Contemporary theatre is going through a period of unparalleled excitement and challenge. Terms like 'postmodern' and 'postdramatic' have their own contested and defended histories, while notions of truth in verbatim theatre are open to serious critical challenge. Theatre writing can result in no words being spoken and nothing appearing on the page, and productions are stretching the boundaries of space, place and context like never before. This revised and significantly expanded edition of New Performance/New Writing explores immersive and solo theatre, autoethnography, applied drama, performance writing, plot, story, narrative and devising. It presents an invaluable response to questions that arise from new theatre, prompting active reading that enhances classroom and workshop learning, and improves productivity in rehearsal. Each chapter explores a key aspect of theatre study, while an extensive timeline of theatre events gives a broad overview of its evolution. Case studies on practitioners as diverse as Kneehigh, Punchdrunk, Mark Ravenhill and Forced Entertainment are scattered throughout the book, along with detailed suggestions for workshops, which encourage readers to test some of the book's ideas in practice.

Performance uses the alphabet as an organizational device to present a series of short pieces that approach performance from multiple perspectives and various compositional strategies. Pelias’s essays, poetry, dialogue, personal narratives, quick speculations, and other literary genres explore the key themes in this field, encapsulating the essence of performance studies for the novice and providing food for thought for the expert. Its brief, evocative, and reflexive pieces introduce performative writing as a method of research for those in performance and many other fields.

This book is both an analysis of and a tribute to the personal writing that young adults attempt.

"The Teaching Writing series publishes user-friendly writing guides penned by authors with publishing records in their subject matter. Harris and Holman Jones offer readers a practical and concise guide to writing a variety of dynamic texts for performance ranging from playscripts to ensemble and multimedia/hybrid works. Writing for Performance is structured around the ‘tools’ of performance writing—words, bodies, spaces, and things. These tools serve as pivots for understanding how writing for performance must be conducted in relation to other people, places, objects, histories, and practices. This book can be used as a primary text in undergraduate and graduate classes in playwriting, theatre, performance studies, and creative writing. It can also be read by ethnographic, arts-based, collaborative and community performance makers who wish to learn the how-to of writing for performance. Teachers and facilitators can use each chapter to take their students through the conceptualizing, writing, and performing/creating process, supported by exemplars and writing exercises and/or prompts so readers can try the form themselves. “What a welcome, insightful and much-needed book. Harris and Holman Jones bring us to an integrated notion of writing that is embodied, felt, breathed and flung from stage to page and back again. Writing for Performance will become a crucial text for the creation of the performance and theater that the 21st Century will need.” – Tim Miller, artist and author of Body Blows: Six Performances and 1001 Beds: Performances, Essays and Travels “No prescriptions here. In the hands of this creative duo we find a deep and abiding respect for the many creative processes that might fuel writing and performance that matters. From the deep wells of their own experiences, Harris and Holman Jones offer exercises that are not meant to mold the would-be writer, but spur them on to recognize their latent writing/performative selves.” – Kathleen Gallagher, Distinguished Professor of Curriculum, Teaching, and Learning, University of Toronto Anne Harris, PhD, is a senior lecturer at Monash University (Melbourne), and researches in the areas of arts, creativity, performance, and diversity. Stacy Holman Jones, PhD, is Professor in the Centre for Theatre and Performance at Monash University (Melbourne) specializing in performance studies, gender and critical theory and critical qualitative methods."

Ronald J. Pelias is concerned with writing about performance, from the everyday performative routines to the texts on stage. He seeks to write performatively, to offer poetic or aesthetic renderings of performance events in order to capture some sense of their nature. In his quest for the spirit of theatrical performances in a collection of essays, Pelias, of course, asks more of the written word than the word can deliver. Yet the attempt is both desirable -- and necessary. To discuss performance without some accounting for its essence as art, he asserts, is at best misleading, at worst, fraud. Pelias divides his efforts to present performance events into three general categories: "Performing Every Day", "On Writing and Performing", and "Being a Witness". As the title implies, "Performing Every Day" focuses on performances ranging from the daily business of enacting roles to the telling of tales that make life meaningful. It incorporates essays about the ongoing process of presenting oneself in everyday life; the gender script that insists that men enact manly performances; the classroom performances of teachers and students; stories of gender, class, and race that mark identity; and a performance installation entitled "A Day's Talk", which is a record of talk produced in a day's time accompanied by reflections about and responses to that talk. "On Writing and Performing" examines the written script and performance practices. It contains a description of a struggle between a writer and a performer as they protect their own interests; an intimate look at an apprehensive performer; a short play entitled "The Audition", which deals with what it means to be an actor; a chronicle ofperformance process from the perspective of an actor; and a brief essay on the nature of performance. "Being a Witness" examines performance from the perspective of the audience and the director. It includes essays on the experience of being an audience member; viewing theatre in the context of New York City; directing and being directed by actors' bodies; watching The DEF Comedy Jam; and, in the form of an interview, some final reflections about working with performance for many years.

The historical roots, key practitioners, and artistic, theoretical, and technological trends in the incorporation of new media into the performing arts. The past decade has seen an extraordinarily intense period of experimentation with computer technology within the performing arts. Digital media has been increasingly incorporated into live theater and dance, and new forms of interactive performance have emerged in participatory installations, on CD-ROM, and on the Web. In Digital Performance, Steve Dixon traces the evolution of these practices, presents detailed accounts of key practitioners and performances, and analyzes the theoretical, artistic, and technological contexts of this form of new media art. Dixon finds precursors to today's digital performances in past forms of theatrical technology that range from the deus ex machina of classical Greek drama to Wagner's Gesamtkunstwerk (concept of the total artwork), and draws parallels between contemporary work and the theories and practices of Constructivism, Dada, Surrealism, Expressionism, Futurism, and multimedia pioneers of the twentieth century. For a theoretical perspective on digital performance, Dixon draws on the work of Philip Auslander, Walter Benjamin, Roland Barthes, Jean Baudrillard, and others. To document and analyze contemporary digital performance practice, Dixon considers changes in the representation of the body, space, and time. He considers virtual bodies, avatars, and digital doubles, as well as performances by artists including Stelarc, Robert Lepage, Merce Cunningham, Laurie Anderson, Blast Theory, and Eduardo Kac. He investigates new media's novel approaches to creating theatrical spectacle, including virtual reality and robot performance work, telematic performances in which remote locations are linked in real time, Webcams, and online drama communities, and considers the "extratemporal" illusion created by some technological theater works. Finally, he defines categories of interactivity, from navigational to participatory and collaborative. Dixon challenges dominant theoretical approaches to digital performance—including what he calls postmodernism's denial of the new—and offers a series of boldly original arguments in their place.

This user-friendly book is filled with guidelines to help you write performance objectives, reviews, appraisals, and other performance documentation. The book's tips and tools help you find language that's clear, descriptive, objective, and acceptable in today's workplace. Examples, questions, and activities will help you learn on your own, with your team, or with others in your organization.