Making contemporary theatre reveals how some of the most significant international contemporary theatre is actually made.

The book opens with an introductory chapter which contextualises recent trends in approaches to theatre-making. In the ensuing eleven chapters, eleven different writer-observers describe, contextualise and analyse the theatre-making practices of eleven different companies and directors, including Japan's Gekidan Kaitaisha and the Quebecois director Robert Lepage. Each chapter is enriched with extensive illustrations as well as boxed-off 'asides', giving the reader different perspectives on the work. Chapters usually focus on a single production, such as Complicite's 2003-04 The Elephant Vanishes, allowing detailed investigations of complex practices to emerge. The book concludes with a brief manifesto for making contemporary theatre by the editors, plus a bibliography suggesting further reading.

Making contemporary theatre is a rich resource for the theatre-making student and the theatre-goer alike, full of diverse examples of how the most exciting theatre is actually made.

About the Author
Jen Harvie is Reader in Theatre and Performance in the Drama Department at Queen Mary, University of London. Andy Lavender is Professor of Contemporary Theatre and Dean of Research at the Central School of Speech and Drama, University of London

Reviews

'Consistently insightful and instructive.'
Roger Bechtel, Theatre Survey, 54 (1) 2013

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Book Information
ISBN 9780719074929
Author Jen Harvie
Format Paperback
Page Count 272
Imprint Manchester University Press
Publisher Manchester University Press
Weight(grams) 390g
Dimensions(mm) 234mm * 156mm * 15mm