This fully revised and updated edition of the hugely successful London Theatres features ten additional theatres, including the Victoria Palace Theatre, the Sondheim Theatre, the Bridge Theatre and the Noel Coward Theatre. London is the undisputed theatre capital of the world. From world-famous musicals to West End shows, from cutting-edge plays to Shakespeare in its original staging, from outdoor performance to intimate fringe theatre, the range and quality are unsurpassed. Leading drama critic Michael Coveney invites you on a tour of more than 50 theatres that make the London stage what it is. With stories of the architecture, the people and the productions which have defined each one, alongside sumptuous photographs by Peter Dazeley of the auditoriums, public and backstage areas, this illustrated overview of London's theatres is a book like no other. A must for fans of the stage! Praise for the first edition: 'This coffee table whopper ... dazzles' Spectator 'London Theatres ... will surely feature on any theatre buff's present list' Sightlines New chapters included in the second edition: Victoria Palace Theatre; The Bridge Theatre; Menier Chocolate Factory; Hampstead Theatre; Sondheim Theatre (formerly Queen's Theatre); Harold Pinter Theatre, Noel Coward Theatre; Aldwych Theatre; Garrick Theatre; Vaudeville Theatre; Phoenix Theatre

Carol Reeve was trained at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, spent over twenty years in television, is a life member of Equity and has written innumerable plays and sketches for various amateur dramatic groups. She has recently performed with and directed the Criccieth Starlight Players, set up a youth drama group and still gives talks to WI and TWG members, and many other groups, based on her amusing book 'Soap In My Eyes'.

Theories of Performance: Critical and Primary Sources offers a comprehensive collection of key writings on a subject which has come to permeate fields as diverse as theatre, comparative literature, philosophy, law, history, English, and science and technology studies, in what has been termed the transdisciplinary 'performative turn'. The collected essays draw upon writing from these diverse disciplines - and more - together illustrating how performance has become an ever more vibrant and plastic discursive practice. It includes a wide range of historical and more contemporary perspectives from the northern and southern hemispheres, with writing drawn from South and Southeast Asia, East Asia, Europe, Russia and the post-Soviet context, the Americas, Africa and the Caribbean. Expansive in their representation, the four volumes address current questions of protest culture, race and gender politics, biopolitics, indigenous studies and perspectives, postcolonialism and decoloniality, and language/translation, among others. Each volume is introduced by the editor and arranged thematically, so that the development of ideas can be traced within a theme. The set includes 90 essays covering the following major areas: discipline, method, documentation, and body politic. Together the four volumes of Theories of Performance present a major scholarly resource for the field.

Bringing together 70 major critical articles across four volumes, Modern and Contemporary World Drama: Critical and Primary Sources collects scholarly articles, reviews and critical interventions that are indispensable to anyone wishing to gain an understanding of world drama from the past 150 years. Contesting a Eurocentric reading or history of modern drama, the articles underscore the importance of migration and transnational movements of dramatic forms, and place emphasis on the transmission and circulation of dramatic theories around the world. Modern drama is revealed as a worldwide phenomenon in which a diverse array of artists and writers participated and in which modernism is seen to have affected all parts of the world in ways that are much more complex and multi-directional than what has been assumed in Eurocentric models. The four volumes are arranged both thematically and chronologically to give readers a sense of how world modern and contemporary drama began and how it has been studied in the past 150 years. Volume 1: Beginnings This volume includes essays that describe various beginnings of modern drama. Instead of identifying a singular origin of modern drama with a linear chronology, the volume suggests multidirectional and multidimensional beginnings. The geographical area covered in the volume is extensive, and each essay describes different ways to conceptualize time, chronology, and what would be considered innovative in dramatic writing. Volume 2: Theories This volume includes essays that address theoretical questions of modern and contemporary world drama. In many ways, modern drama around the world began as a theoretical endeavor that questioned the fundamentals of the dramatic form. Like the first volume, the second illustrates an array of studies that challenge a singular interpretation of modern and contemporary drama. Many of the essays provide practical applications of dramatic theories, and all of them situate the core analysis in historically and politically specific contexts, and the volume questions what theory means to lived experiences in the era of globalization. Volume 3: Movements This volume includes themes of migration, exchange, national borders, exile, and diaspora, and the theatrical stage is often used as a laboratory to examine key issues of globalization and displacement. The volume also examines other definitions of "movements," including political and aesthetic movements that have determined the development of modern and contemporary drama. Like the first two volumes, the third volume prioritizes studies that emphasize the complexities of the global and cosmopolitan experience and refuses to arrive at a narrative with a singular or universal perspective. Volume 4: Twenty-First Century This volume continues many topics raised in the first three volumes and considers how the new millennium has affected the development of modern and contemporary world drama. The essays in the volume examine various developments that are commonly described with the prefix "post," as in posthumanism, post-truth, postcolonial, postrace, and post-nation. A number of the essays concern uncertainties around the future of humanity in the age of technological advancements and late capitalism.

Andre and Madeleine have been in love for over fifty years. This weekend, as their daughters visit, something feels unusual. A bunch of flowers arrive, but who sent them? A woman from the past turns up, but who is she? And why does Andre feel like he isn't there at all? Christopher Hampton's translation of Florian Zeller's The Height of the Storm was first performed at Richmond Theatre, London, and opened in the West End at Wyndham's Theatre in October 2018.

Obwohl Komik und Behinderung gerade in den Kunsten immer wieder zusammentreffen, gibt es so gut wie keine theoretisch und methodisch fundierten Auseinandersetzungen mit dieser Thematik in den Literatur-, Kultur- oder Sozialwissenschaften. Gerade im Kontext von Inklusionsdiskussionen jedoch sind Fragen nach dem Potential des Lachens und der Komik, aber auch nach deren Ambivalenz im Zusammenhang mit Behinderung von weitreichender Bedeutung. Der vorliegende Band unternimmt eine Bestandsaufnahme moeglicher Theorien und Analysekonzepte anhand konkreter Einzelanalysen. Die Autor:innen vertreten die Sozial-, Erziehungs-, Literatur-, Kultur-, Medien-, Theater- und Filmwissenschaften.

In this book, world-renowned theatre artist Pamela Howard OBE shows how her life has always been part of the art of making theatre. Part memoir, part a personal account of artistic creation, it is a work of art in its own right. Its 12 chapters, accompanied by original drawings, offer insights into Pamela Howard's creative world and the journey through life of a celebrated artist, ranging from her early life and influences, to her time at art college and the inspiration she gained from travelling the world. Following the trajectory of her life, the 12 'dreams' are poised between memory and history and give an account of an artist's growth, resilience, working patterns, and life-changing encounters with remarkable personalities and artists, as well as the practical side of working in the theatre, in visual arts and in education. Her art tells unexpected stories of little-noticed people and emigre communities, and makes performance for diverse audiences from the unique experience of one's own life. Pamela Howard's dreams have led her to work across the globe and teach and inspire several generations of theatre makers, scenographers, designers and visual artists. The Art of Making Theatre passes on that inspiration afresh and demonstrates that being an artist is not a one-off project but a way of life.

What distinguishes modern tragedy from other forms of drama? How does it relate to contemporary political and social conditions? To what ends have artists employed the tragic form in different locations during the 20th century? Partly motivated by the urgency of our current situation in an age of ecocidal crisis, Modern Tragedy encompasses a variety of drama from throughout the 20th century. James Moran begins this book with John Millington Synge's Riders to the Sea (1904), which shows how environmental awareness might be expressed through tragic drama. Moran also looks at Brecht's reworking of Synge's drama in the 1937 play Senora Carrar's Rifles, and situates Brecht's script in the light of the theatre practitioner's broader ideas about tragedy. Brecht's tragic thinking - informed by Hegel and Marx - is contrasted with the Schopenhauerian approach of Samuel Beckett. The volume goes on to examine theatre makers whose ideas were partly motivated by applying an understanding of the tragic narrative of Synge's Riders to the Sea to postcolonial contexts. Looking at Derek Walcott's The Sea at Dauphin (1954), and J.P. Clark's The Goat (1961), Modern Tragedy explores how tragedy, a form that is often associated with regressive assumptions about hegemony, might be rethought, and how aspects of the tragic may coincide with the experiences and concerns of authors and audiences of colour.

Adopting an innovative and theoretical approach, Greek Tragedy and the Digital is an original study of the encounter between Greek tragedy and digital media in contemporary performance. It challenges Greek tragedy conventions through the contemporary arsenal of sound masks, avatars, live code poetry, new media art and digital cognitive experimentations. These technological innovations in performances of Greek tragedy shed new light on contemporary transformations and adaptations of classical myths, while raising emerging questions about how augmented reality works within interactive and immersive environments. Drawing on cutting-edge productions and theoretical debates on performance and the digital, this collection considers issues including performativity, liveness, immersion, intermediality, aesthetics, technological fragmentation, conventions of the chorus, theatre as hypermedia and reception theory in relation to Greek tragedy. Case studies include Kzryztof Warlikowski, Jan Fabre, Romeo Castellucci, Katie Mitchell, Georges Lavaudant, The Wooster Group, Labex Arts-H2H, Akram Khan, Urland & Crew, Medea Electronique, Robert Wilson, Klaus Obermaier, Guy Cassiers, Luca di Fusco, Ivo Van Hove, Avra Sidiropoulou and Jay Scheib. This is an incisive, interdisciplinary study that serves as a practice model for conceptualizing the ways in which Greek tragedy encounters digital culture in contemporary performance.

Colonialism and Slavery in Performance brings together original archival research with recent critical perspectives to argue for the importance of theatrical culture to the understanding of the French Caribbean sugar colonies in the eighteenth century. Fifteen English-language essays from both established and emerging scholars apply insights and methodologies from performance studies and theatre history in order to propose a new understanding of Old Regime culture and identity as a trans-Atlantic continuum that includes the Antillean possessions whose slave labour provided enormous wealth to the metropole. Carefully documented studies of performances in Saint-Domingue, the most prosperous French colony, illustrate how the crucible of a brutally racialized colonial space gave rise to a new French identity by adapting many of the cherished theatrical traditions that colonists imported directly from the mainland, resulting in a Creole performance culture that reflected the strong influence of African practices brought to the islands by plantation slaves. Other essays focus on how European theatregoers reconciled the contradiction inherent in the eighteenth century's progressive embrace of human rights, with an increasing dependence on the economic spoils of slavery, thus illustrating how the stage served as a means to negotiate new tensions within "French" identity, in the metropole as well as in the colonies. In the final section of the volume, essays explore the place of performance in representations of the Old Regime Antilles, from the Haitian literary diaspora to contemporary performing artists from Martinique and Guadeloupe, as the stage remains central to understanding history and identity in France's former Atlantic slave colonies. Featuring contributions from Sean Anderson, Karine Benac-Giroux, Bernard Camier, Nadia Chonville, Laurent Dubois, Logan J. Connors, Beatrice Ferrier, Kaiama L. Glover, Jeffrey M. Leichman, Laurence Marie, Pascale Pellerin, Julia Prest, Catherine Ramond, Emily Sahakian, Pierre Saint-Amand, and Fredrik Thomasson.

This book is an annotated collection of English-language documents by foreigners writing about Japan's kabuki theatre in the half-century after the country was opened to the West in 1853. Using memoirs, travelogues, diaries, letters, and reference books, it contains all significant writing about kabuki by foreigners-resident or transient-during the Meiji period (1868-1912), well before the first substantial non-Japanese book on the subject was published. Its chronologically organized chapters contain detailed introductions. Twenty-seven authors, represented by edited versions of their essays, are supplemented by detailed summaries of thirty-five others. The author provides insights into how Western visitors-missionaries, scholars, diplomats, military officers, adventurers, globetrotters, and even a precocious teenage girl-responded to a world-class theatre that, apart from a tiny number of pre-Meiji encounters, had been hidden from the world at large for over two centuries. It reveals prejudices and misunderstandings, but also demonstrates the power of great theatre to bring together people of differing cultural backgrounds despite the barriers of language, artistic convention, and the very practice of theatergoing. And, in Ichikawa Danjuro IX, it presents an actor knowledgeable foreigners considered one of the finest in the world.

Marco Paolini: A Deep Map breaks new ground in the field of Italian political theatre by outlining the unique approach of one of Italy's most celebrated playwrights, Marco Paolini, whose work has hitherto remained inaccessible to English-speaking audiences. The book is the first substantial study of Paolini's corpus in English. Additionally, it offers an in-depth analysis of Paolini's unique methods by focusing on the recovery of collective cultural memory through theatre and in-depth historical and political context. The book engages critically with art and politics in Italy specifically, but has implications and relevance on a global scale. Perissinotto's multidisciplinary approach simultaneously draws upon memory studies, history, and poetry. She demonstrates how Paolini's plays evoke themes similar to ancient Greek theatre, which called for the engagement of actors in political commentary from the stage, connecting them directly with the public on social and ethical issues.

Why do so many writers and audiences turn to theatre to resolve overwhelming topics of pain and suffering? This collection of essays from international scholars reconsiders how theatre has played a crucial part in encompassing and preserving significant human experiences. Plays about global issues, including terrorism and war, are increasing in attention from playwrights, scholars, critics and audiences. In this contemporary collection, a gathering of diverse contributors explain theatre's special ability to generate dialogue and promote healing when dealing with human tragedy. This collection discusses over 30 international plays and case studies from different time periods, all set in a backdrop of war. The four sections document British and American perspectives on theatres of war, global perspectives on theatres of war, perspectives on Black Watch and, finally, perspectives on The Great Game: Afghanistan. Through this, a range of international scholars from different disciplines imaginatively rethink theatre's unique ability to mediate the impacts and experiences of war. Featuring contributions from a variety of perspectives, this book provides a wealth of revealing insights into why authors and audiences have always turned to the unique medium of theatre to make sense of war.

After fifteen years of marriage, Daniel and Sylvia find themselves drifting further apart with each passing day. Until one morning, they find themselves abruptly united by every parent's worst nightmare... The shoes have been polished, the vases are full and the phone is ringing off the hook, but there's one thing they're still missing...answers. Forced into a confrontation, years of resentment and things long left unsaid rise to the surface as they question the circumstances that brought them to this point, and what happens to your relationship when the only thing holding you together, threatens to tear you apart. A timely spotlight on love and loss, Til Death Do Us Part is the debut play of Safaa Benson-Effiom, and was a finalist in the 2020 Theatre503 International Playwriting Award and Soho Theatre's 2019 Tony Craze award. Originally presented as a Theatre503 and Darcy Dobson Productions co-production.

In the wake of the 1688 revolution, England's transition to financial capitalism accelerated dramatically. Londoners witnessed the rise of credit-based currencies, securities markets, speculative bubbles, insurance schemes, and lotteries. Many understood these phenomena in terms shaped by their experience with another risky venture at the heart of London life: the public theater. Speculative Enterprise traces the links these observers drew between the operations of Drury Lane and Exchange Alley, including their hypercommercialism, dependence on collective opinion, and accessibility to people of different classes and genders.Mattie Burkert identifies a discursive ""theater-finance nexus"" at work in plays by Colley Cibber, Richard Steele, and Susanna Centlivre as well as in the vibrant eighteenth-century media landscape. As Burkert demonstrates, the stock market and the entertainment industry were recognized as deeply interconnected institutions that, when considered together, illuminated the nature of the public more broadly and gave rise to new modes of publicity and resistance. In telling this story, Speculative Enterprise combines methods from literary studies, theater and performance history, media theory, and work on print and material culture to provide a fresh understanding of the centrality of theater to public life in eighteenth-century London.