Directing the Play

Tekena Mark, Rivers State University, Nigeria

Numerous books have been written on the art of directing from the classical to contemporary times. Many of these works have concentrated on different facets of the discipline of directing such as the definition, history, and development of directing, as well as the qualities, functions, and types of directors. However, areas of directing that have not received much scholarly attention include works that serve as manuals for budding directors and studies that reflect the theory and practice of directing in Africa, especially from Nigerian theatre practitioners. While studies on directing, such as Wainstein’s 'Stage Directing: A Director’s Itinerary' (2012), Dean and Carra’s 'Fundamentals of Play Directing' (2009), and Johnson’s 'Visions Towards a Mission: The Art of Interpretative Directing' (2003), provide general insights on the art of directing plays, Emasealu’s 'The Theatre of Ola Rotimi: Production and Performance Dynamics' (2010) and Uwatt’s 'Playwriting and Directing in Nigeria: Interviews with Ola Rotimi' (2004), document the directorial practice of the Nigerian director, Ola Rotimi. Aside from documenting the directing techniques of key Western directors, this book’s advantage over existing works is that it documents the directorial styles of Ola Rotimi and other West African directors, as well as the directorial techniques of directors from South, North, and East Africa. It also traces the evolution of the theatre stage, examines the directorial implications of the arena, proscenium, thrust, traverse and African traditional theatre stage orientations, and engages the notions of blocking, movement, directorial concept and directorial approach. In particular, this book aspires to contribute to the discourse on play directing with perspectives from African theatre. It also fills gaps in previous studies by delving into the notions of theatre and directing, the director’s history, qualities, and tools. It examines types of directors, functions of the director, directing principles, and key Western and African theories of performance. It also evaluates the history of the theatre stage, the characteristics, benefits and drawbacks, and directorial implications of the arena stage, proscenium stage, thrust stage, traverse stage, African traditional theatre stage, the use of blocking, movement, and the meaning of directorial concept and directorial approach.

Edward Bond: Bondian Drama and Young Audience

Edited by Ugur Ada, Tokat Gaziosmanpasa University, Türkiye

'Edward Bond: Bondian Drama and Young Audience' focuses on one of the most influential playwrights of Britain, Edward Bond, and his plays for young audiences. The chapters examine the theatrical and pedagogical prospects of the plays on young people which have been mostly staged since 1990s, throughout the globe. The issues covered in this book involve interdisciplinary studies such as theatre, pedagogy, ethics, children, culture, politics, among others. These topics have crucial importance for the production of plays for young audiences. Apart from this, the book focuses on Bondian Drama and its relation with the dramatic child, involving most of his plays for young audiences. The authors in this volume examine theatrical and pedagogical backgrounds of the plays, discussing critical issues, by questioning the specialities of Bondian drama and present future implications of this for young audiences. This volume presents substantial and elaborate information on crucial issues, and enable detailed discussions from various perspectives on theatre.

Staging and Stage Décor: Perspectives on European Theater 1500-1950

Edited by Bárbara Mujica, Georgetown University

'Staging and Stage Décor: Perspectives on European Theater 1500-1950' is a compendium of essays by an international array of theater specialists. The Introduction provides an overview of theater décor and architecture from ancient Greece through the Renaissance and beyond, while the articles that follow explore a variety of topics such as the development of lighting techniques in early modern Italy, the staging of convent theater in Portugal, performance spaces at Versailles, the reconstruction of the Globe theater, and Shrovetide plays in Germany. This volume also offers insight into little-studied subjects such as the early productions of Brecht and the spread of Russian theater to Japan. The focus on performance and performance space across centuries and continents makes this a truly unique volume.

The Theatre of Twenty-First Century Spain / El teatro de España del siglo XXI

Identities, Anxieties, and Social Immediacies / Identidades, ansiedades e urgencias sociales

Edited by Helen Freear-Papio, College of the Holy Cross and Candyce Crew Leonard, Wake Forest University

Identifying, naming, and belonging lend a sense of rational order, a feeling of rootedness within specific societies and eras, yet that order may collapse and threaten to undermine the predictability that ensures stability. As Spain enters only its fifth decade as a fully democratic nation, the country’s identity is unfocused and disorganized as it continues to reckon with its traumatic past. The nine research essays presented in this volume, all on plays authored in the twenty-first century, aim to address the myriad of complex social immediacies that impact Spain in the twenty-first century. Such topics include: non-heteronormative gender identity; “fake news” and how facts are interpreted, withheld, or distorted; female self-agency and authorship; violence against women; and the ongoing need for justice for family histories that have been erased and repressed by Spain’s inability to resolve its recent past. Identificar, nombrar y pertenecer brinda un sentido de orden racional, un sentimiento de arraigo dentro de sociedades y épocas específicas, pero ese orden puede colapsar y amenazar con socavar la previsibilidad que asegura la estabilidad. A medida que España entra en su quinta década como una nación totalmente democrática, la identidad del país está desenfocada y desorganizada mientras continúa teniendo en cuenta su pasado traumático. Los nueve ensayos de investigación presentados en este volumen, todos sobre obras de teatro de autor del siglo XXI, pretenden abordar la miríada de complejas inmediateces sociales que impactan en la España del siglo XXI. Dichos temas incluyen: identidad de género no heteronormativa; “noticias falsas” y cómo se interpretan, ocultan o distorsionan los hechos; auto-agencia y autoría femenina; la violencia contra las mujeres; y la continua necesidad de justicia por las historias familiares que han sido borradas y reprimidas por la incapacidad de España para resolver su pasado reciente.

Staging and Stage Décor: Early Modern Spanish Theater

Edited by Bárbara Mujica, Georgetown University

This is the first book on staging and stage décor to focus specifically on early modern Spanish theater, from the 16th to the early 20th centuries. The introduction provides an overview of Spanish theater design from the 16th century, with particular attention to the corral theater and Lope de Vega. The scope of the book is vast. Some of the articles deal with early modern stagings, while others deal with contemporary productions. The collection contains articles by an international array of specialists on topics such as scenography and costuming, lighting, and performance space. It also broaches little-studied areas such as the use of alternative performance spaces, most notably prisons. The book provides in-depth analyses of particular archetypes - the melancholiac, the queen, the astrologer - and how they were, and are, staged. The focus on performance and performance space, costuming, set design, lighting, and audience seating make this a truly unique volume. This book is designed for students of Spanish literature and theater, researchers interested in theater history and early modern Spain, as well as theater professionals.

(Aleph-naught): A play & a plan

Nandita Dinesh

Aleph-naught is a performative text that creatively harnesses Dinesh’s findings from three of her previous works: Memos from a Theatre Lab: Exploring What Immersive Theatre “Does”, Memos from a Theatre Lab: Spaces, Relationships, & Immersive Theatre, and Memos from a Theatre Lab: Immersive Theatre & Time. As the latest endeavour in Dinesh’s ongoing commitment to creating socially relevant, immersive, theatrical works, this book contains “A Play” and “A Plan”: a script that can be staged; a plan for how to work with participants (performers and spectators) in the realisation of that script. By using one specific play to address larger questions around staging Immersive Theatre, Aleph-naught is a unique resource for practitioners and researchers who are committed to immersive forms of socially relevant theatre praxis.

Theatre & War

Notes from Afar

Nandita Dinesh

In Theatre & War: Notes from the Field (2016, 2018), Dinesh writes about making theatre in zones of conflict. She analyzes practice; she describes various projects that she has undertaken ‘on the ground’; she theorizes strategies that might be useful to other practitioner-researchers who are involved in similar work. In this sequel of sorts, Dinesh chooses to return to the same themes: of theatre, of war. But this time, she intentionally crafts her notes from afar. From somewhere outside the field. From somewhere outside the practice. And yet, a somewhere that is consumed by the field. And the practice. Through writing that seeks to ‘do’, through writing that seeks to ‘perform’, Dinesh use different voices in this book. Voices that come from more traditional archival sources, which are then re-conceptualized as drama. Voices that come from sources that occupy the space between archived and lived experience, which are then shaped into creative vignettes. Voices that come from Dinesh’s repertoire – her own lived experiences – that are then crafted as flash fiction about past/ present/ future collaborators. By weaving together variously positioned experiences and voices through creative (re)interpretations, Theatre & War: Notes from Afar is a book that could be read; it is also a book that could be performed.

Memos from a Theatre Lab: Immersive Theatre & Time

Nandita Dinesh

Drawing from Dinesh’s findings in Memos from a Theatre Lab: Exploring What Immersive Theatre “Does” and Memos from a Theatre Lab: Spaces, Relationships, & Immersive Theatre, this practice-based-research project, the third in a series of Immersive Theatre experiments in Dinesh’s theatre laboratory, considers the impact of duration when using immersive theatrical aesthetics toward educational and/or socio-political objectives. Dinesh frames the third experiment in her New Mexican theatre laboratory by placing its data and analyses in conversation with Information for/from Outsiders: Chronicles from Kashmir: a twenty-four hour long immersive, theatrical experience that Dinesh has been developing with Kashmiri theatre artists since 2013. In doing so, Dinesh seeks to create ‘conceptual bridges': between practice and theory; between her experiments in New Mexico and the work that she does in Kashmir; between the generation of frameworks to develop Dinesh’s own repertoire as a practitioner-researcher, and the creation of shareable strategies that might be used by other Immersive Theatre scholars, artists, and students.

Memos from a Theatre Lab: Spaces, Relationships, and Immersive Theatre

Nandita Dinesh

Drawing from Dinesh’s findings in Memos from a Theatre Lab: Exploring What Immersive Theatre “Does”, this practice-based-research project – second in an envisioned series of Immersive Theatre experiments in Dinesh’s theatre laboratory -- considers the potential impact of pre-existing relationships between actors, spectators, and performance spaces when using immersive theatrical aesthetics toward educational and/or socio-political objectives. Memos from a Theatre Lab: Spaces, Relationships and Immersive Theatre explores the following questions: When audience members do not know the actors outside the milieu of a theatrical performance, does an immersive form hold different implications than if performers and spectators know each other in ‘real life’? When actors and spectators are strangers to each other, are performers more or less likely to judge the responses that are given to them within an immersive scenario? What kinds of immersive situations, especially in Applied Theatre interventions, might benefit from the presence or absence of a pre-existing relationship between performers, audience members, and the spaces in which these experiences occur? In describing the processes involved in: designing such an experiment, crafting the relevant immersive performances, and gathering/ analysing data from actors and spectators, this book puts forward strategies for students, researchers, and practitioners who seek to better understand the form of Immersive Theatre.