1st Edition
Studio Shakespeare The Royal Shakespeare Company at The Other Place
By Alycia Smith-Howard
Copyright 2006
208 Pages
by
Routledge
208 Pages
by
Routledge
208 Pages
by
Routledge
Also available as eBook on:
An extensive history of The Royal Shakespeare Company's studio theatre, Studio Shakespeare: The Royal Shakespeare Company at The Other Place also includes a biography of its founder and first artistic director, Mary Ann 'Buzz' Goodbody (1947-75). Alycia Smith-Howard reveals how, as a socialist, feminist, and the RSC's first female director, Goodbody sought to invigorate classical theatre and its... Read more
Contents: Introduction; New beginnings and methods of change; King Lear and the commitment to education; Late plays and 'neglected classics'; Claustrophobic tragedy and 'close up' comedy; Approaches to history; Conclusion; Bibliography; Cast lists of productions discussed in the text; Index.
Biography
Alycia Smith-Howard is a Shakespeare scholar, performance historian, and theatre director. She is a graduate of The Shakespeare Institute, Stratford-upon-Avon, England, where she received both her M.A. (Shakespeare Studies: Text & Performance) and Ph.D. (Performance History). Smith-Howard is the co-author of The Critical Companion to Tennessee Williams (Facts on File, 2005), and the editor of Suzan-Lori Parks: A Casebook (Routledge, 2006).
'... a meticulously researched and richly informative study of a vital part of modern theatrical history.' Michael Billington, Theatre Critic, The Guardian, UK '...a very important book in that it sets out in great detail the history of The Other Place ... It traces how this space, through the vision of Buzz Goodbody, together with her strong political beliefs, changed the dynamic of the actor/audience relationship ... Alycia Smith-Howard writes with great insight and detail, and gives a very moving account of Buzz’s work on her last production”Hamlet. It is an illuminating and very readable account of that other place.' Cicely Berry, OBE, Hon. D. Lit., Voice Director: Royal Shakespeare Company ’[Smith-Howard provides] valuable documentary evidence of the shifting nature of performance. Indeed, the documentation throughout is thorough and the detailed referencing of her material is particularly useful for fellow researchers. The study is particularly rich in its account of the Other Place's founder, Buzz Goodbody... [Smith-Howard] has undertaken a number of interviews supplying invaluable insight into Goodbody's passion and alternative approach.’ Theatre Research International ’Goodbody's vision of what The Other Place might be - political, intimate, passionately alive - is freshly and vividly evoked... Smith-Howard raises important questions about Goodbody's career... the value of this book is that it rightly reminds readers of the importance of Buzz Goodbody and her theatre work.’ New Theatre Quarterly
