What does theatre do for – and to – those who witness, watch, and participate in it?
Theatre & Audience provides a provocative overview of the questions raised by theatrical encounters between performers and audiences. Focusing on European and North American theatre and its audiences in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, it explores belief in theatre's potential to influence, impact and transform. Illustrated by examples of performance which have sought to generate active audience involvement – from Brecht's epic theatre to the Blue Man Group – it seeks to unsettle any simple equation between audience participation and empowerment.
'...Palgrave Macmillan's excellent new outward-looking, eclectic Theatre& ... series.These short books, written by leading theatre academics, do much to reintroduce some of the brightest names in theatre academia to the general reader. Plus, the matrix of references to bigger books soon builds quite a comprehensive catch-up reading list for those of us who graduated more than a decade ago and are interested in where contemporary thinking is at...'
- Guardian Theatre Blog, September 2009, http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/theatreblog/2009/sep/10/theatre-critics-academics-artists
'A thoroughly engaging read' - Susan Bennett, University Professor, Department of English, University of Calgary, Canada
'This book is about us. It documents our presence, articulates our position and questions our experience as casual on-lookers, silent witnesses, engaged spectators, willing participants, in this glorious activity called audience. See for yourself.' - Lois Weaver
Series Editors' Preface
Foreword
Difficulties of Definition
Models and Frames
Suspicion, Frustration and Contempt
Potent Orthodoxies
Playing with the Audience
Further Reading
Index
HELEN FRESHWATER is RCUK Research Fellow in Theatre Studies, Birkbeck College, University of London, UK. She specializes in twentieth century British theatre and contemporary performance, and is the author of Theatre Censorship in Britain: Silencing, Censure and Suppression.
For further information about the Theatre& series, including forthcoming and published titles and biographies of the series editors, please visit the Theatre& series webpage at http://www.palgrave.com/theatre/tand.asp
Description
What does theatre do for – and to – those who witness, watch, and participate in it?
Theatre & Audience provides a provocative overview of the questions raised by theatrical encounters between performers and audiences. Focusing on European and North American theatre and its audiences in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, it explores belief in theatre's potential to influence, impact and transform. Illustrated by examples of performance which have sought to generate active audience involvement – from Brecht's epic theatre to the Blue Man Group – it seeks to unsettle any simple equation between audience participation and empowerment.
Reviews
'...Palgrave Macmillan's excellent new outward-looking, eclectic Theatre& ... series.These short books, written by leading theatre academics, do much to reintroduce some of the brightest names in theatre academia to the general reader. Plus, the matrix of references to bigger books soon builds quite a comprehensive catch-up reading list for those of us who graduated more than a decade ago and are interested in where contemporary thinking is at...'
- Guardian Theatre Blog, September 2009, http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/theatreblog/2009/sep/10/theatre-critics-academics-artists
'A thoroughly engaging read' - Susan Bennett, University Professor, Department of English, University of Calgary, Canada
'This book is about us. It documents our presence, articulates our position and questions our experience as casual on-lookers, silent witnesses, engaged spectators, willing participants, in this glorious activity called audience. See for yourself.' - Lois Weaver
Contents
Series Editors' Preface
Foreword
Difficulties of Definition
Models and Frames
Suspicion, Frustration and Contempt
Potent Orthodoxies
Playing with the Audience
Further Reading
Index
Authors
HELEN FRESHWATER is RCUK Research Fellow in Theatre Studies, Birkbeck College, University of London, UK. She specializes in twentieth century British theatre and contemporary performance, and is the author of Theatre Censorship in Britain: Silencing, Censure and Suppression.
Series Website
For further information about the Theatre& series, including forthcoming and published titles and biographies of the series editors, please visit the Theatre& series webpage at http://www.palgrave.com/theatre/tand.asp
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