Contemporary European Playwrights presents and discusses a range of key writers that have radically reshaped European theatre by finding new ways to express the changing nature of the continent’s society and culture, and whose work is still in dialogue with Europe today. Traversing borders and languages, this volume offers a fresh approach to analyzing plays in production by some of the most widely-performed European playwrights, assessing how their work has revealed new meanings and theatrical possibilities as they move across the continent, building an unprecedented picture of the contemporary European repertoire. With chapters by leading scholars and contributions by the writers themselves, the chapters bring playwrights together to examine their work as part of a network and genealogy of writing, examining how these plays embody and interrogate the nature of contemporary Europe. Written for students and scholars of European theatre and playwriting, this book will leave the reader with an understanding of the shifting relationships between the subsidized and commercial, the alternative and the mainstream stage, and political stakes of playmaking in European theatre since 1989.

This book maps contemporary playwriting and theatre translation practices and ecologies in the European continent. Whether you are a scholar researching contemporary drama and translation, or a theatre practitioner looking for ways to navigate theatrical conventions in other countries, this book is for you. Through questionnaires and one-to-one interviews with key stakeholders, Dr Laera collects qualitative and quantitative data about how each national theatre culture supports living dramatists, what conventions drive the production and translation (or lack thereof) of contemporary plays, and what perceptions are held by gatekeepers, theatre-makers and other cultural operators about the theatre system in which they work. Through country-by-country descriptions and analyses; interviews with playwrights, translators, directors and gatekeepers; a list of key facts and best practices; and a rigorous assessment of its methodologies, this volume is indispensable for those interested in contemporary European theatre practice.

In Collaborative Playwriting, five collectively written plays apply polyvocal methods in which clash and frisson replace synthesis, a dialogic approach to collective writing that has never before been articulated or documented. Based on the EU Collective Plays Project, this collection of plays showcases each voice in dialogic tension and in relation to the other voices of the text, offering an entirely novel approach to new play development that challenges the single (and privileged) authorial voice. Castagno’s case-study approach provides detailed commentary on each of the various experimental methods, exploring the plays’ processes in detail. The book offers an evolutionary path forward in how to develop new work, thus encouraging and promoting the writing of collective, hybrid plays as having profound benefits for all playwrights. The ground breaking approaches to playmaking in Collaborative Playwriting will appeal to playwriting programs, instructors, academics, professional playwrights, theaters and new play development programs; as well as courses in gender LGBTQ studies, script analysis, dramaturgy and dramatic literature across the theater studies curricula.

For any play originating in a different culture and society to be favourably received in English translation, timing and other factors of reception are often as important as the purely linguistic aspects. This book focuses on the problems of reception and translation into English encountered by European playwrights now regularly staged at British theatres, such as Ibsen, Strindberg, Chekhov, Brecht, Anouilh, Lorca and Pirandello, among others. Introduced by discussions highlighting different approaches to translation in general and the difficulties inherent in the translation of drama in particular, the book concludes by looking at what is lost in translation and the means by which adaptions and new versions may help to restore the balance.

An important new survey of Eastern European theater after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Explores all aspects of theater, from playwriting, directing and acting, to repertoire creation and theatre management. Uses material never previously published on theatre life during the Communist years. Compares theater before and after the political changes in Albania, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Poland,Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Ukraine. Chapters begin with introductions by well-known theatre professionals or lively interviews with a major directors or playwrights - including Yury Lyubimov, Václav Havel, Andrei Sherban and Ismail Kadare.

Playwriting in Process: Thinking and Working Theatrically is written to encourage new and experienced playwrights to build techniques for a greater range of creative expression in writing for the stage. The book uses exercises to guide playwrights towards thinking and working theatrically. The exercises help playwrights start or revise their work by providing alternate ways of thinking about their subject and their processes. New to the second edition: new exercises, a general updating such as the use of the internet, a new chapter for teachers and playwriting group leaders on using this book in class, and end-of-chapter "Call Out" exercises. Useful for playwrights at all levels.