This book is the first comprehensive analysis of the fascinating and strikingly diverse history of imagination in the context of theatre and drama. Key questions that the book explores are: How do spectators engage with the drama in performance, and how does the historical context influence the dramaturgy of imagination? In addition to offering a study of the cultural history and theory of imagination in a European context including its philosophical, physiological, cultural and political implications, the book examines the cultural enactment of imagination in the drama text and offers practical strategies for analyzing the aesthetic practice of imagination in drama texts. It covers the early modern to the late modernist period and includes three in-depth case studies: William Shakespeare’s Macbeth (c.1606); Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House (1879); and Eugène Ionesco’s The Killer (1957).

For generations, fans and critics have characterized classic American radio drama as a “theater of the mind.” This book unpacks that characterization by recasting the radio play as an aesthetic object within its unique historical context. In Theater of the Mind, Neil Verma applies an array of critical methods to more than six thousand recordings to produce a vivid new account of radio drama from the Depression to the Cold War. In this sweeping exploration of dramatic conventions, Verma investigates legendary dramas by the likes of Norman Corwin, Lucille Fletcher, and Wyllis Cooper on key programs ranging from The Columbia Workshop, The Mercury Theater on the Air, and Cavalcade of America to Lights Out!, Suspense, and Dragnet to reveal how these programs promoted and evolved a series of models of the imagination. With close readings of individual sound effects and charts of broad trends among formats, Verma not only gives us a new account of the most flourishing form of genre fiction in the mid-twentieth century but also presents a powerful case for the central place of the aesthetics of sound in the history of modern experience.

This book explores the ways that pre-existing ‘national’ works or ‘national theatre’ sites can offer a rich source of material for speaking to the contemporary moment because of the resonances or associations they offer of a different time, place, politics, or culture. Featuring a broad international scope, it offers a series of thought-provoking essays that explore how playwrights, directors, theatre-makers, and performance artists have re-staged or re-worked a classic national play, performance, theatrical form, or theatre space in order to engage with conceptions of and questions around the nation, nationalism, and national identity in the contemporary moment, opening up new ways of thinking about or problematizing questions around the nation and national identity. Chapters ask how productions engage with a particular moment in the national psyche in the context of internationalism and globalization, for example, as well as how productions explore the interconnectivity of nations, intercultural agendas, or cosmopolitanism. They also explore questions relating to the presence of migrants, exiles, or refugees, and the legacy of colonial histories and post-colonial subjectivities. The volume highlights how theatre and performance has the ability to contest and unsettle ideas of the nation and national identity through the use of various sites, stagings, and performance strategies, and how contemporary theatres have portrayed national agendas and characters at a time of intense cultural flux and repositioning.

First Published in 2004. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Offstage Space, Narrative, and the Theatre of the Imagination is a study of extrascenic space and how playwrights have used narrative as an alternative to conventional scenic enactment. The book covers the work of writers as diverse as Euripides, Plautus, Shakespeare, Susan Glaspell, Gertrude Stein, Bertolt Brecht, Samuel Beckett, Marguerite Duras, Brian Friel, and Thomas Bernhard. William Gruber offers a wide-ranging overview of the dramaturgical choices dramatists make when they substitute imagined events for perceptual ones.

Based on interviews with the subject, this visual biography is an intimate portrait of Quentin Blake, the much-loved illustrator and artistic genius of our age. Quentin Blake is one of the foremost illustrators of the twentieth century. Perhaps best known for his collaboration with Roald Dahl on books such as The Giraffe and the Pelly and Me, The Twits and Matilda, he is cherished by young and old alike, throughout the world. Yet his work has not attained 'fine art' status. Should it be considered so? How does Blake's background in education inform his work? And what is the interrelation between the work he makes and the life that he leads? Distinguished curator Ghislaine Kenyon has spent a great deal of time with Blake during the last decade and a half and in Quentin Blake In the Theatre of the Imagination she provides a profound insight into an extraordinary man and a truly remarkable body of work. Kenyon has known Quentin Blake since 1998, and worked with him on staging a jointly curated exhibition 'Tell Me A Picture' in the year of Blake's tenure as Children's Laureate (1999-2000). She followed Blake during the years in which he continued to work 'off the page' producing work for hospitals in Angers and Paris and staging major exhibitions around the world, collaborating with him both in an administrative and curatorial capacity. But what Kenyon has observed, during a number of years of working alongside him, and sharing a friendship, is that Blake's work is necessarily intertwined with his life. His life informs his wonderful illustrations and his artwork in turn informs his life - a life which is extremely private, mysterious and full of complexities and ambiguities. Kenyon and Blake share a background in teaching, and this interest informs Blake's connection to what educationists call 'learning and teaching' but which could also be termed simply education. A shared enthusiasm for education brought Kenyon and Blake together and informs the projects both the artist and curator now work on, aiming to reach children and adults in new ways and provide new experiences. With exceptional insight into Blake's oeuvre and his life, Ghislaine Kenyon has produced not merely a biography, but a critical view of the artist's work. Quentin Blake: In the Theatre of the Imagination is a fitting tribute to Quentin Blake's journey and his great legacy - the delightful illustrations to over 300 books, several written by him, paintings, prints and sculptures - and the contribution he has made to art education and the lives of so many different people.