Routledge Performance Practitioners is an innovative series of introductory handbooks on key figures in twentieth-century performance practice.
Each volume focuses on a theatre-maker who has transformed the way we understand theatre and performance. The books are carefully structured to enable the reader to gain a good grasp of the fundamental elements underpinning each practitioner's work. They provide an inspiring springboard for students on twentieth century, contemporary theatre and theatre history courses.
These compact, well-illustrated and clearly written books unravel the contribution of modern theatre's most charismatic innovators, through:
As a first step towards critical understanding, and as an initial exploration before going on to further, primary research, Routledge Performance Practitioners are unbeatable value for today's student.
By Noel Witts
August 14, 2018
Tadeusz Kantor – a theoretician, director, innovator and painter famed for his very visual theatre style – was a key figure in European avant-garde theatre. He was also known for his challenging theatrical innovations, such as extending stages and the combination of mannequins with living actors. ...
By Karen Bradley
July 27, 2018
Rudolf Laban was one of the leading dance theorists of the twentieth century. His work on dance analysis and notation raised the status of dance as both an art form and a scholarly discipline. This is the first book to combine: an overview of Laban’s life, work and influences an exploration of ...
By Jane Turner
June 20, 2018
Eugenio Barba is recognized as one of the most important theatre practitioners working today. Along with the company he founded over fifty years ago, the world-acclaimed Odin Teatret, he continues to produce extraordinary theatre performances that tour the world, and his International School of ...
By Frances Babbage
June 12, 2018
This newly-updated volume looks at the scope of Augusto Boal's career from his early work as a playwright and director in Sao Paulo in the 1950s, to the development of his ground-breaking manifesto in the 1970s for a 'Theatre of the Oppressed'. Offering fascinating reading for anyone interested in ...
By Libby Worth, Helen Poynor
June 05, 2018
Anna Halprin traces the life's work of this radical dance-maker, documenting her early career as a modern dancer in the 1940s through to the development of her groundbreaking approach to dance as an accessible and life-enhancing art form. Now revised and reissued, this book: sketches the ...
By Bella Merlin
June 05, 2018
As one of the most well-known names in theatre history, Konstantin Stanislavsky’s teachings on actor training have endured throughout the decades, influencing scholars and practitioners even in the present day. This second edition of Konstantin Stanislavsky combines: an overview of Stanislavsky’s ...
By Royd Climenhaga
June 05, 2018
This newly-updated second edition explores Pina Bausch’s work and methods by combining interviews, first-hand accounts, and practical exercises from her developmental process for students of both dance and theatre. This comprehensive overview of her work offers new and exciting insight into the ...
By Prof Jonathan Pitches
February 13, 2018
Vsevolod Meyerhold considers the life and work of the extraordinary twentieth-century director and theatre-maker. This compact, well-illustrated volume includes: a biographical introduction to Meyerhold’s life a clear explanation of his theoretical writings an analysis of his masterpiece ...
By Judith Miller
February 12, 2018
Over the last forty years, French director Ariane Mnouchkine and her theater collective, Le Théâtre du Soleil, have devised a form of research and creation that is both engaged with contemporary history and committed to reinvigorating theater by focusing on the actor. Now revised and reissued, this...
By Meg Mumford
February 12, 2018
Bertolt Brecht’s methods of collective experimentation, and his unique framing of the theatrical event as a forum for change, placed him among the most important contributors to the theory and practice of theatre. His work continues to have a significant impact on performance practitioners, critics ...
By James Slowiak, Jairo Cuesta
February 12, 2018
Master director, teacher, and theorist, Jerzy Grotowski’s work extended well beyond the conventional limits of performance. Now revised and reissued, this book combines: ● an overview of Grotowski’s life and the distinct phases of his work ● an analysis of his key ideas ● a consideration of his ...
By Sondra Fraleigh, Tamah Nakamura
December 20, 2017
Now re-issued, this compact book unravels the contribution of one of modern theatre’s most charismatic innovators. Hijikata Tatsumi and Ohno Kazuo combines: • an account of the founding of Japanese butoh through the partnership of Hijikata and Ohno, extending to the larger story of butoh’s ...