This book marks a significant methodological shift in studies of black British women's theatre: it looks beyond published plays to the wealth of material held in archives of various kinds, from ...national repositories and themed collections to individuals' personal papers. It finds there a cache of unpublished manuscripts and production recordings distinctive for their non- naturalistic aesthetics. Close analysis of selected works identifies this as an intersectional feminist creative practice. Chapters focus on five theatre companies and artists, spanning several decades: Theatre of Black Women (1982-1988), co-founded by Booker Prize- winning writer Bernardine Evaristo; Munirah Theatre Company (1983-1991); Black Mime Theatre Women's Troop (1990-1992); Zindika; and SuAndi. The book concludes by reflecting on the politics of representation, with reference to popular postmillennial playwright debbie tucker green. Drawing on new interviews with the playwrights/practitioners and their peers, this book assembles a rich, interconnected, and occasionally corrective history of black British women's creativity. By reproducing 22 facsimile images of flyers, production programmes, photographs and other ephemera, Black British Women's Theatre: Intersectionality, Archives, Aesthetics not only articulates a hidden history but allows its readers their own encounter with the fragile record of this vibrant past.
Over the past 20 years European theatre underwent fundamental changes in terms of aesthetic focus, institutional structure and in its position in society. The impetus for these changes was provided ...by a new generation in the independent theatre scene. This book brings together studies on the state of independent theatre in different European countries, focusing on the fields of dance and performance, children and youth theatre, theatre and migration and post-migrant theatre. Additionally, it includes essays on experimental musical theatre, and different cultural policies for independent theatre scenes in a range of European countries.
The early drama of Eugene O’Neill, with its emphasis on racial themes and conflicts, opened up extraordinary opportunities for Black performers to challenge racist structures in modern theater and ...cinema. By adapting O’Neill’s dramatic writing—changing scripts to omit offensive epithets, inserting African American music and dance, or including citations of Black internationalism--theater artists of color have used O’Neill’s texts to raze barriers in American and transatlantic theater. Challenging the widely accepted idea that Broadway was the white-hot creative engine of U.S. theater during the early 20th century, author Katie N. Johnson reveals a far more complex system of exchanges between the Broadway establishment and a vibrant Black theater scene in New York and beyond to chart a new history of American and transnational theater. In spite of their dichotomous (and at times problematic) representation of Blackness, O’Neill’s plays such as The Emperor Jones and All God’s Chillun Got Wings make ideal case studies because of the way these works stimulated traffic between Broadway and Harlem—and between white and Black America. These investigations of O’Neill and Broadway productions are enriched by the vibrant transnational exchange found in early to mid-20th century artistic production. Anchored in archival research, Racing the Great White Way recovers not only vital lost performance histories, but also the layered contexts for performing bodies across the Black Atlantic and the Circum-Atlantic.
Theatre practice and applied theatre are areas of growing international interest. Applied Theatre is the first study to assist practitioners and students to develop critical frameworks for planning ...and implementing their own theatrical projects.This reader-friendly text considers an international range of case studies in applied theatre through discussion questions, practical activities and detailed analysis of specific theatre projects globally.In addition, the collection gathers together essential readings from many different sources to provide a comprehensive international survey of the field. Saxton and Prendergast infuse the text with a historical and theoretical overview of practical theatre and conclude each case study with useful suggestions for hands-on activities and additional readings. Compiled across five continents, the case studies cover a wide range of disciplines from theatre studies to education, medicine and law. Key issues explored are the balance of artistry and aesthetics, participation, ethics, as well as safety and assessment in theatre. With their background in drama education and pedagogy, the authors offer clear developmental approaches that transfer directly into practice and a critical model of audience education, applicable to both mainstream and applied theatre contexts. The book encourages students and practitioners to acquire a deeper, more concrete understanding of applied theatre.
In 1928, Hilton Edwards and Micheál mac Liammóir founded the Dublin Gate Theatre, which quickly became renowned for producing stylistically and dramaturgically innovative plays in a uniquely ...avant-garde setting. While the Gate's lasting importance to the history of Irish theater is generally attributed to its introduction of experimental foreign drama to Ireland, Van den Beuken shines a light on the Gate's productions of several new Irish playwrights, such as Denis Johnston, Mary Manning, David Sears, Robert Collis, and Edward and Christine Longford. Having grown up during an era of political turmoil and bloodshed that led to the creation of an independent yet in many ways bitterly divided Ireland, these dramatists chose to align themselves with an avant-garde theater that explicitly sought to establish Dublin as a modern European capital. In examining an extensive corpus of archival resources, Van den Beuken reveals how the Gate Theatre became a site of avant-garde nationalism during Ireland's tumultuous first post-independence decades.
Commercial theatre is thriving across Europe and the UK, while public theatre has suffered under changing patterns of cultural consumption—as well as sharp reductions in government subsidies for the ...arts. At a time when the rationale behind these subsidies is being widely reexamined, it has never been more important for public theatre to demonstrate its continued merit. In Resetting the Stage, Dragan Klaic argues convincingly that, in an increasingly crowded market of cultural goods, public theatre is best served not by imitating its much larger commercial counterpart, but by asserting its artistic distinctiveness and the considerable benefit this confers on the public.
Theatre Institutions in Crisis examines how theatre in Europe is beset by a crisis on an institutional level and the pressing need for robust research into the complex configuration of factors at ...work that are leading to significant shifts in the way theatre is understood, organised, delivered, and received.
Balme and Fisher bring together scholars from different disciplines and countries across Europe to examine what factors can be said to be most common to the institutional crisis of European theatre today. The methods employed are drawn from systems theory, social-scientific approaches, economics and statistics, theatre and performance, and other interpretative approaches (hermeneutics), and labour studies.
This book will be of great interest to researchers, students, and practitioners working in the fields of performance and theatre studies. It will be particularly relevant to researchers with a specific interest in European theatre and its networks.
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