As the symbolists, constructivists and surrealists of the historical avant-garde began to abandon traditional theatre spaces and embrace the more contingent locations of the theatrical and political ‘event’, the built environment of a performance became not only part of the event, but an event in and of itself. Event-Space radically re-evaluates the avant garde’s championing of nonrepresentational spaces, drawing on the specific fields of performance studies and architectural studies to establish a theory of ‘performative architecture’. ‘Event’ was of immense significance to modernism’s revolutionary agenda, resisting realism and naturalism – and, simultaneously, the monumentality of architecture itself. Event-Space analyzes a number of spatiotemporal models central to that revolution, both illuminating the history of avant-garde performance and inspiring contemporary approaches to performance space.

From director and cofounder of the Royal Shakespeare Company Peter Brook, The Empty Space is a timeless analysis of theatre from the most influential stage director of the twentieth century. As relevant as when it was first published in 1968, groundbreaking director and cofounder of the Royal Shakespeare Company Peter Brook draws on a life in love with the stage to explore the issues facing a theatrical performance--of any scale. He describes important developments in theatre from the last century, as well as smaller scale events, from productions by Stanislavsky to the rise of Method Acting, from Brecht's revolutionary alienation technique to the free form happenings of the 1960s, and from the different styles of such great Shakespearean actors as John Gielgud and Paul Scofield to a joyous impromptu performance in the burnt-out shell of the Hamburg Opera just after the war. Passionate, unconventional, and fascinating, this book shows how theatre defies rules, builds and shatters illusions, and creates lasting memories for its audiences.

How real and imagined theatrical spaces and the relationships between them evoke meaning

This collection asks what's at stake when a theatrical space is created and when a performance takes place: under what circumstances the topology of theatre becomes political. It visits a politics of inclusion and exclusion, of distributions and placements, and of spatial appropriation and utopian concepts in theatre history and contemporary performance.

Too often directors and stage designers approach the architectural layout of theatres as obstructive to the creative process. Condee's book teaches theater professionals to work creatively within even the most restrictive theatrical space and transform it into an asset rather than an obstacle. Condee has interviewed hundreds of prominent American and British directors, designers, and actors, and provides photographs and groundplans of major American theatres. Each chapter tackles a different set of problems, offering thoughtful solutions to common obstacles. Theatrical Space is not only a useful textbook for students of theatre, but also a valuable resource for all directors and designers, both young and experienced. Paperback edition available April 2002. Cloth version previously published in 1995.

An encyclopedic dictionary of technical and theoretical terms, the book covers all aspects of a semiotic approach to the theatre, with cross-referenced alphabetical entries ranging from absurd to word scenery.

In this lavishly illustrated hands-on account of the creation of new theatre spaces spanning a century, Iain Mackintosh offers a compelling history that is part memoir, part impassioned call to rethink the design of our theatre spaces and the future of live theatre. As the originator of theatre designs as diverse as the Cottesloe in 1977, Glyndebourne in 1994, the Orange Tree Theatre in 1991, the Martha Cohen Theatre in 1985 and the Tina Packer Playhouse in 2001, he discovered why the same show worked in some theatres but not in others. It is this unique blend of experience that informs this account of many of the best-known theatre spaces in Britain, besides many international examples including the Guthrie Theater, Minneapolis and the Oslo Opera House. Running throughout is a consideration of factors which have shaped design thinking during this time and which demand attention today. After the long theatre closures driven by the Covid-19 pandemic, Mackintosh argues that now is the time to discover the routes travelled over the last century. Published in partnership with the Society of Theatre Research, the book features a foreword by Sir Richard Eyre, Director of the National Theatre, 1987–1997.