This will be of particular interest to undergraduates of performing arts and the substantial community of those engaged in storytelling, filling a noticeable void in an emerging field of scholarship. Michael Wilson addresses the recent rise of storytelling as a professional performance art by providing a critical survey of current practice and a critical framework for those debates currently taking place, and those debates which will undoubtedly emerge in future. The text includes critical analysis of a range of practices alongside interviews with key contemporary practitioners about their work.

'Wilson's book provides a clear depiction of the situation of storytelling and theater in the present precarious day and why storytellers must become even more artful than ever before if they are somehow to capture and maintain the truth content of storytelling, even as professionals.' - Jack Zipes, from the Foreword

'I know of no other book which gives such a comprehensive description of the growth of storytelling as a cultural force in the latter part of the twentieth-century. The book shows the richness of that world and the possibilities that exist within it.' - Tom Pow, University of Glasgow, UK

Preface
Foreword; J.Zipes
History and Context
Acting and Storytelling
Platform Storytelling
Applied Storytelling
Theatre and Storytelling
Closing Thoughts
Interviews with Storytellers
Additional Bibliographic Material
Primary Resources
Internet Resources
Bibliography
Index

MICHAEL WILSON is Principal Lecturer in Drama at the University of Glamorgan, Wales. His book Performance and Practice: Oral Narrative Traditions among Teenagers in Britain and Ireland (1997) was shortlisted for the Katharine Briggs Memorial Award, 1998. For many years he also worked as a professional storyteller and was a key player in developing the art form in the 80s and 90s.