New Dramaturgy International Perspectives on Theory and Practice

Recent shifts in the theatrical landscape have had corresponding implications for dramaturgy. The way we think about theatre and performance today has changed our approaches to theatre making and composition. Emerging new aesthetics and new areas of dramaturgical work such as live art, devised and physical theatre, experimental performance, and dance demand new approaches and sensibilities.

New Dramaturgy: International Perspectives on Theory and Practice is the first book to explore new dramaturgy in depth, and considers how our thinking about dramaturgy and the role of the dramaturg has been transformed.

Edited by Katalin Trencsényi and Bernadette Cochrane, New Dramaturgy: International Perspectives on Theory and Practice provides an unrivalled resource for practitioners, scholars, and students.

Katalin Trencsényi is a London based dramaturg. She gained her PhD at the Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest. As a freelance dramaturg, she has worked with the National Theatre, the Royal Court Theatre, Deafinitely Theatre, Corali Dance Company, and Company of Angels among others. From 2010 to 2012 she served as President of the Dramaturgs’ Network. Her monograph, Dramaturgy in the Making is to be published by Methuen Drama in 2014.

Bernadette Cochrane is a lecturer, dramaturg and director based in Australia and the United Kingdom. She completed her PhD at the University of Queensland, Australia. She co-convenes the Translation, Adaptation, and Dramaturgy Working Group of the International Federation of Theatre Research.

List of illustrations
Acknowledgements
Foreword by Katalin Trencsényi & Bernadette Cochrane
Section One: Text
1. “Dramaturgy in ‘Postdramatic’ Times” Joseph Danan
2. “Dramaturgy as Ecology: A Report from The Dramaturgies Project” Peter Eckersall, Melanie Beddie, and Paul Monaghan
3. “Respect and Perspective: Art, Structure, and Ownership” Alan Lawrence
Section Two: Devising
1. “Telling Stories Across Forms: Interview with Brian Quirt (artistic director, Nightswimming, Toronto)” Yolanda Ferrato
2. “Towards Performed Dramaturgy” Duška Radosavljevic
3. “Distortion as Revealing the Essence of Truth:Gad Kaynar in Conversation with Ruth Kanner (theatre maker, Tel Aviv)”
Section Three: Devising
1. “The Feeling of Devising: emotion and mind in the devising process” Jackie Smart
2. “‘A Way of Listening’: Interview with John Collins (artistic director, Elevator Repair Service, New York)” Ana Pais
3. “The Appliance of Science: Devising, Dramaturgy and the Alternative Science Play” Alex Mermikides
Section Four: Dance
1. “Time and a Mirror: towards a hybrid dramaturgy for intercultural-Indigenous performance” Rachael Swain
2. “Going Au-delà: a journey into the unknown: Reflections of a choreographer and a dramaturg” Lou Cope and Koen Augustijnen
3. “Re-membering zero degrees” Guy Cools
Section Five: Spectatorship
1. “Porous Dramaturgy and the Pedestrian” Cathy Turner
2. “Dialectical Theatre and Devising: Dramaturgy as a Dialogue between the Author and the Audience” Pedro Ilgenfritz
3. “Acts of Spectating” Peter Boenisch
Afterword
“Au lieu of a conclusion” Katalin Trencsényi and Bernadette Cochrane
Notes
Index