Toward a Future Theatre - Conversations during a Pandemic

Featuring conversations with theatre makers in the US and UK during the first 8 months of the Covid-19 lockdown, this collection reveals the innovations in digital theatre as artists, companies and theatres had to adjust to the restrictions and formulate new ways of working and reaching audiences. Besides documenting in their own words the work that was generated, this book captures the artists' dreams for a new post-Covid reality in which theatre is reimagined and issues of racial and economic injustice are addressed.

With conversations grouped under 5 broad areas, a host of theatre makers candidly discuss the present and the future of theatre:

* R/evolution: How should theatre evolve rather than re-set? What kind of field could this be, if the arts sector is to survive in the US and UK and if white supremacist, classist, ableist, and patriarchal structures are dismantled, and acts of regeneration and reformation occur?

* What does theatre look like at the local and hyper-local level and when working with young people and communities at risk?

* What are the challenges of creating work in the digital realm and/or exploring socially distanced performance in new ways?

* How may theatre address social inequalities and be a place for acts of political and artistic resistance? How has the pandemic galvanised their commitments to communities, arts advocacy, use of languages on the stage and page, and considerations of the living archive?

* Acts of communion with audiences, readers, fellow artists, students, and within ensembles and collectives. How do we find new ways to gather and make when liveness and the shared experience are challenged?

List of contents

Introduction
Caridad Svich

A Poet Dreams: Three Earth Samples
Tim Crouch

1 R/evolution
Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen
Michael Garcés
James Graham
Miranda Haymon
Simeilia Hodge-Dallaway
Tarek Iskander
David Jubb
Madeline Sayet
Chris Thorpe
Stephanie Ybarra

2 Local and Hyperlocal
Naomi Alexander
Ned Glasier
Conrad Murray
Elizabeth Newman
Esther Richardson
Dámaso Rodríguez
Anthony Simpson-Pike
Roy Alexander Weise
Laurie Woolery

3 Virtuality
Eleanor Bishop
Jason Crouch
Dante or Die: Daphna Attias and Terry O’Donovan
Tim Etchells
Morgan Green
Peter J. Kuo
Eve Leigh
Walter Meierjohann
Ralph Peña
Marike Splint
Tassos Stevens

4 Resistance and Faith
Leila Buck
Rachel Chavkin and Alexandra Lalonde
Kia Corthron
Kristoffer Diaz
Soraya Nadia McDonald
Gregory Mozgala
Kaite O’Reilly
Taylor Reynolds
Roy Williams

5 Communion
Hassan Abdulrazzak
Tanuja Amarasuriya
Suba Das
Lauren Gunderson
Philip Howard
Jennifer Jackson
Dan Rebellato
Rajni Shah
Jose Solís

Note on the Author

About the author

Caridad Svich is a playwright, associate editor of Contemporary Theatre Review and founder of NoPassport theatre alliance and press. She received a 2012 OBIE Award for Lifetime Achievement and the 2011 American Theatre Critics Association Primus Prize for The House of the Spirits.She has edited several books on theatre including Audience Revolution and Innovation in Five Acts (2016 and 2015), Out of Silence: Censorship in Theatre & Performance (2014), and Trans-Global Readings (2004).

Summary

Featuring conversations with theatre makers in the US and UK during the first 8 months of the Covid-19 lockdown, this collection reveals the innovations in digital theatre as artists, companies and theatres had to adjust to the restrictions and formulate new ways of working and reaching audiences. Besides documenting in their own words the work that was generated, this book captures the artists' dreams for a new post-Covid reality in which theatre is reimagined and issues of racial and economic injustice are addressed.

With conversations grouped under 5 broad areas, a host of theatre makers candidly discuss the present and the future of theatre:

* R/evolution: How should theatre evolve rather than re-set? What kind of field could this be, if the arts sector is to survive in the US and UK and if white supremacist, classist, ableist, and patriarchal structures are dismantled, and acts of regeneration and reformation occur?

* What does theatre look like at the local and hyper-local level and when working with young people and communities at risk?

* What are the challenges of creating work in the digital realm and/or exploring socially distanced performance in new ways?

* How may theatre address social inequalities and be a place for acts of political and artistic resistance? How has the pandemic galvanised their commitments to communities, arts advocacy, use of languages on the stage and page, and considerations of the living archive?

* Acts of communion with audiences, readers, fellow artists, students, and within ensembles and collectives. How do we find new ways to gather and make when liveness and the shared experience are challenged?

Foreword

Comprising conversations with theatre makers in the US and UK during the first 8 months of Covid-19 lockdown, this collection reveals the innovations in digital theatre, and the artists' dreams for a new post-Covid reality in which theatre is reimagined and issues of racial and economic injustice are addressed.

Additional text

An invaluable documentation of the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and its effects on theatre-makers across the US and UK. The book features excellent representation of different voices across various cultural and social demographics, as well as a range of theatre leaders.

Product details

• Authors: Caridad Svich, Svich Caridad
• Publisher: Methuen Drama
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 16.12.2021
• EAN: 9781350241053
• ISBN: 978-1-350-24105-3
• No. of pages: 256
• Dimensions: 136 mm x 214 mm x 16 mm
• Series: Theatre Makers
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Art > Theatre, ballet; PERFORMING ARTS / Theater / Direction & Production, PERFORMING ARTS / Theater / Playwriting, Theatre Direction & Production, Theatre direction and production