Theatre: Collaborative Acts, 3rd Edition

Theatre: Collaborative Acts stimulates creative thinking and discussions of artistic, social, and ethical questions through its interwoven themes of theatre as culture, collaboration, spatial art, and a fusion of the past and present. The central premise of Theatre: Collaborative Acts is that theatre is entertainment and art.  It allows us to escape, relax, and refocus.  Through their study of theatre, readers develop lifelong tools to help them enjoy, analyze, understand, read, visualize, and get the most out of many different types of theatre experiences.  This Third Edition continues to emphasize the diversity of purpose and effect of theatre, and the collaborative nature of the theatrical process. 

I. Theatre and Its Audience

1. Cultural Collaboration: Theatre and Society

Theatre as Entertainment and Art

Exploring Cultural and Historical Perspectives: The Lure of Safe Conduct and Invisible Rabbits

The Social Functions of Theatre

Exploring Historical and Cultural Perspectives:  Theatre of War

Exploring Artists of the Theatre:  National Theatre of the Deaf

Social Control of Theatre

Exploring Collaboration:  Citizen Play Juries

Theatrical Choice in North America

Cultural Context and Personal Experience

2. Experiencing Theatre: Collaboration of Actor, Audience, and Space

The Audience

Exploring Collaboration: Spatial Collaboration: Commune and Pinocchio

Exploring Historical and Cultural Perspectives: Brecht versus Wagner

The Nature of Acting

Exploring Historical and Cultural Perspectives: Hypokrites to Actor

Exploring Historical and Cultural Perspectives: Makeup as Mask: Kathakali

From Play to Production

Space

Exploring Historical and Cultural Perspectives: Drottningholm Court Theatre

Exploring Historical and Cultural Perspectives: Stratford Festival Theatre

Exploring Historical and Cultural Perspectives: The Performing Garage

Theatre and Transformation

3. Analyzing Theatre: Thinking and Writing about Live Performance

Theatre, Film, and Television

Analyzing Production

Thinking about Actor Performances

Thinking about Space and Design

Exploring Historical and Cultural Perspectives: The Effect of Audience Space on Angels in America

Understanding Style

Evaluating Production

The Role of the Critic

Writing about Production

Exploring Historical and Cultural Perspectives: Theatre or Theater?  It Is More Than a Building

When It All Works

4. Understanding the Play: A Theatrical Blueprint

Plot

Exploring Historical and Cultural Perspectives: Deus ex Machina

Character

Thought

Language

Exploring Collaboration:  Improvised Text

Music

Spectacle

5. Interpreting the Play: Understanding Genre, Reading, and Writing

Dramatic Genre

Reading a Play

Exploring Historical and Cultural Perspectives: “Exit, Pursued by a Bear”: Those Problematic Stage Directions

Writing about a Play

Exploring Historical and Cultural Perspectives: Juliet Was a Guy in Drag? Changing Theatrical Conventions

Photo Gallery: Theatrical Diversity

II. COLLABORATION IN ART AND PRACTICE

6. The Director: Vision and Leadership

Has Someone Always Been in Charge?

Interpretation

Developing Concept

Artists of the Theatre:  Peter Brook

Communicating and Managing the Artistic Vision

Collaborating with the Playwright

Exploring Historical and Cultural Perspectives: “Who Owns the Work?”

Directors and Absent Playwrights

Collaborating with Designers

Collaborating with Actors

Exploring Collaboration:  Metamorphoses

Artists of the Theatre: George C. Wolfe

Collaborating with the Stage Manager

The Rehearsal Process

Opening the Production

7. The Actor: From Mask to Contemporary Performance

Development of the Actor

Artists of the Theatre:  Bernadette Peters

Exploring Historical and Cultural Perspectives: Contemporary Cross-Dressing

Acting Styles and Methods

Artists of the Theatre: James Earl Jones

The Actor’s Work

Exploring Collaboration:  Actors as Collaborators

8. The Playwright: Imagination and Expression

The Changing Position of the Playwright

Artists of the Theatre: Suzan-Lori Parks

The Playwright and Production

Exploring Collaboration:  The Sondheim/Lapine Collaboration

Artists of the Theatre: Michael Frayn

Development of New Plays

Exploring Historical and Cultural Perspectives: The Humana Festival of New American Plays, Actors Theatre of Louisville

Exploring Collaboration:  The Rent Controversy

9. The Designer: Materializing Conception and the World of the Play

The Development of the Designer

Exploring Historical and Cultural Perspectives: Development of the Revolve

The Designers’ Choices

Artists of the Theatre: Ming Cho Lee

The Scenic Designer’s Work

Exploring Collaboration:  Robert Edmund Jones with Arthur Hopkins

The Lighting Designer’s Work

Artists of the Theatre: Jules Fisher and Peggy Eisenhauer

The Costumer Designer’s Work

Artists of the Theatre: William Ivey Long

The Sound Designer’s Work

Integrating All the Designs

10. The Producer: Coordination, Promotion, Economics

Early Producers

The Role of the Producer

Artists of the Theatre:  Harold Prince

The Economics of Theatre

Exploring Historical and Cultural Perspectives: Stagehands Union 2007 Strike

Exploring Historical and Cultural Perspectives: The Federal Theatre Project

Photo Gallery:  Interpreting Space and Design

III. COLLABORATION IN HISTORY

11. Foundations: Classical Theatrical Forms

Classical Greece

Exploring Historical and Cultural Perspectives: Rediscovering Menander

Classical Rome

Medieval Europe

Exploring Collaboration:  The Community, the Church, and the Feast of Corpus Christi

Classical India

Classical China

Classical Japan

Exploring Historical and Cultural Perspectives: Kabuki Cross-Dressing:  The Onnagata

12. Reinterpretations: Europe Rediscovers the Western Classics

The Italian Renaissance

Exploring Historical and Cultural Perspectives: Renaissance Court Entertainment

Elizabethan England

Exploring Historical and Cultural Perspectives: The Rediscovery of the Rose and Globe Theatres

The Spanish Golden Age

Seventeenth-Century France

Restoration England

Eighteenth-Century Europe and the Americas

Exploring Collaboration:  The Hallam Company in the American Colonies:  A Family Affair

13. Revolutions: Romanticism to Postmodern Experiment

Romanticism

Exploring Historical and Cultural Perspectives: The Audience Has Its Say:  Theatre Riots and Demonstrations

Nineteenth-Century Melodrama

Exploring Historical and Cultural Perspectives: Nineteenth-Century Women Theatre Managers in Britain and the United States

Nineteenth-Century Realism and Naturalism

The Avant-Garde from the Late Nineteenth Century to the 1960s

Exploring Collaboration:  Founding an Alternative Theatre: The Provincetown Players

Modern and Contemporary Popular Theatre

The Recent Avant-Garde and Postmodern Experiment

Key Theatrical Events
Glossary

Notes
Bibliography
Index