Theatre Studies

"A Soldier is Her Darling Character": Susanna Centlivre, Desire, Difference, and Disguise

by Rivka Swenson

Journal of Narrative Theory 37.1 (2007) 65-86

Childhood Innocence: Essence, Education and Performativity

by Robbie Duschinsky

Draft Only; forthcoming in Textual Practice

Building from an analysis of Wedekind and Foucault, it will be argued that modern childhood has been constructed as... more Building from an analysis of Wedekind and Foucault, it will be argued that modern childhood has been constructed as both natural and in need of cultivation and regulation. Through practices which seem to protect and nurture innocence, a particular account of the ‘natural purity’ of children can be materially and discursively produced without this seeming to be an artificial imposition. Moreover, I shall propose that imputing innocence to children allows a covert ontology to be constructed for particular groups of adults or society more generally; claims about the nature of the particular groups of adults, or society generally, can be smuggled into such accounts via claims about the child they may once have been. I shall depict innocence discourses as complex: capable of beneficial effects but also complicit in the production, stabilisation and occlusion of potentially troubling effects on relations of power, emotion and meaning in modern societies.

Diritto e teatro in Grecia e a Roma, a cura di Eva Cantarella e Lorenzo Gagliardi, Milano, Led, 2007, pp. 285 [ISBN 978-88-7916-337-8].

by Lorenzo Gagliardi

Performance Measurement Systems in Theatres: The Case of the Municipal Theatre of Ferrara

by Francesco Badia

Co-authored with Elena Borin, published in 'Quaderni del Dipartimento di Economia Istituzioni Territorio', n. 20, novembre 2011

In recent years, cultural organisations have introduced and tested new management tools to achieve their institutional... more In recent years, cultural organisations have introduced and tested new management tools to achieve their institutional goals of efficiency, effectiveness and social cohesion. This process has been widely linked to New Public Management for public sector cultural organisations, but the introduction of these tools has been an interesting process in private cultural organisations too.
This paper aims at considering more specifically one kind of management tools: performance measurement systems. Their goal is to give to the management a set of information of quantitative and qualitative nature that could guide the strategic choices in the long-term. With this work, we will consider the real possibilities of application of a good performance measurement system in cultural organisations, with a particular focus on theatres.
Our research starts with the analysis of the theoretical framework of performance measurement systems and theatres management. The theoretical approach is supported by the analysis of a case study, the Municipal Theatre of Ferrara (Italy). In this way, we will try to verify and discuss opportunities and critical points implied by the introduction of a performance measurement system in theatres.

“Surprises that struck the hour”: The Tragic Muse and the Modernizing of the Jamesian Serial"

by Adam Seth Lowenstein

Young Voices - An Applied Theatre Method Aiming to Bridge the Gap Between Youth and Adults

by yiota demetriou

Thesis for MA by Research at SANM - University of Hull, 2010-2011

This dissertation focuses on an applied theatre project, Young Voices that has attempted to develop a method, which... more This dissertation focuses on an applied theatre project, Young Voices that has attempted to develop a method, which inquires how performance forms can facilitate youth inclusion. Issues related to young people have been discussed extensively throughout time and within many disciplines. Stanley Cohen (1972), J.J Arnett (1999), Sharon Nichols and Thomas Good (2004) and Monica Barry (2005), have examined the ‘anxieties’ that are often associated with the perceived image of young people in society and how these may often lead to their social exclusion. This method is to be used by youth workers with their role as ‘intercessors’ between young people and the adults that surround them (i.e. their parents, guardians, teachers); it adopts Augusto Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed (TO) ethos, uses elements of his Forum Theatre (FT) workshop techniques and the theory/technique of verbatim theatre. The project’s research process is in the form of applied and verbatim theatre workshops; performance presentation and a performance lecture addressed to youth workers. The method looks at increasing and facilitating communication between various isolated adolescent groups through applied theatre using various ‘Boalian’ workshop techniques and FT to identify the participants ‘oppressions’. It intends at facilitating communication through applied theatre and verbatim theatre between youth and youth workers, by capturing the participants ‘oppressions’ and presenting them to an audience of their peers and youth workers. And it aims at facilitating communication through the combination of applied theatre and verbatim theatre with the attempt of beginning to bridge the gap amongst young people and the adults around them, through a recommended step by suggesting the involvement of the participant’s surrounding adults. The Young Voices method has been developed from the collaboration of several youth groups from around Scarborough and its district. The complete process attempts to assist teenagers in discussing their concerns from their own perspectives towards empowering them and raising awareness about how their opinions should be required for matters that concern them.

Hyperréalisme des sentiments

by Jean-Frédérick Ménard

Co-autored with Elsa Laflamme.
(2011) 237 Spirale : Arts • Lettres • Sciences humaines, at 78-9.

Review (in French) of BEAUTÉ, CHALEUR ET MORT, a play by
Nini Bélanger et Pascal Brullemans. Théâtre La Chapelle,... more Review (in French) of BEAUTÉ, CHALEUR ET MORT, a play by
Nini Bélanger et Pascal Brullemans. Théâtre La Chapelle, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, January 18-29 2011.


Il y a dix ans, Nini et Pascal ont perdu une enfant. Hospitalisée dès ses premières heures de vie, l’enfant vivra deux semaines pendant lesquelles ses parents la veilleront sans relâche.

Beauté, chaeur et mort s’inscrit dans une démarche d’exploration de l’hyperréalisme et constitue le premier volet d’un diptyque intitulé « Le cycle de la perte ». Jouant son propre drame devant public, le couple présente un objet théâtral qui, bien que dans la mouvance de l’autoreprésentation, propose une autre lecture de l’hyperréalisme que celle se dégageant de l’exhibitionnisme ambiant, incarné, entre autres, par toutes les déclinaisons de la téléréalité. Motivée par l’expérience traumatique, la proposition théâtrale sur le mode de l’intime aspire ici à se faire vecteur de vérité plutôt que simulacre.

Polyvocally perverse, or the disintegrating pleasures of singing along

by Derek Miller

Forthcoming in Studies in Musical Theatre

Contemporary philosophies of voice, like theories of the musical, rely on integration. But sound resists... more Contemporary philosophies of voice, like theories of the musical, rely on integration. But sound resists contextualization, integration and wholeness. Embracing the exhilarating possibilities of vocal play, I read Stephen De Rosa’s performance of a community theatre troupe’s version of ‘The Baseball Game’ from Falsettos as a sign of the inherent multiplicity of voice. In De Rosa’s vocal agility, I hear a transgression of the integrated voice and the assumption of a polyvocality in which voice refuses the claims of a singular, corporeal identity. But, like the musical, voice can find strength in disintegration. Singing along to cast albums – which, although they separate the sound from the show, permit the musical to reach a broader audience than productions alone – fans find pleasure in a cacophonous polyvocality that our voices are always ready to unleash, if only we set them free.

Review of Showtime by Larry Stempel and South Pacific: Paradise Rewritten by Jim Lovensheimer

by Derek Miller

Forthcoming in TDR: The Drama Review

A review of two recent books on musical theater. A review of two recent books on musical theater.

Paris 2012, Symbolism Conference (13-14 April)

by Craig Landt

Hamming it up in Endgame: A Theatrical Reading

by Kate Dorney

Traditional Theatre: The Case of Japanese Noh

by Diego Pellecchia

In The Cambridge Companion to Theatre History. David Wiles, Christine Dymkowski, eds. Cambridge University Press. (Forthcoming)

Hiccup

by Darrelyn Gunzburg

Liminality in Marina Carr's Woman and Scarecrow and Emma Dante's Vita mia

by Brenda Donohue

Forthcoming:
Focus: Papers in English Literary and Cultural Studies VIII. IIssue on Interfaces between Irish and European Theatre. Ed. Mária Kurdi. Pécs: University of Pécs, Institute of English and American Studies, 2012.

This article examines the work of an Irish playwright, Marina Carr and an Italian playwright, Emma Dante. Both female... more This article examines the work of an Irish playwright, Marina Carr and an Italian playwright, Emma Dante. Both female playwrights show a recurring preoccupation with death, dying and living in their work. Contrasting the modern taste for signalling a clear divide between life and death, in Carr and Dante’s work the lines and divisions between this world and the next are not clearly drawn. A number of characters across the writers’ oeuvre occupy liminal spaces within the spectrum of life and death. Neither alive nor dead, these characters blur the edges of our modern understanding of death. Using Victor Turner’s theory of liminality, this paper seeks to investigate the position of two of these ‘betwixt and between’ characters, focussing on Woman in Marina Carr’s Woman and Scarecrow and Chicco in Dante’s Vita mia.

La passione di un Burattino: teste di legno ribattezzate all'ombra della Commedia dell'Arte

by Federico Pacchioni

Intersezioni. Review of the History of Ideas 3 (2009): 339-356.

Fatherland: the Translation of John B. Keane's the Field Into Jim Sheridan's the Field

by Pierluigi Vaglioni

O teatro como metaestética: subjetividade e jogo segundo HG. Gadamer

by Marcus Mota

The Origins of the Olympic Games’ Opening and Closing Ceremonies: Artistic Creativity and Communication

by Wichian Lattipongpun

The Journal of Intercultural Communication Studies, Volume 19, Issue 1, pp.103-120 (2010).

Nowadays, the Olympic Games’ Opening and Closing Ceremonies contribute greatly to, and draw from, the different... more Nowadays, the Olympic Games’ Opening and Closing Ceremonies contribute greatly to, and draw from, the different cultures in the various host cities. This paper will explore the origins of the Olympic Games’ Opening and Closing Ceremonies (OGO & CCs). The extent to which theories concerning artistic creativity and communication are utilized will specifically be examined. Historically speaking, the modern Olympic Games were adapted from the ideology of the ancient Olympic Games, which originally treated sporting competitions as a form of religious ritual. Greek people used the games as a means to communicate with their Gods; games included music, dance, and art. Interestingly, only the victory ceremonies are present in historical records; no evidence of the OGO and CCs can be found. The hypothesis that this paper will test is the notion that the OGO and CCs began with the modern Olympic Games. This study aims to answer this by conveying the initial ideas and purposes of the OGO and CC through discourse analysis. The primary data used includes the minutes of the 1906 International Olympic Committee Congress in Paris and Baron Pierre de Coubertin’s biography. The results significantly illustrate that the OGO and CC were initially associated and influenced by personal interests and cultural patterns.

Trauma and Performance: Maps, narratives and folds

by Patrick Duggan

Published in 'Performance Research: On Trauma', Vol 16, No 1.

Co-authored with Mick Wallis

“Nothing to be done”: Thoughts on Talawa Theatre Company’s Waiting for Godot

by Patrick Duggan

I was asked to write a short essay on Waiting for Godot by Talawa Theatre Company for their website and education pack, in advance of their 2012 production of the play.