Methuen Drama UK

This is the first collection of primary sources that addresses the amateur theatre produced by the workers in the first decade after the Russian Revolution. Newly translated from the Russian, the essays capture both theoretical articulations on the scene – by luminaries such as Alexander Bogdanov, Platon Kerzhentsev, Valerian Pletnev, Alexander Mgebrov and Valentin Smyshliaev – and the more fleeting descriptions and first-hand accounts of the productions staged, accounts and voices which are typically harder to capture. The essays tell a story of unabashed optimism in the creativity of the working classes. They speak of the use of theatre to carve a public and political role in the construction of a new world. The sources, however, also exhibit the flipside of the scene, or the sombre difficulties faced by the amateur actors and the incessant calls to raise standards through professional help. The narrative developed is that of an amateur theatre which began as an autonomous and heter

Offering fresh studies of Samuel Beckett in pre-production, in rehearsal, as an innovator of the script form, and as a speculative director and designer, Beckett’s Laboratory reconsiders Beckett’s stringent approach to stage direction through the lens of the laboratory and reveals his experimentalism with stage representation and composition. Wakeling argues that acknowledging Beckett’s experimental processes, from their composition to their reception, is crucial to understanding the innovative representations of humanity that emerged at different stages in Beckett’s practice.Repositioning Beckett’s performance oeuvre in relation to philosophy, Wakeling draws upon post-dramatic, symbolist, materialist and post-structural understandings of theatre performance to reappraise Beckett’s plays as a composition for performance. The philosophical underpinnings of Beckett’s practices are explored through an eclectic mix of familiar and unexplored contemporary theatre productions and films o

This book offers a stimulating introduction to the Hokkien music drama known as liyuanxi (‘pear garden theatre’), heir and current expression of one of China’s oldest unbroken xiqu (‘Chinese opera’) traditions. It considers the genre’s history prior to the 20th century, its signal successes before and after the Cultural Revolution, and its national prominence today. Beginning with an analysis of the form’s aesthetics and techniques, it proceeds to an overview of its rich and distinctive narrative repertoire, including several dramas unique to the genre.Josh Stenberg illustrates liyuanxi ’s distinctive musical and narrative qualities and presents the performance art’s place, not only in Chinese drama and theatre history, but also in the culture of the historic port city of Quanzhou and the broader Hokkien region and diaspora. This study focuses on the work of the only professional theatre troupe in the genre, the Fujian Province Liyuanxi Experimental Theatre (FPLET), and examines t

The era known as the Thaw (1953-64) was a crucial period in the history of the Soviet Union. It was a time when the legacies of Stalinism began to unravel and when brief moments of liberalisation saw dramatic changes to society. By exploring theatre productions, plays and cultural debates during the Thaw, this book sheds light on a society in flux, in which the cultural norms, values and hierarchies of the previous era were being rethought. Jesse Gardiner demonstrates that the revival of avant-garde theatre during the Thaw was part of a broader re-engagement with cultural forms that had been banned under Stalin. Plays and productions that had fallen victim to the censor were revived or reinvented, and their authors and directors rehabilitated alongside waves of others who had been repressed during the Stalinist purges. At the same time, new theatre companies and practitioners emerged who reinterpreted the stylized techniques of the avant-garde for a post-war generation. This book argue

This is the first full-length book to provide an introduction to badhai performances throughout South Asia, examining their characteristics and relationships to differing contexts in Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan. Badhai’s repertoires of songs, dances, prayers, and comic repartee are performed by socially marginalised hijra , khwaja sira , and trans communities. They commemorate weddings, births and other celebratory heteronormative events. The form is improvisational and responds to particular contexts, but also moves across borders. For students of theatre and performance, anthropology, religion, gender and cultural studies, this book illuminates an important form of performance, considering its changing status and uncertain futures.The book draws from anthropology, theatre and performance studies, music and sound studies, ethnomusicology, queer and transgender studies, and sustained ethnographic fieldwork to examine badhai ’s place-based dynamics, transcultural features, and

The plays of María Martínez Sierra were popular in Spain, South America and in translation on Broadway and London's West End in the first half of the 20th century but they were thought to be written by her husband, the celebrated director and playwright Gregorio Martínez Sierra. After his death, the authorship of his work was revealed to be that of María, making her one of the most important playwrights of her time.This edited collection features three plays by María Martínez Sierra, translated by Helen and Harley Granville-Barker, along with an introduction by Patricia O’Connor, University of Cincinnati, US, which examines María's extraordinary life and work, and the battle for her authorship to be recognized in both the Spanish-speaking and anglophone world. This volume focuses on plays centred on strong women; and each is translated by the eminent man of theatre Harley Granville-Barker and his wife, Helen, whose own story holds stark parallels to Maria's in terms of authorship. The

This book situates the production of The Boy Friend and the Players’ Theatre in the context of a post-war London and reads The Boy Friend , and Wilson's later work, as exercises in contemporary camp. It argues for Wilson as a significant and transitional figure both for musical theatre and for modes of homosexuality in the context of the pre-Wolfenden 1950s.Sandy Wilson's The Boy Friend is one of the most successful British musicals ever written. First produced at the Players' Theatre Club in London in 1953 it transferred to the West End and Broadway, making a star out of Julie Andrews and gave Twiggy a leading role in Ken Russell's 1971 film adaptation. Despite this success, little is known about Wilson, a gay writer working in Britain in the 1950s at a time when homosexuality was illegal.Drawing on original research assembled from the Wilson archives at the Harry Ransom Center, this is the first critical study of Wilson as a key figure of 1950s British theatre. Beginning with th

‘ Much like Mr. Miller, Quentin is a witness to alarming public and personal catastrophes: the stock market crash, the Holocaust, the McCarthy witchhunts and the self-destruction of a show business idol to whom he is married. ’ NEW YORK TIMES Haunted by past romantic failures, Quentin, a New York City Jewish intellectual, retreats into his mind as he debates marrying for a third time: as he revisits past loves and losses, his mind and memory fragments under philosophical questions; are our failures really just our own? Or is possible to hide away from the mistakes of the past?One of Miller’s most personal plays, After the Fall takes place almost entirely inside the mind of the play's protagonist, who is often read as a stand-in for the playwright himself. Touching on themes of the Holocaust, McCarthyism and inherited sin, the play is one of the most discussed within Miller’s canon.This Methuen Drama Student Edition is edited by Ramón Espejo-Romero, with commentary and notes tha

"The Price is one of the most engrossing and entertaining plays that Miller has ever written. " - The New Uork Times When patriarch of the Franz family dies, his two sons return home to dispose of the furniture crammed in his attic: one is a successful surgeon, the other gave up everything to support their father following the Great Depression. As the pair sort through these abandoned belongings, frustrations, secrets and surprise guests are uncovered.With its touching and farcical presentation of American life beyond the Vietnam War and Great Depression, The Price is widely recognised as one of Miller’s major works, earning him a Tony Award nomination in 1968.This Methuen Drama Student Edition is edited by Yuko Kurahashi, with commentary and notes that explore the play's production history (including excerpts from interviews with the director and designers of the 2017 Arena Stage production) as well as the dramatic, thematic and academic debates that surround it.

‘ When the play focuses on the self-entrapment of the characters, Mr. Miller can be tender as well as trenchant’ NEW YORK TIMES Two strangers meet in a New England psychiatric clinic, each visiting their admitted, depressed wife: one is a humble carpenter with seven children, the other a successful businessman in a childless marriage; both have been forgotten by the promise of the American Dream.Described by Miller as 'a comedy about a tragedy', this one-act play highlights the devastating consequences for those who fail to achieve the purported riches of the American Dream; a reality many face.This Methuen Drama Student Edition is edited by Ciarán Leinster, with commentary and notes that explore the play's production history (including excerpts from an interview with director David Thacker) as well as the dramatic, thematic and academic debates that surround it.

‘ Mr. Miller knows his audience… he is letting us know, the devil will have his due.’ NEW YORK TIMES When insurance agent Lyman Felt is hospitalised following a near-fatal car crash, both of his wives show up at his bedside and his duplicitous bigamy is revealed. As his shocked spouses – the prim Theo and the assertive Leah – reel from this revelation and their husband’s hypocrisy, an outrageous question is presented: is marriage actually easier this way?Touching on themes of betrayal, crisis and reconciliation, The Ride Down Mt. Morgan is one of Miller’s more controversial works, and was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Play in 1991. This Methuen Drama Student Edition is edited by Thiago Russo, with commentary and notes that explore the play's production history (including excerpts from an interview with director David Esbjornson) as well as the dramatic, thematic and academic debates that surround it.

‘ It is Mr. Miller's notion, potentially a great one, that the Baums' story can help tell the story of America itself during that traumatic era.’ NEW YORK TIMES When the stock market crashes, the once-financially comfortable Baum family lose everything and are forced to leave their lofty home in Manhattan to live with relatives in Brooklyn: how can their pride, purpose and artistic endeavours survive such a sudden and shocking reversal of fortune?A sweeping, hard-hitting look at the Great Depression of the 1930s, The American Clock is a vaudevillian celebration of American resilience and optimism in the face of national crisis, and was performed on Broadway in 1980.This Methuen Drama Student Edition is edited by Jane K. Dominik, with commentary and notes that explore the play's production history (including excerpts from interviews with designers of the 1980 Broadway production) as well as the dramatic, thematic and academic debates that surround it.

" It's moral vision, as well as the Miller voice, which remains as strong and unrelenting as a prophet's, that distinguish Broken Glass." - The New York Times When Sylvia Gellburg, a young Jewish woman living in Brooklyn, becomes partially paralyzed from the waist down, her husband Phillip is shocked: what could’ve caused this sudden condition? The answer is Kristallnacht , the horrific, anti-Semitic event occurring halfway around the world. As the Gellburgs reckon with this pogrom and with the breakdown of their own marriage, a terrifying thought emerges: will the Jewish people ever be able to avoid persecution? Broken Glass is one of Miller’s most moving and personal works, touching on themes of Jewish identity and anti-Semitism, winning him the Olivier Award for Best New Play in 1994. This Methuen Drama Student Edition is edited by Ambika Singh, and Nupur Tandon, with commentary and notes that explore the play's production history (including excerpts from an interview with di

‘ His drama is a piece of expert dramatic construction. Mr. Miller has woven his characters into a tangle of plot that springs naturally out of the circumstances of life today. ’ NEW YORK TIMES Three years on from the disappearance of his son, successful businessman Joe Keller has made a comfortable life for his family in America’s Midwest: despite being accused of supplying defective aircraft equipment in World War 2, he is altogether happy. But, when a shadowy figure from Joe’s past returns, his hidden truths are revealed, and the price of the American Dream is laid bare.Miller's first successful play on Broadway, All My Sons launched his career and established him as one of America’s greatest dramatists, also winning him the 1946 Tony Award for Best Author. An incisive indictment of greed, capitalism and self-interest, All My Sons is remembered as one of the playwright’s greatest works.This Methuen Drama Student Edition is edited by Clare Gleitman, with commentary and notes th

‘ A gentle, lyrical, Chekhovian evocation of the past, with that special unpretentious charm that special works sometimes have.’ NEW YORK TIMES At an auto-parts warehouse in Brooklyn, life seems frozen in time: as workers of every age commute in, nothing ever seems to change. Newcomer Bert, only 18 years old, hopes to escape this world, earnestly saving his wages for college… but can such a dream survive his workplace’s haze of hopelessness, despondency and alcoholism?A vivid rendering of life under the Great Depression, A Memory of Two Mondays perfectly captures the anxieties and concerns of the 1930s, autobiographically reflecting Miller’s own experience as an 18-year-old in this period.This Methuen Drama Student Edition is edited by Stephen Marino, with commentary and notes that explore the play's production history (including excerpts from an interview with director Rob Roznowski) as well as the dramatic, thematic and academic debates that surround it.

The first of its kind, this companion to British-Jewish theatre brings a neglected dimension in the work of many prominent British theatre-makers to the fore. Its structure reflects the historical development of British-Jewish theatre from the 1950s onwards, beginning with an analysis of the first generation of writers that now forms the core of post-war British drama (including Tom Stoppard, Harold Pinter and Arnold Wesker) and moving on to significant thematic force-fields and faultlines such as the Holocaust, antisemitism and Israel/Palestine. The book also covers the new generation of British-Jewish playwrights, with a special emphasis on the contribution of women writers and the role of particular theatres in the development of British-Jewish theatre, as well as TV drama. Included in the book are fascinating interviews with a set of significant theatre practitioners working today, including Ryan Craig, Patrick Marber, John Nathan, Julia Pascal and Nicholas Hytner. The companion a

The crafts of governance and diplomacy are spectacular, theatrical, and performative. Performing Statecraft investigates the performances of states, their leaders, and their citizens on an expanded field of the global arts of statecraft to consider the role of performance in the domestic and international affairs of states, and the interventions into global politics by artists, scholars, and activists. Treating theatre as both an art form and a practice of political actors, this book draws together scholarship on the embodied dimensions of governance, the stagecraft of revolution, arts activism on the world stage, sports performance by heads of state, the performativity of national dress, speechmaking and colonialism, war and medicine, singing diplomats, indigenous sovereignties, and performed nationalisms. It brings the perspective and methods of performance studies to bear on global politics, offering exciting new insights into encounters between states, sovereigns, and people.

Musical theatre is often perceived as either a Broadway based art form, or as having separate histories in London and New York. Musical Theatre Histories: Expanding the Narrative , however, depicts the musical as neither American nor British, but both and more, having grown out of frequent and substantial interactions between both centres (and beyond). Through multiple thematic ‘histories’, Millie Taylor and Adam Rush take readers on a series of journeys that include the art form’s European and American origins, African American influences, negotiations arounddiversity, national identity, and the globalisation of the form, as well as revival culture, censorship and the place of social media inthe 21st century.Each chapter includes case studies and key concept boxes to identify, explain and contextualise important discussions, offering an accessible study of a dynamic and ever evolving medium.Written and developed for undergraduate students, this introductory textbook provides a newly

Musical theatre is often perceived as either a Broadway based art form, or as having separate histories in London and New York. Musical Theatre Histories: Expanding the Narrative , however, depicts the musical as neither American nor British, but both and more, having grown out of frequent and substantial interactions between both centres (and beyond). Through multiple thematic ‘histories’, Millie Taylor and Adam Rush take readers on a series of journeys that include the art form’s European and American origins, African American influences, negotiations arounddiversity, national identity, and the globalisation of the form, as well as revival culture, censorship and the place of social media inthe 21st century.Each chapter includes case studies and key concept boxes to identify, explain and contextualise important discussions, offering an accessible study of a dynamic and ever evolving medium.Written and developed for undergraduate students, this introductory textbook provides a newly

Since its founding by Joseph Papp in the 1950s, The Public Theater has been an American artistic leader defined by its breadth of programming, from Hair and A Chorus Line, to Free Shakespeare in the Park. With the recent critical and financial success of Fun Home and Hamilton , and its emphasis on new play development, The Public’s contemporary history has been equally remarkable, even as world crises and social changes have tested the mettle of its foundation of accessible and “radically inclusive” theatre for all. One Public: New York’s Public Theater in the Era of Oskar Eustis presents the broader organization, its creative methodology, and its enormous growth over the past 20 years. Framed by the tenure and leadership of its current artistic director, the book tells the contemporary story, recorded over many interviews with iconic practitioners and performers ranging from Diane Paulus, Tony Kushner and Lynn Nottage to Kevin Kline, Chelsea Clinton and Lin-Manuel Miranda. C

The plays of María Martínez Sierra were popular in Spain, South America and in translation on Broadway and London's West End in the first half of the 20th century but they were thought to be written by her husband, the celebrated director and playwright Gregorio Martínez Sierra. After his death, the authorship of his work was revealed to be that of María, making her one of the most important playwrights of her time.This edited collection features three plays by María Martínez Sierra, translated by Helen and Harley Granville-Barker, along with an introduction by Patricia O’Connor, University of Cincinnati, US, which examines María's extraordinary life and work, and the battle for her authorship to be recognized in both the Spanish-speaking and anglophone world. This volume focuses on plays centred on strong women; and each is translated by the eminent man of theatre Harley Granville-Barker and his wife, Helen, whose own story holds stark parallels to Maria's in terms of authorship. The

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 F

As the first full-length study to analyse utopian plays in Western drama from antiquity to the present, Utopian Drama: In Search of a Genre offers an illuminating appraisal of the objectives of utopianism as manifested in drama through the ages, and carefully ascertains the added value that live performance brings to the persuasion of utopian thought. Siân Adiseshiah scrutinises the distinctive intervention of utopian drama through its examination alongside the utopian prose tradition – in this way, the book establishes new ways of approaching utopian aesthetics and new ways of interpreting utopian drama. This book provides fresh understandings of the generic features of utopian plays, identifies the gains of establishing a new genre, and ascertains ways in which this genre functions as political theatre. Referring to over 40 plays, of which 18 are examined in detail, Utopian Drama traces the emergence of the utopian play in the Western tradition from ancient Greek Comedy to exp

This well-established and respected directory supports actors in their training and search for work in theatre, film, TV, radio and comedy.It is the only directory to provide detailed information for each listing and specific advice on how to approach companies and individuals, saving hours of further research. From agents and casting directors to producing theatres, showreel companies, photographers and much more, this essential reference book editorially selects only the most relevant and reputable contacts for the industry.Covering training and working in theatre, film, radio, TV and comedy, it contains invaluable resources such as a casting calendar and articles on a range of topics from your social media profile to what drama schools are looking for to financial and tax issues.With the listings updated every year, the Actors' and Performers' Yearbook continues to be the go-to guide for help with auditions, interviews and securing/sustaining work within the industry. An invaluabl

Despite the legacy of his eponymous award, Alfred Fagon's stage works have often been forgotten due to them not being available. This anthology of selected plays brings together his shorter works for the first time into one volume that expands his legacy and confirms his place as one of Britain's key writing talents of the twentieth century. Originally an actor, Fagon’s writing for the stage, film and television grew throughout the early 1970s, before his breakaway hit The Death of A Black Man was produced at the Hampstead Theatre in 1975. Now one of British theatre's most well-known names, Fagon’s legacy is secured due in no small part to the commemorative award in his honour that was established following his death in 1986, to recognise Black British playwrights from the Caribbean, resident in the United Kingdom. Brought together with a critical introduction from Dawn Walton OBE, this collection also includes a reflection and response from a former winner of the Alfred Fagon aw

“The [ Vagrant Trilogy ] extends far beyond the timeline of devastating events, and instead shows us something greater: humanity.” - Broadway World The Vagrant Trilogy is a set of three plays by award-winning Arab American playwright Mona Mansour which explores the Palestinian condition prior to, during, and after the infamous Six-Day War. It sketches the devastating effect this conflict had on members of the Palestinian diaspora scattered in Europe and in Lebanese refugee camps. With productions in Washington DC, New York, and Abu Dhabi, this trilogy has moved audiences across both America and the Arabic-speaking world. The Hour of Feeling, The Vagrant, and Urge for Going offer a deep exploration of the Palestinian struggle for home and identity, a powerful glimpse into a reality that many face and few understand. The volume includes a foreword by director Mark Wing-Davey; an introduction by Arab American theatre scholars Hala Baki and Michael Malek Najjar; the three plays in t

A bold play collection representing Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, Intersex and Queer (LGBTIQ+) experiences, from Black British perspectives, this anthology contains seven radical plays by Black writers that change the face of theatre in Britain. With an international reach connecting Africa, the Caribbean and the Diaspora, these plays address themes including same-sex love, sex, homophobia, apartheid, migration and space travel. The collection captures the historical scope and range of Black British LGBTIQ+ theatre, from the 1980s to 2021. Including a range of forms, from monologue to musicals, realist drama to club-performance, readers will journey through the development of Black Queer theatre in Britain. Through a helpful critical introduction, this book provides important socio-political and historical context, highlighting and illuminating key themes in the plays. Each play is preceded by an intergenerational ‘in-conversation’ piece between two Black British LGBTIQ+ artists and w

A bold play collection representing Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, Intersex and Queer (LGBTIQ+) experiences, from Black British perspectives, this anthology contains seven radical plays by Black writers that change the face of theatre in Britain. With an international reach connecting Africa, the Caribbean and the Diaspora, these plays address themes including same-sex love, sex, homophobia, apartheid, migration and space travel. The collection captures the historical scope and range of Black British LGBTIQ+ theatre, from the 1980s to 2021. Including a range of forms, from monologue to musicals, realist drama to club-performance, readers will journey through the development of Black Queer theatre in Britain. Through a helpful critical introduction, this book provides important socio-political and historical context, highlighting and illuminating key themes in the plays. Each play is preceded by an intergenerational ‘in-conversation’ piece between two Black British LGBTIQ+ artists and w

Offering one of the first scholarly examinations of digital and distanced performance since the global shutdown of theaters in March 2020, Barbara Fuchs provides both a record of the changes and a framework for thinking through theater's transformation.Though born of necessity, recent productions offer a new world of practice, from multi-platform plays on Zoom, WhatsApp, and Instagram, to enhancement via filters and augmented reality, to urban distanced theater that enlivens streetscapes and building courtyards. Based largely outside the commercial theater, these productions transcend geographic and financial barriers to access new audiences, while offering a lifeline to artists. This study charts how virtual theater puts pressure on existing assumptions and definitions, transforming the conditions of both theater-making and viewership. How are participatory, site-specific, or devised theater altered under physical-distancing requirements? How do digital productions blur the line betwe

Despite the legacy of his eponymous award, Alfred Fagon's stage works have often been forgotten due to them not being available. This anthology of selected plays brings together his shorter works for the first time into one volume that expands his legacy and confirms his place as one of Britain's key writing talents of the twentieth century. Originally an actor, Fagon’s writing for the stage, film and television grew throughout the early 1970s, before his breakaway hit The Death of A Black Man was produced at the Hampstead Theatre in 1975. Now one of British theatre's most well-known names, Fagon’s legacy is secured due in no small part to the commemorative award in his honour that was established following his death in 1986, to recognise Black British playwrights from the Caribbean, resident in the United Kingdom. Brought together with a critical introduction from Dawn Walton OBE, this collection also includes a reflection and response from a former winner of the Alfred Fagon aw

“The [ Vagrant Trilogy ] extends far beyond the timeline of devastating events, and instead shows us something greater: humanity.” - Broadway World The Vagrant Trilogy is a set of three plays by award-winning Arab American playwright Mona Mansour which explores the Palestinian condition prior to, during, and after the infamous Six-Day War. It sketches the devastating effect this conflict had on members of the Palestinian diaspora scattered in Europe and in Lebanese refugee camps. With productions in Washington DC, New York, and Abu Dhabi, this trilogy has moved audiences across both America and the Arabic-speaking world. The Hour of Feeling, The Vagrant, and Urge for Going offer a deep exploration of the Palestinian struggle for home and identity, a powerful glimpse into a reality that many face and few understand. The volume includes a foreword by director Mark Wing-Davey; an introduction by Arab American theatre scholars Hala Baki and Michael Malek Najjar; the three plays in t

The Methuen Drama Handbook of Theatre History and Historiography offers an authoritative guide to contemporary debates and practices in this field. The book covers current key themes and methods in theatre history research, and expands the object of study to include engagement with theatre and performance practices and the development of theatre histories around the world. Central to the book are 16 specially commissioned essays by established and emerging scholars from a wide range of international contexts, whose discussion of individual case studies is predicated on their understanding and experience of their ‘local’ landscape of theatre history. These essays reveal where important work continues to be done in the field and, most valuably, draw on academic contexts beyond the Western academy to expand our knowledge of the exciting directions that such an approach opens up. Prefaced by an introduction tracing the development of the discipline of theatre history and changing historio

The Methuen Drama Handbook of Interculturalism and Performance explores ground-breaking new directions and critical discourse in the field of intercultural theatre and performance while surveying key debates concerning interculturalism as an aesthetic and ethical series of encounters in theatre and performance from the 1960s onwards. The handbook’s global coverage challenges understandings of intercultural theatre and performance that continue to prioritise case studies emerging primarily from the West and executed by elite artists. By building on a growing field of scholarship on intercultural theatre and performance that examines minoritarian and grassroots work, the volume offers an alternative and multi-vocal view of what interculturalism might offer as a theoretical keyword to the future of theatre and performance studies, while also contributing an energized reassessment of the vociferous debates that have long accompanied its critical and practical usage in a performance contex

This book uses digital media theory to explore contemporary understandings of expanded scenography as spatial practice. It surveys and analyses a selection of ground-breaking, experimental digital media performances that comprise a genealogy spanning the last 30 years, in order to show how the arrival of digital technologies has profoundly transformed performance practice. Performances are selected based on their ability to elicit the unique specificities of digital media in new and original ways, thereby exposing both the richness and shortcomings of digital culture. O'Dwyer argues that contemporary scenography is largely propelled by and dependent on digital technologies and represents a rich, fertile domain, where unbridled creativity can explore new techniques and challenge the limits of knowledge. The 30-year genealogy includes works by Troika Ranch, Stelarc, Klaus Obermaier, Chunky Move, Onion Lab and Blast Theory. In addition to applying a broad scope of performance analysis an

Shortlisted for the 2022 TaPRA David Bradby Monograph Prize Applied Theatre: A Pedagogy of Utopia offers a critical consideration of long-term applied and participatory theatre projects. In doing so, it provides a timely analysis of concepts that inform applied theatre and outlines a new way of thinking about making theatre with differing groups of participants.The book problematizes key concepts including safe spaces, voice, ethical practice and resistance. Selina Busby analyses applied theatre projects in India, the USA and the UK, in youth theatres, homeless shelters, prisons and with those living in informal housing settlements to consider her key question: what might a pedagogy of utopia look like? Drawing on 20 years of practice in a range of contexts, this book focuses on long-term interventions that raise troubling questions about applied theatre, cultural colonialism and power, while arguing that community or participatory theatre conversely has the potential to generate a re

"The greatest American dramatist of our age" - Evening Standard In this second volume of collected works, four of Arthur Miller’s stage plays from the sixties and seventies are brought together in a new edition. Taking up the theme of individual responsibility from his earlier work, this volume also contains an introduction from Miller himself, along with two of his screenplays. One of Miller’s most personal plays, After the Fall (1964) takes place almost entirely inside the mind of the play's protagonist, who is often read as a stand-in for the playwright himself, and touches on themes of the Holocaust, McCarthyism and inherited sin . This was followed by Miller's largely forgotten masterpiece, Incident at Vichy (1964): a prescient examination of the evil that exists in us all, inspired by a real-life incident in France in which a Gentile gave a Jew his identity pass during a check. The Price followed in 1968, a touching and farcical presentation of American life beyond

"The greatest American dramatist of our age" - Evening Standard In this third volume of collected works, three of Arthur Miller’s stage plays from the early 1980s are brought together in a new edition. Expanding on the themes and explorations of his earlier work, this volume also contains an introduction from the playwright himself, as well as an afterword by acclaimed Miller scholar Christopher Bigsby. A sweeping, hard-hitting look at the Great Depression of the 1930s, The American Clock (1982) is a vaudevillian celebration of American resilience and optimism in the face of national crisis, and was later performed on Broadway. Set in an Eastern European capital, The Archbishop's Ceiling (1984), examines the relationship between four writers, and the erosion of personal integrity during the cold war: a thrilling study of the effects of surveillance and political pressure on an individual's actions Also included is a revised version of Two-Way Mirror (1984): a double bill fo

The Methuen Drama Companion to Performance Art offers a comprehensive guide to the major issues and interdisciplinary debates concerning performance in art contexts that have developed over the last decade. It understands 'performance art' as an institutional, cultural, and economic phenomenon rather than as a label or object. Following the ever-increasing institutionalization and mainstreaming of performance and its methods of display, representation, and mediation in the wider cultural sphere, the book’s chapters identify a marked change in the economies and labor practices surrounding performance art and its institutional curating and presenting practices, reflective of an advanced stage of capitalism that approaches art production in tandem with event production. Embracing what we perceive to be the 'oxymoronic status' of performance art―where it is simultaneously precarious and highly profitable―the essays in this book map the myriad gestures and radical possibilities of this e