Theatre-Making

Exploring modes of authorship in contemporary theatre, Theatre-Making: Interplay Between Text and Performance in the 21st Century seeks to transcend the heritage of binaries from the twentieth century, such as: text-based vs. devised theatre, East vs. West, theatre vs. performance - with reference to genealogies through which these categories have been constructed in the English-speaking world. Based on substantial original research, Theatre-Making is innovative in that it brings together text-based and performance-based theatre, and offers their consideration with reference to different cultures (European and Anglo-American). Amongst other things, this book argues that devising has now become a historical category, that playwrights in the twenty-first century are more akin to music composers and that contemporary performance-makers are finally beginning to understand Brecht. Examples under discussion range from the Royal Shakespeare Company's kinaesthetic approach to Shakespeare, to the Belgian company Ontroerend Goed's interactive shows. Drawing on interviews with leading contemporary practitioners and companies, such as Tim Crouch, Kneehigh and Simon Stephens, amongst others, this book usefully bridges the gap between dramatic theatre and devised performance by exploring the role of the theatre writer, writing and text in all of these diverse manifestations of theatre and performance-making. Formalizing the increasing currency of the terms 'theatre-making' and 'theatre-maker', the book also acknowledges changing trends in the de/professionalization of theatre artists in the English-speaking world in the twenty-first century. In addition, despite various forms of conservatism within the critical establishments all over Europe, this volume finds that in the twenty-first century, the notion of theatrical authorship in its own right is gaining significance through the globalized blogosphere.