The Dramaturgy of the Real brings together an incredible range of international theatre thinking, plays and performance texts, many published here for the first time, that ask questions about how we have come to understand reality and truth in the twenty-first century and analyze the presentation of non-fiction on the international stage.

This book proposes a new way to consider theatre and performance that claims a special relationship to reality, truth and authenticity. It documents innovations in devising and staging theatre and performance that takes reality as its subject, cultural shifts that have generated theatre of the real, some of its problems and some possibilities.

Over the past two decades, theatre practitioners across the West have turned to documentary modes of performance-making to confront new socio-political realities. The essays in this book place this work in context, exploring historical and contemporary examples of documentary and 'verbatim' theatre, and applying a range of critical perspectives.

Dramaturgy, in its many forms, is a fundamental and indispensable element of contemporary theatre. In its earliest definition, the word itself means a comprehensive theory of "play making." Although it initially grew out of theatre, contemporary dramaturgy has made enormous advances in recent years, and it now permeates all kinds of narrative forms and structures: from opera to performance art; from dance and multimedia to filmmaking and robotics. In our global, mediated context of multinational group collaborations that dissolve traditional divisions of roles as well as unbend previously intransigent rules of time and space, the dramaturg is also the ultimate globalist: intercultural mediator, information and research manager, media content analyst, interdisciplinary negotiator, social media strategist. This collection focuses on contemporary dramaturgical practice, bringing together contributions not only from academics but also from prominent working dramaturgs. The inclusion of both means a strong level of engagement with current issues in dramaturgy, from the impact of social media to the ongoing centrality of interdisciplinary and intermedial processes. The contributions survey the field through eight main lenses: world dramaturgy and global perspective dramaturgy as function, verb and skill dramaturgical leadership and season planning production dramaturgy in translation adaptation and new play development interdisciplinary dramaturgy play analysis in postdramatic and new media dramaturgy social media and audience outreach. Magda Romanska is Visiting Associate Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures at Harvard University, Associate Professor of Theatre and Dramaturgy at Emerson College, and Dramaturg for Boston Lyric Opera. Her books include The Post-Traumatic Theatre of Grotowski and Kantor (2012), Boguslaw Schaeffer: An Anthology (2012), and Comedy: An Anthology of Theory and Criticism (2014).

This Companion considers what theoretical and practical possibilities emerge at the crossroads of human rights and literature.

Performance in the Twenty-First Century: Theatres of Engagement addresses the reshaping of theatre and performance after postmodernism. Andy Lavender argues provocatively that after the ‘classic’ postmodern tropes of detachment, irony, and contingency, performance in the twenty-first century engages more overtly with meaning, politics and society. It involves a newly pronounced form of personal experience, often implicating the body and/or one’s sense of self. This volume examines a range of performance events, including work by both emergent and internationally significant companies and artists such as Rimini Protokoll, Blast Theory, dreamthinkspeak, Zecora Ura, Punchdrunk, Ontroerend Goed, Kris Verdonck, Dries Verhoeven, Rabih Mroué, Derren Brown and David Blaine. It also considers a wider range of cultural phenomena such as online social networking, sports events, installations, games-based work and theme parks, where principles of performance are in play. Performance in the Twenty-First Century is a compelling and provocative resource for anybody interested in discovering how performance theory can be applied to cutting-edge culture, and indeed the world around them.

This study of Egyptian theatre and its narrative construction explores the ways representations of Egypt are created of and within theatrical means, from the 19th century to the present day. Essays address the narratives that structure theatrical, textual, and performative representations and the ways the rewriting process has varied in different contexts and at different times. Drawing on concepts from Theatre and Performance Studies, Translation Studies, Cultural Studies, Postcolonial Studies, and Diaspora Studies, scholars and practitioners from Egypt and the West enter into dialogue with one another, expanding understanding of the different fields. The articles focus on the ways theatre texts and performances change (are rewritten) when crossing borders between different worlds. The concept of rewriting is seen to include translation, transformation, and reconstruction, and the different borders may be cultural and national, between languages and dramaturgies, or borders that are present in people’s everyday lives. Essays consider how rewritings and performances cross borders from one culture, nation, country, and language to another. They also study the process of rewriting, the resulting representations of foreign plays on stage, and representations of the Egyptian revolution on stage and in Tahrir Square. This assessment of the relationship between theatre practices, exchanges, and rewritings in Egyptian theatre brings vital coverage to an undervisited area and will be of interest to developments in theatre translation and beyond.