This dynamic book offers a comprehensive companion to the theory and practice of Theatre of the Oppressed. Developed by Brazilian director and theorist Augusto Boal, these theatrical forms invite people to mobilize their knowledge and rehearse struggles against oppression. Featuring a diverse array of voices (many of them as yet unheard in the academic world), the book hosts dialogues on the following questions, among others: Why and how did Theatre of the Oppressed develop? What are the differences between the 1970s (when Theatre of the Oppressed began) and today? How has Theatre of the Oppressed been shaped by local and global shifts of the last 40-plus years? Why has Theatre of the Oppressed spread or "multiplied" across so many geographic, national, and cultural borders? How has Theatre of the Oppressed been shaped by globalization, "development," and neoliberalism? What are the stakes, challenges, and possibilities of Theatre of the Oppressed today? How can Theatre of the Oppressed balance practical analysis of what is with ambitious insistence on what could be? How can Theatre of the Oppressed hope, but concretely? Broad in scope yet rich in detail, The Routledge Companion to Theatre of the Oppressed contains practical and critical content relevant to artists, activists, teachers, students, and researchers.

This study is the first general critical introduction to the writing of Horton Foote, recipient of two Academy Awards and the Pulitzer Prize. These original essays survey Foote's career, his work for theater, television, and film, with analysis of Foote's major themes and characteristic style in all three media. The casebook concludes with a list of Foote's produced work, as well as a selective annotated bibliography of primary criticism on the playwright. This book demonstrates the influence of personal biography and Southern literature on Foote's career. The essayists also investigate the writer's contribution to American dramatic realism and independent filmmaking, emphasizing his experimentation with musical structure, dedramatization, and complex subtexts. Foote's disarmingly simple stories, with their radically understated language, are explained in many articles as the product of the subtle influence of the psychological and religious views of the author.

This is the first volume to provide a comprehensive overview of the phases of Jerzy Grotowski's long and multi-faceted career. The Grotowski Sourcebook assembles materials that have appeared in diverse publications and languages over a period of more than 30 years. The sourcebook features:
* international contributions from all the key performance theorists to have worked on Grotowski, including Eugenio Barba, Peter Brook, Jan Kott, Eric Bentley and Jennifer Kumiega
* writings which trace every phase of Grotowski's development, from his 'theatre of productions', through 'paratheatre' and 'theatre of sources' to 'objective drama' and 'art as vehicle'
* a unique collection of Grotowski's own writings plus an interview with his closest collaborator and 'heir' Thomas Richards
* a vast range of stunning photographic documentation of Grotowski and his followers in action
* a historical-critical study of Grotowski by Richard Schechner, published here for the first time.

Susan Bennett's highly successful Theatre Audiences is a unique full-length study of the audience as cultural phenomenon, which looks at both theories of spectatorship and the practice of different theatres and their audiences.
Published here in a brand new updated edition, Theatre Audiences now includes:
- a new preface by the author
- a stunning extra chapter on intercultural theatre
- a revised up-to-date bibliography.
Theatre Audiences is a must-buy for teachers and students interested in spectatorship and theatre audiences, and will be valuable reading for practitioners and others involved in the theatre.

In this cross-disciplinary study, Timothy Murray examines the artistic struggle over traumatic fantasies of race, gender, sexuality, and power. Establishing a retrospective dialogue between past and present, stage and video, this work links the impact of trauma on recent political projects in performance and video with the specters of difference haunting Shakespeare's plays. Murray provides close readings of cultural formations as diverse as Shakespearean drama, the Statue of Liberty, contemporary plays by women, African-American performance, and feminist interventions in video, performance and installation. The texts discussed include: installations by Mary Kelly and Dawn Dedeaux; plays by Ntozake Shange, Rochelle Owens, Adrienne Kennedy, Marsha Norman and Amiri Baraka; performances by Robbie McCauley, Jordan, Orlan, and Carmelita Tropicana; stage, film and video productions of "King Lear, Othello, Romeo and Juliet" and "All's Well that Ends Well."

In this work the author traces his researches with Grotowski and Strasberg, at the Old Vic in London, and in Nahuatlan and Tibetan theatre to arrive at his design for a unique participatory theatre form. The text also provides a practical guide to the author's ritual/theatrical "actions" as well as supplying a philosophical context for this work.

Susan Bennett's highly successful Theatre Audiences is a unique full-length study of the audience as cultural phenomenon, which looks at both theories of spectatorship and the practice of different theatres and their audiences.
Published here in a brand new updated edition, Theatre Audiences now includes:
`nBL a new preface by the author
• a stunning extra chapter on intercultural theatre
• a revised up-to-date bibliography
Theatre Audiences is a must-buy for teachers and students interested in spectatorship and theatre audiences, and will be valuable reading for practitioners and others involved in the theatre.

In this engaging cross-disciplinary study, Timothy Murray examines the artistic struggle over traumatic fantasies of race, gender, sexuality, and power. Establishing a retrospective dialogue between past and present, stage and video, Drama Trauma links the impact of trauma on recent political projects in performance and video with the specters of difference haunting Shakespeare's plays.
The book provides close readings of cultural formations as diverse as Shakespearean drama, the Statue of Liberty, contemporary plays by women, African-American performance, and feminist interventions in video, performance and installation. The texts discussed include:
* installations by Mary Kelly and Dawn Dedeaux,
* plays by Ntozake Shange, Rochelle Owens, Adrienne Kennedy, Marsha Norman and Amiri Baraka
* performances by Robbie McCauley, Jordan, Orlan, and Carmelita Tropicana
* stage, film and video productions of King Lear, Othello, Romeo and Juliet and All's Well that Ends Well.

"Mourning Sex" employs an impressive range of cultural representations to examine how cultures perform their mourning. The texts examined range from a recent film made by a man dying of AIDS, to the remains of the Rose theatre. Other chapters explore the performance of grief through: the paintings of Caravaggio and Holbein; the Anita Hill and Clarence Thomas hearings; and Freud's patient Anna O.
In "Mourning Sex," Phelan meditates upon the trauma of loss, erotically and performatively, in an extraordinary fusion of critical and creative writing which erodes the distinction between art and theory, fact and fiction.
This work by the author of the highly-accalimed "Unmarked" makes a stunning advance in performance theory in dialogue with psychoanalysis, queer theory, and cultural studies. relation to texts and events ranging from the paintings of Caravaggio and Holbein, to Massi and Friedman's film "Silverlake Life" to the Anita Hill and Clarence Thomas hearing Peggy Phelan meditates upon the performance and erotics of the trauma of loss. Experimental and theoretically informed Mourning Sex advances performance theory in dialogue with psychoanalysis, queer theory, and cultural studies. "Mourning Sex" examines how cultures perform their mourning. Employing a wide range of cultural representations--from Caravaggio's 1601 painting, "The Incredulity of St. Thomas" to Tom Joslin's, Mark Massi's and Peter Friedman's 1992 film "Silver Lake Life: The View From Here," "Mourning Sex" meditates on the trauma of loss, erotically, and performatively. Experimental and theoretically informed, "Mourning Sex" advances performance theory in dialogue with psychoanalysis, queer theory, and culturalstudies.

This is a book about the exhilaration and the catastrophe of embodiment. Analyzing different instances of injured bodies, Peggy Phelan considers what sustained attention to the affective force of trauma might yield for critical theory. Advocating what she calls "performative writing", she creates an extraordinary fusion of critical and creative thinking which erodes the distinction between art and theory, fact and fiction.
The bodies she examines here include Christ's, as represented in Caravaggio's painting The Incredulity of St Thomas, Anita Hill's and Clarence Thomas's bodies as they were perfomed during the Senate hearings, the disinterred body of the Rose Theatre, exemplary bodies reconstructed through psychoanalytic talking cures, and the filmic bodies created by Tom Joslin, Mark Massi, and Peter Friedman in Silverlake Life: The View From Here.
This new work by the highly-acclaimed author of Unmarked makes a stunning advance in performance theory in dialogue with psychoanalysis, queer theory, and cultural studies.

The Explicit Body in Performance interrogates the avant-garde precedents and theoretical terrain that combined to produce feminist performance art. Among the many artists discussed are:
* Carolee Schneemann
* Annie Sprinkle
* Karen Finley
* Robbie McCauley
* Ana Mendieta
* Ann Magnuson
* Sandra Bernhard
* Spiderwoman
Rebecca Schneider tackles topics ranging across the 'post-porn modernist movement', New Right censorship, commodity fetishism, perspectival vision, and primitivism. Employing diverse critical theories from Benjamin to Lacan to postcolonial and queer theory, Schneider analyses artistic and pop cultural depictions of the explicit body in late commodity capitalism.
The Explicit Body in Performance is complemented by extensive photographic illustrations and artistic productions of postmodern feminist practitioners. The book is a fascinating exploration of how these artists have wrestled with the representational structures of desire.

eBook available with sample pages: 0203421078

Contents:
Introduction by Jill Dolan Part One: Theory 1. Art versus Business: the role of women in American Theatre 2. Women for Women 3.The WOW Cafe 4. Notes on Lesbian Theatre 5. Women at the Helm 6. Staging the Obscene Body 7. Brechtian Theory/Feminist Theory 8. Feminist Theory, Post-Structuralism and Performance 9. In Defence of the Discourse Part Two: Practice 10. Passing Language: ADS and Fires in the Mirror 11. Anna Deaveare Smith 12. Interview with Robbie McCauley 13. Holly Hughes 14. Reading Past the Heterosexual Imperative 15. Karen Finley 16. Motherhood According to Finley Part Three: Texts 17. Dress Suits to Hire 18. The Constant State of Desire

This collection begins with two premises: that our understanding of the nature and forms of creativity in later life remains limited and that dialogue between specialists in gerontology, the arts and humanities can produce the crucial new insights that are so obviously needed. Representing the outcome of ongoing dialogue across the disciplinary divide, the contributions of this volume reflect anew on what we share and how we differ; creating new narratives so as to build an understanding of late-life creativity that goes far beyond the narrow confines of the pervasively received idea of 'late style'. Creativity in Later Life encompasses a range of personal reflections and discussions of the boundaries of creativity, including: Canonical artistic achievements to community art projects Narratives of carers for those living with dementia Analyses of creative theory Through these insightful chapters, the authors consequently offer an understanding of creativity in later life as varied, socialised and - above all - located in the cultural and economic circumstances of the here and now. This title will appeal to academics, practitioners and students in the various gerontological, arts and humanities fields; and to anyone with an interest in the nature of creativity in later life and the forms it takes.

Contents:
Introduction by Jill Dolan Part One: Theory 1. Art versus Business: the role of women in American Theatre 2. Women for Women 3.The WOW Cafe 4. Notes on Lesbian Theatre 5. Women at the Helm 6. Staging the Obscene Body 7. Brechtian Theory/Feminist Theory 8. Feminist Theory, Postructuralism and Performance 9. In Defence of the Discourse Part Two: Practice 10. Passing Language: ADS and Fires in the Mirror 11. Anna Deaveare Smith 12. Interview with Robbie McCauley 13. Holly Hughes 14. Reading Past the Heterosexual Imperative 15. Karen Finley 16. Motherhood According to Finley Part Three: Texts 17. Dress Suits to Hire 18. The Constant State of Desire

Marina Abramovic is the creator of pioneering performance art which transcends the form's provocative origins. Her visceral and extreme performances have tested the limits of both body and mind, communicating with audiences worldwide on a personal and political level. Updated and revised throughout, the book combines: a biography, setting out the contexts of Abramovic's work an examination of the artist through her writings, interviews and influences a detailed analysis of her work, including studies of the Rhythm series, Nightsea Crossing and 512 Hours practical explorations of the performances and their origins. As a first step towards critical understanding, and as an initial exploration before going on to further, primary research, Routledge Performance Practitioners offer unbeatable value for today's student.

Religious practitioners and theatregoers have much in common. So much, in fact, that we can say that religion is often a theatrical phenomenon, and that theatre can be a religious experience. By examining the phenomenology of religion, we can in turn develop a better understanding of the phenomenology of theatre. That is to say, religion can show us the ways in which theatre is not fake. This study explores the overlap of religion and theatre, especially in the crucial area of experience and personal identity. Reconsidering ideas from ancient Greece, premodern India, modern Europe, and the recent century, it argues that religious adherents and theatre audiences are largely, themselves, the mechanisms of their experiences. By examining the development of the philosophy of theatre alongside theories of religious action, this book shows how we need to adjust our views of both. Featuring attention to influential notions from Plato and Aristotle, from the Natyashastra, from Schleiermacher to Sartre, Bourdieu, and Butler, and considering contemporary theories of performance and ritual, this is vital reading for any scholar in religious studies, theatre and performance studies, theology, or philosophy.

From A Midsummer Night's Dream's Puck to Othello's Desdemona, this new edition of Speaking Shakespeare gives you all the necessary tools to bring any of Shakespeare's eclectic characters to life. Patsy Rodenburg uses practical exercises and textual analysis to hone in on your dramatic resonance, breathing and placement in order to unlock your potential for playing these iconic characters. Speeches and scenes such as Mark Antony's 'O, pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth' and the bloody scene in which Macbeth admits to Lady Macbeth that he has 'done the deed' are placed in context and discussed in depth. Combining clear practical, textual and imaginative work with a brilliant analysis of scenes and speeches from the whole range of Shakespeare’s plays, this is an essential and inspiring guide for anyone working on his plays today. It brings a renewed focus on the language of power, so frequently spoken in the worlds of politicians and company directors, which will give readers insight into the potency of clear, direct communication, specifically in the context of Shakespeare. Each chapter has been revised following the author's 20 additional years of experience as a voice coach and includes techniques necessary for a clear and convincing performance.

Tadeusz Kantor - a theoretician, director, innovator and painter famed for his very visual theatre style - was a key figure in European avant-garde theatre. He was also known for his challenging theatrical innovations, such as extending stages and the combination of mannequins with living actors. The book combines: a detailed study of the historical context of Kantor's work an exploration of Kantor's own writings on his theatrical craft a stylistic analysis of the key works, including The Dead Class and Let the Artists Die, and their critical reception an examination of the practical exercises devised by Kantor. As a first step towards critical understanding, and as an initial exploration before going on to further, primary research, Routledge Performance Practitioners offer unbeatable value for today's student.

Rudolf Laban was one of the leading dance theorists of the twentieth century. His work on dance analysis and notation raised the status of dance as both an art form and a scholarly discipline. This is the first book to combine: an overview of Laban's life, work and influences an exploration of his key ideas, including the revolutionary "Laban Movement Analysis" system analysis of his works Die Grunen Clowns and The Mastery of Movement and their relevance to dance theater from the 1920s onwards a detailed exercise-based breakdown of Laban's key teachings. As a first step towards critical understanding, and as an initial exploration before going on to further, primary research, Routledge Performance Practitioners are unbeatable value for today's student.

First Published in 1994. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

In this compilation, first published in 1999, Ian Ledsham compiles an extensive catalogue of the Shaw-Hellier Collection, complete with diagrams regarding how we use text.

First published in 1985, this book examines how workers theatre movements intended their performances to be activist - perceiving art as a weapon of struggle and enlightenment - and an emancipatory act. An introductory study relates left-wing theatre groupings to the cultural narratives of contemporary British socialism. The progress of the Workers' Theatre Movement (1928-1935) is traced from simple realism to the most brilliant phase of its Russian and German development alongside which the parallel movements in the United States are also examined. A number of crucial texts are reprints as well as stage notes and glimpses of the dramaturgical controversies which accompanied them.

In the twenty years that preceded the publication of this book in 1988, David Rabe was in the vanguard of playwrights who shaped American theatre. As the first full-length work on Rabe, this book laid the groundwork for later critical and biographical studies. The first part consists of an essay that covers three sections: a short biography, a summary and evaluation of his formative journalism for the New Haven Register, and a detailed and cohesive stage history of his work. The second part presents the most comprehensive and authoritative primary bibliography of Rabe to date, with the third section containing a secondary bibliography - including a section on biographical studies.