Robert Wilson is an American–European director who is also a performer, installation artist, writer, designer of light and much more besides – a crossover polymath who dissolves both generic and geographical boundaries and is a precursor of globalisation in the arts. This second edition of Robert Wilson combines: an analysis of his main productions, situated in their American and European socio-cultural and political contexts a focused, detailed study of Wilson’s pathbreaking Einstein on the Beach a study of Pushkin's Fairy Tales as the foremost example of his folk-rock music theatre in the twenty-first century an exploration of his ‘visual book’, workshop and rehearsal methods, and collaborative procedures a study of his aesthetic principles and the elements of composition that distinguish his directorial approach a series of practical exercises for students and practitioners highlighting Wilson’s technique. As a first step towards critical understanding, and as an initial exploration before going on to further, primary research, Routledge Performance Practitioners offer unbeatable value for today’s student.

Through 25 interviews with prominent figures in the performing and visual arts worlds, this is a complete and revelatory portrait of Robert Wilson and his inspired craft. Robert Wilson has put his original stamp on masterpieces from Mozarts The Magic Flute and Puccinis Madame Butterfly to William Shakespeares sonnets. Through his extraordinary use of light and his understanding of the significance of language in theater and the importance of movement on stage, gleaned from his experience as a dancer, Wilson has become one of the worlds most esteemed and revolutionary figures working in theater today. Wilson is well-known for pushing the boundaries of theater, and has won over sixty awards and honors for his work, including a nomination for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, an Obie, two Guggenheim Fellowship awards and the Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship, election to the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the National Design Award for Lifetime Achievement. A critical text features interviews with twenty-five world-renowned artists, composers, actors, writers, theater directors, costume designers, scenographers, scholars, and curators who offer their perspectives on Wilsons work and on working with Wilson. The artist and his craft are elucidated by Marina Abramovic, Pierre Bergé, Daniel Conrad, Giuseppe Frigeni, Gao Xingjian, Philip Glass, Sacha Goldman, Jonathan Harvey, Isabelle Huppert, Ivan Nagel, John Rockwell, Viktor & Rolf, Serge von Arx, Rufus Wainwright, and Robert Wilson himself. His creative development is further documented through images chosen by the artist for this publication, and a list of his complete works completes the monograph. This book celebrates the singular achievements of this unique artist, from his earliest works to his collaborations with the Berliner Ensemble to his most recent work, The Life and Death of Marina Abramovic.

“Robert Wilson’s Barnum, the first full-dress biography in twenty years, eschews clichés for a more nuanced story…It is a life for our times, and the biography Barnum deserves.” —The Wall Street Journal P.T. Barnum is the greatest showman the world has ever seen. As a creator of the Barnum & Baily Circus and a champion of wonder, joy, trickery, and “humbug,” he was the founding father of American entertainment—and as Robert Wilson argues, one of the most important figures in American history. Nearly 125 years after his death, the name P.T. Barnum still inspires wonder. Robert Wilson’s vivid new biography captures the full genius, infamy, and allure of the ebullient showman, who, from birth to death, repeatedly reinvented himself. He learned as a young man how to wow crowds, and built a fortune that placed him among the first millionaires in the United States. He also suffered tragedy, bankruptcy, and fires that destroyed his life’s work, yet willed himself to recover and succeed again. As an entertainer, Barnum courted controversy throughout his life—yet he was also a man of strong convictions, guided in his work not by a desire to deceive, but an eagerness to thrill and bring joy to his audiences. He almost certainly never uttered the infamous line, “There’s a sucker born every minute,” instead taking pride in giving crowds their money’s worth and more. Robert Wilson, editor of The American Scholar, tells a gripping story in Barnum, one that’s imbued with the same buoyant spirit as the man himself. In this “engaging, insightful, and richly researched new biography” (New York Journal of Books), Wilson adeptly makes the case for P.T. Barnum’s place among the icons of American history, as a figure who represented, and indeed created, a distinctly American sense of optimism, industriousness, humor, and relentless energy.

The first comprehensive study of the leading American avant-garde theatre director Robert Wilson.

A girl's death leads Inspector Zé Coelho to unsolved crimes from Portugal's past.

One night in October when he was ten years old, Tyler Dupree stood in his back yard and watched the stars go out. They all flared into brilliance at once, then disappeared, replaced by a flat, empty black barrier. He and his best friends, Jason and Diane Lawton, had seen what became known as the Big Blackout. It would shape their lives. The effect is worldwide. The sun is now a featureless disk - a heat source, rather than an astronomical object. The moon is gone, but tides remain. Not only have the world's artificial satellites fallen out of orbit, their recovered remains are pitted and aged, as though they'd been in space far longer than their known lifespans. As Tyler, Jason, and Diane grow up, space probe reveals a bizarre truth: The barrier is artificial, generated by huge alien artifacts. Time is passing faster outside the barrier than inside - more than a hundred million years per day on Earth. At this rate, the death throes of the sun are only about forty years in our future. Jason, now a promising young scientist, devotes his life to working against this slow-moving apocalypse. Diane throws herself into hedonism, marrying a sinister cult leader who's forged a new religion out of the fears of the masses. Earth sends terraforming machines to Mars to let the onrush of time do its work, turning the planet green. Next they send humans...and immediately get back an emissary with thousands of years of stories to tell about the settling of Mars. Then Earth's probes reveal that an identical barrier has appeared around Mars. Jason, desperate, seeds near space with self-replicating machines that will scatter copies of themselves outward from the sun - and report back on what they find. Life on Earth is about to get much, much stranger.

The memoirs of Robert Wilson, owner of the Phoenix Book Shop, describe how between 1962 and 1968 he transformed a small, obscure Greenwich Village book shop into a world-famous literary haven. Wilson writes of his long friendships with literary figures such as Marianne Moore and W.H. Auden, among ot