In the theatre world, ‘off book’ signifies a deadline in the
creative process: the date by which performers are to have
memorised their lines and will no longer be allowed to carry their
play script – the ‘book’ – on stage. As such, Off Book
makes a strangely appropriate title for a book about devised
performance in higher education. In its usual context, ‘off
book’ captures the tension between ephemeral, live performance
and durable, author-ized literature: in one sense, the book – the
written play – is the essential core, the seed that gives the
performance life and meaning. Yet the opposite could be equally
true: an ‘on book’ performance would not really be a play at
all, and an actor reciting lines out of a script in hand is not
really acting. A play is only realised in, or through, a
performance. We cannot really learn, or play, our part until we can
put the book down and enter the stage without
it.   Devised performance might be described as
‘theatre without the book.’ Yet devisors also often use books
– books like this one, practical guidebooks and how-to manuals,
as well as a myriad of literature outside the discipline mined for
inspiration. This is particularly manifest when devising in the
context of higher education - a milieu, like theatre, wherein books
traditionally signify authority, status, and meaning. So, to the
extent that theatres and campuses are places where one expects
everything to be done ‘by the book,’ devising on campuses is
rebellious, even sacrilegious. But on the other hand, both the
theatre and the university are expected to challenge tradition,
defy expectations, and conduct experiments. The book is presented
in four sections reflecting the range of roles devising plays in
higher education. The first section, Devising Pedagogy: Teaching
Transferable Tools, examines how and why practitioners, educators,
and programs conceptualise and plan for devising with adult
learners in a range of higher education contexts. The second,
Devising Friction: Ensembles, Individuals, and the Institution,
shifts the discussion to the classroom, where abstract, pedagogical
rubber meets the road of concrete reality. The third, Devising (by)
Degrees, Practice-led postgraduate devising projects features
contributions by emerging scholar-practitioners who engage with
devising as both an object and method of creative scholarship.
Finally, the chapters in Devising Bridges: University-Community
Engagement explore how devising connects higher education
institutions with the public they are intended to serve —
particularly in populations and communities that are marginalised
within, or even explicitly excluded from participating in, higher
education, such as children and people with intellectual
disabilities. A valuable and unique resource for drama educators in
universities, university students in education, drama, and arts
managements, graduate students conducting research, theatre
historians, practicing devised theatre artists.
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