Theatre-Making ― Interplay Between Text and Performance in the 21st Century

Theatre-Making: Interplay Between Text and Performance in the 21st Century explores the modes of authorship in twenty-first century theatre - spanning classical theatre, devising and adaptation, new writing, verbatim and contemporary performance - with reference to genealogies through which these categories have been constructed in the English-speaking world.

Based on substantial original research, it is the first book to deliberately bring together text-based and performance-based theatre, and offer their consideration with reference to different cultures (European vs. Anglo-American). Amongst other things, the book argues that devising has now become a historical category, that playwrights in the twenty-first century are more akin to music composers and that contemporary performance-makers are finally beginning to understand Brecht. Examples under discussion range from the Royal Shakespeare Company's kinaesthetic approach to Shakespeare, to the Belgian company Ontroerend Goed's interactive shows. Drawing on interviews with leading contemporary practitioners and companies, such as Tim Crouch, Kneehigh and Simon Stephens, amongst others, the book usefully bridges the gap between dramatic theatre and devised performance by exploring the role of the theatre writer, writing and text in all of these diverse manifestations of theatre and performance-making.

DUSKA RADOSAVLJEVIC is a Lecturer in the School of Arts at the University of Kent, UK