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This extended new edition of a seminal text marks the 30th anniversary of the original book's major intervention in the discipline. Bradby and Williams' field-defining book introduced the continental-European approach to directing, recognising the work of the modern stage director as an artist in his or her own right for the first time. Now edited by Peter M. Boenisch in collaboration with David Williams, this new edition includes an additional four chapters by leading contemporary experts on theatre direction. Covering recent practices and developments, as well as new trends in the academic research on directing, Directors' Theatre interrogates working ethics and performance aesthetics, directors' work with actors as a central creative source and their responses to the ongoing reassessment of theatre's role and function in contemporary culture.
This long-awaited reissue will make a classic, authoritative study on directors and directing accessible to a new generation of students, scholars and artists. It is essential reading for undergraduate and postgraduate students of Theatre, Performance Studies and Directing.
List of contents
Preface: ‘Enthusiasm and conversation’ (David Williams)
Introduction: ‘Directors’ Theatre
30 years on’ (Peter M. Boenisch)
Part I: Directors’ Theatre (David Bradby and David Williams)
1. The Rise of the Director
2. Joan Littlewood
3. Roger Planchon
4. Ariane Mnouchkine
5. Jerzy Grotowski
6. Peter Brook
7. Peter Stein
8. Robert Wilson
Part II: ‘Directors’ Theatre’ – 30 years on: Perspectives and Horizons
9. Directors’ theatre in Eastern Europe, 1945 – 2018: A survey of some trajectories (Katalin Trencsényi)
10. Dis/playing Direction: ‘Genetic Research’ as new approach in directors’ studies (Edith Cassiers, Timmy De Laet, Luk Van den Dries)
11. Beyond ‘directors’ theatre’: Global(ised) mise en scène in the twenty-first century (Patrice Pavis)
12. The Heterarchical Director: A model of authorship for the twenty-first century (Duška Radosavljevic).
About the author
David Bradby (1942 – 2011) was Emeritus Professor of Drama and Theatre Studies at Royal Holloway, University of London. He was the UK’s leading specialist in modern French theatre, and a prolific translator of French playwrights and theatre-makers, including Michel Vinaver, Bernard-Marie Koltès, and Jacques Lecoq.
David Williams was Professor of Performance Practices in the Department of Drama, Theatre and Dance at Royal Holloway, University of London, until his retirement in 2016. He published on the work of Peter Brook, Ariane Mnouchkine, and Theatre de Complicité, and he is also a director, performer, and a long-term dramaturg with British performance duo Lone Twin.
Peter M. Boenisch, originally from Germany, is Professor of Dramaturgy at Aarhus University, Denmark, and Professor of European Theatre at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, University of London. His research areas are the fields of theatre directing, dramaturgy, and contemporary dance.
Summary
Covering recent practices and developments, as well as new trends in the academic research on directing, Directors' Theatre interrogates working ethics and performance aesthetics, directors' work with actors as a central creative source and their responses to the ongoing reassessment of theatre's role and function in contemporary culture.
Additional text
A thoroughly revised and modernised edition of a lively and evocative book. It is vital reading for anyone interested in the histories and practices of contemporary European theatre.
