Download or read book At the Sharp End Uncovering the Work of Five Leading Dramatists written by Peter Billingham and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2007-11-05 with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What value does theatre have in Britain at the beginning of the twenty-first century? How has theatre responded to the challenge of remaining relevant in the media-saturated world of today? These are the questions that underpin this stimulating study of some of the leading dramatists of contemporary British theatre. At the Sharp End sets the scene examining how the forces that created a revolution in theatre fifty years ago have been replaced by a new wave of political and social issues. It goes on to explore the ways in which five key writers have sought to reflect and wrestle with the changing character of modern Britain. The work of David Edgar, David Greig, Mark Ravenhill, Tanika Gupta and Tim Etchells' company Forced Entertainment is considered, with recent plays examined in detail, an interview with each writer; and suggestions of other writers and plays for reading and comparison. At the Sharp End provides the perfect companion for anyone wanting to understand the changing face of contemporary drama and the writers whose work is making an impact on our stages today.

Download or read book At the Sharp End written by Peter Billingham and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'At the Sharp End' is a critical examination of the work of five leading dramatists who have made an indelible mark on today's theatre. Peter Billingham introduces and analyses the work of David Edgar, Mark Ravenhill, David Greig, Tanika Gupta and Tim Etchells of Sheffield-based experimental theatre group, Forced Entertainment.

Download or read book Modern British Playwriting 2000 2009 written by Dan Rebellato and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2013-12-16 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Essential for students of theatre studies, Methuen Drama's Decades of Modern British Playwriting series provides a comprehensive survey and study of the theatre produced in each decade from the 1950s to 2009 in six volumes. Each volume features a critical analysis and reevaluation of the work of four/five key playwrights from that decade authored by a team of experts, together with an extensive commentary on the period . Edited by Dan Rebellato, Modern British Playwriting: 2000-2009 provides an authoritative and stimulating reassessment of the theatre of the decade, together with a detailed study of the work of David Greig (Nadine Holdsworth), Simon Stephens (Jacqueline Bolton), Tim Crouch (Dan Rebellato), Roy Williams (Michael Pearce) and Debbie Tucker Green (Lynette Goddard). The volume sets the context by providing a chronological survey of the decade, one marked by the War on Terror, the excesses of economic globalization and the digital revolution. In surveying the theatrical activity and climate, Andrew Haydon explores the response to the political events, the rise of verbatim theatre, the increasing experimentation and the effect of both the Boyden Report and changes in the Arts Council's priorities. Five scholars provide detailed examinations of the playwrights' work during the decade, combining an analysis of their plays with a study of other material such as early play drafts and the critical receptions of the time. Interviews with each playwright further illuminate this stimulating final volume in the Decades of Modern British Playwriting series.

Download or read book At the Sharp End Uncovering the Work of Five Leading Dramatists written by Peter Billingham and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2007-11-05 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What value does theatre have in Britain at the beginning of the twenty-first century? How has theatre responded to the challenge of remaining relevant in the media-saturated world of today? These are the questions that underpin this stimulating study of some of the leading dramatists of contemporary British theatre. At the Sharp End sets the scene examining how the forces that created a revolution in theatre fifty years ago have been replaced by a new wave of political and social issues. It goes on to explore the ways in which five key writers have sought to reflect and wrestle with the changing character of modern Britain. The work of David Edgar, David Greig, Mark Ravenhill, Tanika Gupta and Tim Etchells' company Forced Entertainment is considered, with recent plays examined in detail, an interview with each writer; and suggestions of other writers and plays for reading and comparison. At the Sharp End provides the perfect companion for anyone wanting to understand the changing face of contemporary drama and the writers whose work is making an impact on our stages today.

Download or read book The Methuen Drama Guide to Contemporary British Playwrights written by Aleks Sierz and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2011-10-17 with total page 545 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Methuen Drama Guide to Contemporary British Playwrights is an authoritative guide to the work of twenty-five playwrights who have risen to prominence since the 1980s. Written by an international team of scholars, it will be invaluable to anyone interested in, studying or teaching contemporary drama. Among the many playwrights whose work is examined are Sarah Daniels, Terry Johnson, Martin Crimp, Sarah Kane, Anthony Neilson, Mark Ravenhill, Simon Stephens, Debbie Tucker Green, Tanika Gupta and Richard Bean. Each essay features: A biographical sketch and introduction to the playwright A discussion of their most important plays An analysis of their stylistic and thematic traits, the critical reception and their place in the discourses of British theatre A bibliography of texts and critical material

Download or read book Twenty First Century Drama written by Siân Adiseshiah and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-06-17 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Within this landmark collection, original voices from the field of drama provide rich analysis of a selection of the most exciting and remarkable plays and productions of the twenty-first century. But what makes the drama of the new millenium so distinctive? Which events, themes, shifts, and paradigms are marking its stages? Kaleidoscopic in scope, Twenty-First Century Drama: What Happens Now creates a broad, rigorously critical framework for approaching the drama of this period, including its forms, playwrights, companies, institutions, collaborative projects, and directors. The collection has a deliberately British bent, examining established playwrights – such as Churchill, Brenton, and Hare – alongside a new generation of writers – including Stephens, Prebble, Kirkwood, Bartlett, and Kelly. Simultaneously international in scope, it engages with significant new work from the US, Japan, India, Australia, and the Netherlands, to reflect a twenty-first century context that is fundamentally globalized. The volume’s central themes – the financial crisis, austerity, climate change, new forms of human being, migration, class, race and gender, cultural politics and issues of nationhood – are mediated through fresh, cutting-edge perspectives.

Download or read book The Changing Language of Modern English Drama 1945 2005 written by K. Dorney and published by Springer. This book was released on 2009-09-29 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An account of language and drama between 1945 and 2005, synthesizing linguistic and dramatic knowledge in order to illuminate the ways in which anxieties and attitudes toward language manifest themselves in discourses on and around English theatre of the time, and how these anxieties and attitudes reflect back through the theatre of this period.

Download or read book The Argumentative Theatre of Joe Penhall written by William C. Boles and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2014-01-10 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Of the many dynamic, young playwrights to be associated with the "In-Yer-Face" burst of creative talent on the British stage in the mid-1990s, Joe Penhall has challenged Britain's status quo the most. Penhall believes his plays should constantly provoke and enrage not only the institutions he targets, but also his audience. This critical book discusses the argumentative nature of Penhall's plays, while also placing them within the context of contemporary British society and the modern dramatic tradition. His eight plays are discussed in detail, and particular attention is paid to male identity, the nature of grief, the variety of females, domestic drama, and the role of autobiography in his work.

Download or read book Modern British Playwriting The 1990s written by Aleks Sierz and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2014-03-20 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: British theatre of the 1990s witnessed an explosion of new talent and presented a new sensibility that sent shockwaves through audiences and critics. What produced this change, the context from which the work emerged, the main playwrights and plays, and the influence they had on later work are freshly evaluated in this important new study in Methuen Drama's Decades of Modern British Playwriting series. The 1990s volume provides a detailed study by four scholars of the work of four of the major playwrights who emerged and had a significant impact on British theatre: Sarah Kane (by Catherine Rees), Anthony Neilson (Patricia Reid), Mark Ravenhill (Graham Saunders) and Philip Ridley (Aleks Sierz). Essential for students of Theatre Studies, the series of six decadal volumes provides a critical survey and study of the theatre produced from the 1950s to 2009. Each volume features a critical analysis of the work of four key playwrights besides other theatre work, together with an extensive commentary on the period. Readers will understand the works in their contexts and be presented with fresh research material and a reassessment from the perspective of the twenty-first century. This is an authoritative and stimulating reassessment of British playwriting in the 1990s.

Download or read book Stephen Poliakoff on Stage and Screen written by Robin Nelson and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2014-03-10 with total page 271 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over four decades, Stephen Poliakoff has proved himself to be a distinctive dramatist in the mediums of theatre, film and television. Moving from playwright to television and film director, he has been hailed as 'TV's foremost writer' (Independent) and as 'one of our most poetic and best TV dramatists' (Daily Telegraph). In the USA, his TV 'films' have received industry acclaim, The Lost Prince winning three Emmy Awards and Gideon's Daughter two Golden Globes. This book is the first to offer a comprehensive overview of Poliakoff's work for stage and screen and a framework for its critical evaluation. It will prove invaluable to students of theatre, film, and television studies. Robin Nelson locates Poliakoff's distinctive vision and fierce independence as a writer and director in both personal and public histories and against industry contexts. He charts Poliakoff's 'meteoric rise' as a playwright, and his 'second starburst' in television drama since Shooting the Past (1999) which re-affirmed his reputation as a dramatist of distinction. While the chronology of Poliakoff's impressive output is clearly laid out, works are discussed in thematic clusters ranging across mediums to afford a fresh perspective. The book covers 'issue dramas', 'quirky strong women' and 'histories/memories' as well as Poliakoff's early developing dramaturgy, and it examines in detail the later feature films and television dramas which have secured his reputation as our most distinctive television dramatist.

Download or read book Performing Immanence written by Jan Suk and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2021-01-18 with total page 206 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Performing Immanence: Forced Entertainment is a unique probe into the multi-faceted nature of the works of the British experimental theatre Forced Entertainment via the thought of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari. Jan Suk explores the transformation-potentiality of the territory between the actors and the spectators, namely via Forced Entertainment’s structural patterns, sympathy provoking aesthetics, audience integration and accentuated emphasis of the now. Besides writings of Tim Etchells, the company’s director, the foci of the analyses are devised as well as durational projects of Forced Entertainment. The examination includes a wider spectrum of state-of the-art live artists, e.g. Tehching Hsieh, Franko B or Goat Island, discussed within the contemporary performance discourse. Performing Immanence: Forced Entertainment investigates how the immanent reading of Forced Entertainment’s performances brings the potentiality of creative transformative experience via the thought of Gilles Deleuze. The interconnections of Deleuze’s thought and the contemporary devised performance theatre results in the symbiotic relationship that proves that such readings are not mere academic exercises, but truly life-illuminating realizations.

Download or read book David Greig s Holed Theatre written by Verónica Rodríguez and published by Springer. This book was released on 2019-02-09 with total page 283 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With a Foreword by Dan Rebellato, this book offers up a detailed exploration of Scottish playwright David Greig’s work with particular attention to globalization, ethics, and the spectator. It makes the argument that Greig’s theatre works by undoing, cracking, or breaking apart myriad elements to reveal the holed, porous nature of all things. Starting with a discussion of Greig’s engagement with shamanism and arguing for holed theatre as a response to globalization, for Greig’s works’ politics of aesthethics, and for the holed spectator as part of an affective ecology of transfers, this book discusses some of Greig’s most representative political theatre from Europe (1994) to The Events (2013), concluding with an exploration of Greig’s theatre’s world-forming quality.

Download or read book Studying Shakespeare Adaptation written by Pamela Bickley and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2020-09-17 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shakespeare's plays have long been open to reimagining and reinterpretation, from John Fletcher's riposte to The Taming of the Shrew in 1611 to present day spin-offs in a whole range of media, including YouTube videos and Manga comics. This book offers a clear route map through the world of adaptation, selecting examples from film, drama, prose fiction, ballet, the visual arts and poetry, and exploring their respective political and cultural interactions with Shakespeare's plays. 36 specific case studies are discussed, three for each of the 12 plays covered, offering additional guidance for readers new to this important area of Shakespeare studies. The introduction signals key adaptation issues that are subsequently explored through the chapters on individual plays, including Shakespeare's own adaptive art and its Renaissance context, production and performance as adaptation, and generic expectation and transmedial practice. Organized chronologically, the chapters cover the most commonly studied plays, allowing readers to dip in to read about specific plays or trace how technological developments have fundamentally changed ways in which Shakespeare is experienced. With examples encompassing British, North American, South and East Asian, European and Middle Eastern adaptations of Shakespeare's plays, the volume offers readers a wealth of insights drawn from different ages, territories and media.

Download or read book The Political Theatre of David Edgar written by Janelle Reinelt and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2011-07-14 with total page 325 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: David Edgar's writings address the most basic questions of how humans organize and govern themselves in modern societies. This study brings together the disciplines of political philosophy and theatre studies to approach the leading British playwright as a political writer and a public social critic. Edgar uses theatre as a powerful tool of public discourse, an aesthetic modality for engaging with and thinking/feeling through the most pressing social issues of the day. In this he is a supreme rationalist: he deploys character, plot and language to explore ideas, to make certain kinds of discursive cases and model hypothetical alternatives. Reinelt and Hewitt analyze twelve of Edgar's most important plays, including Maydays and Pentecost, and also provide detailed discussions of key performances and critical reception to illustrate the playwright's artistic achievement in relation to his contributions as a public figure in British cultural life.

Download or read book The Theatre of David Greig written by Clare Wallace and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2013-08-29 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: David Greig has been described as 'one of the most interesting and adventurous British dramatists of his generation' (Daily Telegraph) and 'one of the most intellectually stimulating dramatists around' (Guardian). Since he began writing for theatre in the early nineties, his work has been both copious and remarkably varied, defying neat generalisations or attempts to pigeon-hole his work. Besides his original plays, he has adapated classics, is co-founder of the Suspect Culture Theatre Group and is currently Dramaturge for the National Theatre of Scotland. This Critical Companion provides an analytical survey of his work, from his early plays such as Europe and The Architect through to more recent works Damascus, Dunsinane and Ramallah; it also considers the plays produced with Suspect Culture and his work for young audiences. As such it is the first book to provide a critical account of the full variety of his work and will appeal to students and fans of contemporary British theatre. Clare Wallace provides a detailed analysis of a broad selection of plays and their productions, reviews current discourses about his work and offers a framework for enquiry. The Companion features an interview with David Greig and a further three essays by leading academics offering a variety of critical perspectives.

Download or read book Translation and Adaptation in Theatre and Film written by Katja Krebs and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-08-15 with total page 237 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides a pioneering and provocative exploration of the rich synergies between adaptation studies and translation studies and is the first genuine attempt to discuss the rather loose usage of the concepts of translation and adaptation in terms of theatre and film. At the heart of this collection is the proposition that translation studies and adaptation studies have much to offer each other in practical and theoretical terms and can no longer exist independently from one another. As a result, it generates productive ideas within the contact zone between these two fields of study, both through new theoretical paradigms and detailed case studies. Such closely intertwined areas as translation and adaptation need to encounter each other’s methodologies and perspectives in order to develop ever more rigorous approaches to the study of adaptation and translation phenomena, challenging current assumptions and prejudices in terms of both. The book includes contributions as diverse yet interrelated as Bakhtin’s notion of translation and adaptation, Bollywood adaptations of Shakespeare’s Othello, and an analysis of performance practice, itself arguably an adaptive practice, which uses a variety of languages from English and Greek to British and International Sign-Language. As translation and adaptation practices are an integral part of global cultural and political activities and agendas, it is ever more important to study such occurrences of rewriting and reshaping. By exploring and investigating interdisciplinary and cross-cultural perspectives and approaches, this volume investigates the impact such occurrences of rewriting have on the constructions and experiences of cultures while at the same time developing a rigorous methodological framework which will form the basis of future scholarship on performance and film, translation and adaptation.

Download or read book Literary Worlds and Deleuze written by Zornitsa Dimitrova and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2016-12-20 with total page 245 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Literary Worlds and Deleuze contributes to debates on mimesis by offering an ‘expressionist’ take on the matter of the generation of literary worlds in drama. In examining postdramatic plays by Sarah Kane, Martin Crimp, Caryl Churchill, and Laura Wade, the book outlines a dynamic ontology of mimesis. Rather than pertaining to a static ontology of ‘being’, expressionist mimesis is generative and renews itself constantly without arriving at an entelechial end. In exploring the fluxional field of forces and relations that underlie the order of representation, expressionist mimesis is well suited to account for the ontologically uncertain realities of postdramatic theatre. The concepts of ‘expression’ and ‘the event of sense’ (Gilles Deleuze) become part of a generative model that incorporates pre-linguistic and supra-conceptual constituents within the genesis of representation.