About the Authors

Phillip B. Zarrilli is Professor of Performance Practice in the Department of Drama at the University of Exeter. From 1976-1998 he was Professor of Theatre, Folklore, and South Asian Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He has also taught at U.C.L.A., Northwestern, N.Y.U, and the University of Surrey. His books include Kathakali Dance-Drama: Where Gods and Demons Come to Play (London: Routledge Press 2000), "When the Body Becomes All Eyes:" Paradigms, Practices, and Discourses of Power in Kalarippayattu (Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, 2000), editor of Acting (Re)Considered: Theories and Practices (London: Routledge 1995), editor of Asian Martial Arts in Actor Training (Madison 1993), co-author of Indian Theatre: Traditions of Performance (University of Hawaii Press 1990), co-author of Wilhelm Tell in America's Little Switzerland (1987), and The Kathakali Complex: Actor, Performance, Structure (1984). He is internationally known for training actors using a psychophysical process combining yoga and the Asian martial arts, and as a director. His recent productions of Samuel Beckett's plays in Los Angeles, Austria, and Ireland have won considerable critical acclaim.

Email P.Zarrilli@exeter.ac.uk
Phillip Zarilli's Kalari Website
Further Research Interests

Bruce McConachie is Director of Graduate Studies in Theatre and Performance Studies at the University of Pittsburgh. He has published widely in American theatre history, theatre historiography, and in the emerging field of performance and cognitive studies. Some of his major books and websites include: Theatre for Working-class Audiences in the U.S., 1830-1980 (with Dan Freidman, 1985), Interpreting the Theatrical Past (with Thomas Postlewait, 1989), Melodramatic Formations: American Theatre and Society, 1820-1870 (1992, awarded the Barnard Hewitt Prize in Theatre History), American Theater in the Culture of the Cold War: Producing and Contesting Containment, 1947-1962 (2003), and Virtual Vaudeville (with David Saltz and others, 2004). Professor McConachie is also a former President of the American Theatre for Theatre Research.

Gary Jay Williams is Professor Emeritus, Department of Drama, The Catholic University of America in Washington, D. C., where he taught in theatre history, theory, and Shakespeare in performance for 29 years. He is the author of Our Moonlight Revels: A Midsummer Night’s Dream in the Theatre (University of Iowa Press), winner of Theatre Library Association’s George Freedley Award. He was the Editor of Theatre Survey, journal of the American Society for Theatre Research from 1995 to 2001, and is the author of over fifty articles in journals, encyclopedias, and anthologies.

Carol Fisher Sorgenfrei is Professor of Theater at UCLA, where she formerly headed both the playwriting and critical studies programs. She is a scholar, translator, playwright and director, focusing on Japanese, intercultural, and fusion theater. She is the author of Unspeakable Acts: The Avant-Garde Theatre of Terayama Shûji and Postwar Japan (University of Hawaii Press, 2005), as well as many articles in journals such as TDR, Theatre Journal, and Asian Theatre Journal, essays in books, play translations, and encyclopedia entries. Her fifteen original plays include the award-winning Medea: A Nô Cycle Based on the Greek Myth and the kabuki-flamenco Blood Wine, Blood Wedding. With Israeli director Zvika Serper, she created the internationally acclaimed Japanese-Israeli fusion play The Dybbuk: Between Two worlds. She is Associate Editor of Asian Theatre Journal, editor of the Newsletter of the Association for Asian Performance, and a former member of the Executive Committee of the American Society for Theater Research.