ABSTRACT
As an academic discipline, theatre studies involves three key areas of study: history, theory and practice. On both sides of the Atlantic, theatre history has the longest pedagogic ‘tradition’, while the 1980s explosion of critical theory has, arguably, had the most exciting impact on approaches to plays and performance in both critical and practical modes of study. Practice, however, is the element that distinguishes the discipline from its ‘sister’ arts, where drama or performance may be studied-in literary, English or cultural studies, for example-but not as a practice-based subject.
