suggested new ways of looking at performance practice. McMullan argues that, while contemporary theory can deepen our understanding of Beckett's dramatic practice, his drama places performance in the context of a metaphysical history and a metatheatrical tradition, thereby confronting and provoking some of the central debates in performance studies' engagement with critical theory.

A Sourcebook of Performance Labor presents the views and experiences of collaborators in other artists' works. This book reorients well-known works of contemporary performance and social practice around the workers who have shaped, enacted, and supported them. It emerges from perspectives on maintenance, care, affective labor, and the knowledges created and preserved through gesture and intersubjectivity. This compilation of interviews is filled with the voices of collaborators in notable works attributed to established contemporary artists, including Francis Alys, Tania Bruguera, Suzanne Lacy, Ernesto Pujol, Asad Raza, Dread Scott, and Tino Sehgal. In the spirit of the artworks under discussion, this book reinvests in the possibilities for art as a collective effort to explore new ways of finding ourselves in others and others in ourselves. The Sourcebook collection is a contribution for further theorizing a largely unaddressed perspective in contemporary art. This collection will be of great interest to students and scholars in performance studies and art history.

Aquatopia documents Harmattan Theater's ecological interventions and traces its engagements with water-bound landscapes, colonial histories, climate change, and public space across New York City, Venice, Amsterdam, Lisbon, and Cochin. The volume uses Harmattan's site-specific performances as a point of departure to consider climate change and rising sea levels as geographical, ecological, and urban phenomena. Instead of a collection of flat, static surfaces, the Aquatopia atlas is animated by a disorienting, anti-mapping strategy, producing a deterritorialized, nomadic, fluid atlas unfolding in real time as an archive of climate change in multidimensional, active space. The book is designed for pedagogical access, with interludes that consolidate the learning outcomes of the experimental theory animating each site-specific performance. Accompanied by close descriptions of five performances and supplemented by digital documentation available online, this volume intervenes in discussions on climate change, urbanism, and postcolonization/decolonialization, and contributes to interdisciplinary studies of ecology and environmental politics, postcolonial/decolonial theories and practices, performance studies and aesthetics, in particular public art, and performance as research.

1) This book presents a comprehensive overview of the relationship between drama/theatre and politics. 2) It contains chapters on India, Africa, USA, the Caribbean, and Australia. 3) This book will be of interest to departments of cultural studies and theatre studies across UK.

Through the contributions of women working in the creative industries, this timely book explores the role of creativity in their lives, the experiences that have positively contributed to and supported their creativity and their work, as well as how gendered considerations intersect with their involvement in the cultural sphere. Spanning psychology, cultural and media studies, and the philosophy of art, it builds on existing research by offering examples of the abundance of creativity residing in women working in film and television, architecture, design, music, theatre, and the performing and visual arts in Ireland. Their reflections offer a valuable counter perspective to the assumption that women are more naturally the 'muse' than the creator. From these conversations, some common, although at times diverging, experiences in childhood, early career and approaches to their creative work offer important insights into the nature and practice of creativity and the conditions that may best nurture and support creativity in girls and women. Providing original observations into gendered understandings of creativity, this book will be essential reading for researchers, advanced students and practitioners seeking contemporary insights on creativity, feminism and gender.

Harold Pinter, Shakespeare, Theater, Performance, King Lear

This book Presents documentation as an expanded practice that is radically changing the ways in which to look at, participate in, and generate art. Brings together expertise from different disciplines and provides an in-depth investigation of the development of documentation as a set of production, circulation and preservation strategies. Illustrates how these strategies are often led by artists, audiences and museums, the contributions offer new insights into digital art and its history, curation and preservation, through documentation. By considering documentation as the main method of preserving these art forms, analyses how it can address the inherent challenges of capturing live events, visitor experiences, and evolving artworks. Will appeal to researchers and students engaged in the study of museums and curation, art and art history, performance, new media and digital art, library and information science, and conservation.

Specially designed as training resource for undergraduate and graduate students in applied sport and performance psychology as well as an array of early-career professionals. Case study collection with diverse, international authorship. Deliberate attention paid to ethical challenges and diverse populations (race, culture, gender, sexual orientation, disability, etc.) in order to challenge students to identify their own uniqueness in the world and how it impacts their attitudes, beliefs, and empathic connection to potential clients

This book provides an interpretative analysis of the notion of spirituality through the lens of contemporary performance and posthuman theories. The book examines five performance/artworks: The Artist is Present (2010) by Marina Abramovic; The Deer Shelter Skyscape (2007) by James Turrell; CAT (1998) by Ansuman Biswas; Journey to the Lower World by Marcus Coates (2004); and the work with pollen by Wolfgang Laib. Through the analysis of these works the notion of spirituality is grounded in materiality and embodiment allowing the conceptual juxtaposition of spirit and matter to introduce the paradoxical as the guiding thread of the narrative of the book. Here, the human is interrogated and negotiated with/within a plurality of other living organisms, intangible existences and micro and macrocosmic ecologies. Silence, meditation, shamanic journeys, reciprocal gazing, restraint, and contemplation are analyzed as technologies used to manipulate perception and adventure into the multilayered condition of matter.

Neil LaBute is one of the most exciting new talents in theatre and film to have emerged in the 1990s. Influenced and inspired by such writers as David Mamet, Edward Bond and Harold Pinter, he is equally at home writing for the screen as for the stage, and the list of films he has written and directed includes The Wicker Man (2006), Possession (2002) and In the Company of Men (1998). As a playwright, screenwriter, director, and author of short stories, he has staked out a distinctive, and disturbing, territory. In the first full-length study on LaBute, Christopher Bigsby examines his darkly funny work which explores the cruelties, self-concern and manipulative powers of individuals who inhabit a seemingly uncommunal world. Individual chapters are dedicated to particular works, and the book also includes an interview with LaBute, providing a fascinating insight into the life of this influential and often controversial figure.

This book charts the personal and professional journey of Greg Doran, Artistic Director of the Royal Shakespeare Company from 2012 until 2022 and "one of the great Shakespearians of his generation" (Sunday Times). During his illustrious career, Doran has directed or produced all of the plays within Shakespeare's First Folio -- a milestone reached in the same year that the world celebrates the 400th anniversary of its original publication. Each chapter looks at a different play, considering the choices made and weaving in both autobiographical detail and background on the RSC, as well as giving insights into key collaborations, including those with actors such as Judi Dench, David Tennant, Harriet Walter, Patrick Stewart, Simon Russell Beale, Paterson Joseph and Doran's husband, the late Antony Sher, as well as seminal practitioners such as Cicely Berry, John Barton and Terry Hands. The book also includes 16 striking pages with stills from some of the RSC plays. Through Doran's account of this extraordinary journey, we see how Henry VIII, initially regarded as a poisoned chalice, became his lucky break; how the tragedy of 9/11 unfolded during a matinee of King John and how the language of the play went some way in helping to articulate the unfathomable; how a RSC supporter bequeathed their skull to the company to be used as Yorick in Hamlet; how meeting Nelson Mandela inspired the production of Julius Caesar; how Falstaff was introduced to China for the very first time; and how arachnophobia informed the production of Macbeth. This book uniquely captures the excitement, energy, surprises, joys and agonies of working on these greatest of plays; sheds new light on these plays through Doran's own research and discoveries made in the rehearsal room; and gives unprecedented access into the craft, life and loves of this exceptional director.

This ground-breaking volume is the first of its kind to examine the extraordinary prevalence and appeal of the Gothic in contemporary British theatre and performance. Chapters range from considerations of the Gothic in musical theatre and literary adaptation, to explorations of the Gothic's power to haunt contemporary playwriting, macabre tourism and site-specific performance. By taking familiar Gothic motifs, such as the Gothic body, the monster and Gothic theatricality, and bringing them to a new contemporary stage, this collection provides a fresh and comprehensive take on a popular genre. Whilst the focus of the collection falls upon Gothic drama, the contents of the book will embrace an interdisciplinary appeal to scholars and students in the fields of theatre studies, literature studies, tourism studies, adaptation studies, cultural studies, and history.

Shakespeare Survey is a yearbook of Shakespeare studies and production. Since 1948 Survey has published the best international scholarship in English and many of its essays have become classics of Shakespeare criticism. Each volume is devoted to a theme, or play, or group of plays; each also contains a section of reviews of that year's textual and critical studies, and of the year's major British performances. The books are illustrated with a variety of Shakespearean images and production photographs. The virtues of accessible scholarship and a keen interest in performance, from Shakespeare's time to our own, have characterised the journal from the start. Most volumes of Survey have long been out of print. Back numbers are gradually being reissued in paperback. The theme for Shakespeare Survey 60 is 'Theatres for Shakespeare'.

This book is a study of the representation of the Persian empire in English drama across the early modern period, from the 1530s to the 1690s. The wide focus of this book, encompassing thirteen dramatic entertainments, both canonical and little-known, allow it to trace the changes and developments in the dramatic use of Persia and its people across one and a half centuries. It explores what Persia signified to English playwrights and audiences in this period; the ideas and associations conjured up by mention of 'Persia'; and where information about Persia came from. It also considers how ideas about Persia changed with the development of global travel and trade, as English people came into people with Persians for the first time. In addressing these issues, this book provides an examination not only of the representation of Persia in dramatic material, but of the broader relationship between travel, politics and the theatre in early modern England.

Featuring a mix of both practitioners and scholars, this much-needed volume explores the sites of contemporary performance, and the notion of place. This significant and timely collection examines how we experience performance's many and varied sites as part of the fabric of the art work itself, whether they are institutional or transient, real or online. Featuring contributors including Johannes Birringer, Laurie Beth Clark, Jennifer Parker Starbuck and Paul Heritage, this exciting volume provides Performance Studies with a core text addressing these profound issues, and emerges at the beginning of a long discourse on the subject within the field.

Theatre, History, Criticism, Soviet Union, Russia, Western countries, Drama, Asian,

Brings together a cohesive and coherent account of the dramaturgy of sound in three key contemporary performance genres. Written for contemporary performance scholars and upper level students, using case studies and clear genre delineations. Moves existing scholarship in this area forward by drawing on a wealth of supplementary material tied to its research funding, including a full dataset, interview footage and a podcast.

All societies are, by their very nature, dramatic. They present themselves, especially for those who want to look back in time, as a fascinating and confusing whole of theatrical events and constructions. Sometimes the theatre itself succeeds in capturing that fascination and confusion. This book describes the dramatic society in the form of case studies that link politics, history and culture. The Dramatic Society uses selected plays to examine specific moments in history. Its range of subjects are extremely diverse, including Medea as an icon of terrorism, a choreography based upon Shakespeare's As You Like It, horror movies about the German unification, a truth commission dealing with "human zoos", and the reconstruction of Ai Weiwei's troubles with the tax authorities. This collection of insightful essays deals with theatrical performances - including happenings, installations and movies - of the past fifty years, with every chapter attempting to link artistic events with politics and political theory, from Hannah Arendt to Slavoj Zizek. This is a revealing assessment of the ways in which drama and politics become intertwined, offering crucial insights for scholars and students of theatre studies, performance studies, contemporary politics and cultural studies.

All societies are, by their very nature, dramatic. They present themselves, especially for those who want to look back in time, as a fascinating and confusing whole of theatrical events and constructions. Sometimes the theatre itself succeeds in capturing that fascination and confusion. This book describes the dramatic society in the form of case studies that link politics, history and culture. The Dramatic Society uses selected plays to examine specific moments in history. Its range of subjects are extremely diverse, including Medea as an icon of terrorism, a choreography based upon Shakespeare's As You Like It, horror movies about the German unification, a truth commission dealing with "human zoos", and the reconstruction of Ai Weiwei's troubles with the tax authorities. This collection of insightful essays deals with theatrical performances - including happenings, installations and movies - of the past fifty years, with every chapter attempting to link artistic events with politics and political theory, from Hannah Arendt to Slavoj Zizek. This is a revealing assessment of the ways in which drama and politics become intertwined, offering crucial insights for scholars and students of theatre studies, performance studies, contemporary politics and cultural studies.

In Arts in Corrections, the author-a poet, translator and teacher-takes readers on a chronological journey through an annotated selection of 24 of his own publications from 1981 to 2014 which recount his experiences teaching, consulting and documenting US arts programs in prisons, jails and juvenile facilities. Anyone interested in corrections and arts-in-corrections will be drawn in by the poetic sensibility Hillman brings to his writing. Readers will gain a historical and personal perspective not only into correctional arts programming in the US over the last 40 years, but also the institutional transformations in policy, culture, populations, economics, and the criminological mission expansion into other institutional settings like K-12 education. Original essays, articles, monographs and poems are interspersed with recent annotations to deliver not only a top-down view of the correctional system but also the author's personal journey of "discouragement and hope" from work conducted in approximately 200 adult and juvenile facilities in 30 states and six countries. This comprehensive book is essential reading for a broad cross-section of international readers interested in and involved in the arts-in-corrections field. With two million individuals behind bars in the US at any given time, the profile of arts programs in prisons and jails is rising and interest in criminal-justice matters more generally is increasing. This includes not only arts-in-corrections professionals, policy makers, students, researchers, advocates and academics, but professionals in multiple other fields as well as the general public.

In Arts in Corrections, the author-a poet, translator and teacher-takes readers on a chronological journey through an annotated selection of 24 of his own publications from 1981 to 2014 which recount his experiences teaching, consulting and documenting US arts programs in prisons, jails and juvenile facilities. Anyone interested in corrections and arts-in-corrections will be drawn in by the poetic sensibility Hillman brings to his writing. Readers will gain a historical and personal perspective not only into correctional arts programming in the US over the last 40 years, but also the institutional transformations in policy, culture, populations, economics, and the criminological mission expansion into other institutional settings like K-12 education. Original essays, articles, monographs and poems are interspersed with recent annotations to deliver not only a top-down view of the correctional system but also the author's personal journey of "discouragement and hope" from work conducted in approximately 200 adult and juvenile facilities in 30 states and six countries. This comprehensive book is essential reading for a broad cross-section of international readers interested in and involved in the arts-in-corrections field. With two million individuals behind bars in the US at any given time, the profile of arts programs in prisons and jails is rising and interest in criminal-justice matters more generally is increasing. This includes not only arts-in-corrections professionals, policy makers, students, researchers, advocates and academics, but professionals in multiple other fields as well as the general public.

First published in 1991, Peter Brook and the Mahabharata is a collection of essays which contextualizes the production of Peter Brook's The Mahabharata. Written by both scholars and collaborators on Brook's production, these essays seek not only to discuss such issues as the politics of theatre interculturalism, but to describe the nature of the working process, and detail the technical problems engendered by touring a production of this size and complexity. Furnished with a new preface by the editor, the book continues to be crucial research work devoted to unravelling the mesmerising as well as the polarising enigma known as Peter Brook's The Mahabharata. Thoroughly heterogenous and controversially irreverent, this book will be of interest to students of theatre, performance art, literature, South Asian studies and media studies.

The only comprehensive and global account of theatre made by, for and with young people of all ages. Written primarily for the applied theatre market, which is one of the main pillars of theatre studies in English speaking countries. No other book has the global scope, breadth of coverage or range of perspectives that this one collects together.

This Companion offers a wide-ranging and innovative introduction to one of the most exciting and important periods in British theatrical history. The scope of the volume extends from the age of Garrick to the Romantic transformation of acting inaugurated by Edmund Kean. It brings together cutting-edge scholarship from leading international scholars in the long eighteenth century, offering lively and original insights into the world of the stage, its most influential playwrights and the professional lives of celebrated performers such as James Quin, George Anne Bellamy, John Philip Kemble, Dora Jordan, Fanny Abington and Sarah Siddons. The volume includes essential chapters about eighteenth-century acting, production and audiences, important surveys of key theatrical forms such as tragedy, comedy, melodrama and pantomime as well as a range of exciting thematic essays on subjects such as private theatricals, 'black' theatre and the representation of empire.

Reiko Oya explores theatrical expressions of Shakespearean tragedy in Georgian London and the relations between the representative players of the time - David Garrick, John Philip Kemble and his sister Sarah Siddons, and Edmund Kean - and their close circle of friends. The book begins by analysing the tragic emotion that Garrick conveyed through his performance of King Lear, and the responses to it from such critics as Samuel Johnson and Elizabeth Montagu. The second chapter examines the concept of sublimity in Kemble and Siddons??? interpretations of Macbeth. The final chapter studies the disparity between the literary and the theatrical Hamlet in Kean??'s impersonation and William Hazlitt??'s response to it. With subjects ranging from Shakespearean promptbooks to paintings and the poetics of Romanticism, the book offers great insights into the exchange of ideas and inspirations among the cultural luminaries who surrounded the London stage.