ABSTRACT

Teaching Critical Performance Theory offers teaching strategies for professors and artist-scholars across performance, design and technology, and theatre studies disciplines.

The book’s seventeen chapters collectively ask: What use is theory to an emerging theatre artist or scholar? Which theories should be taught, and to whom? How can theory pedagogies shape and respond to the evolving needs of the academy, the field, and the community? This broad field of enquiry is divided into four sections covering course design, classroom teaching, the studio space, and applied theatre contexts. Through a range of intriguing case studies that encourage thoughtful theatre practice, this book explores themes surrounding situated learning, dramaturgy and technology, disability and inclusivity, feminist approaches, race and performance, ethics, and critical theory in theatre history.

Written as an invaluable resource for professionals and postgraduates engaged in performance theory, this collection of informative essays will also provide critical reading for those interested in drama and theatre studies more broadly.

chapter |8 pages

Introduction

Teaching critical performance theory in today’s educational landscape

part I|70 pages

Course design

chapter 1|15 pages

Doing things with theory

Situated cognition and theatre pedagogy

chapter 3|13 pages

Theory over time

Asian American performance, critical theory, and the theatre history survey

chapter 4|15 pages

From systemic dramaturgy to systemic pedagogy

Rethinking theatre history and technology

chapter 5|13 pages

Contemporary playwriting pedagogies

A survey of recent introductory playwriting syllabi

part II|56 pages

Classroom identities

chapter 6|13 pages

Performing blackness, ecodramaturgy, and social justice

Toward a radical pedagogy

chapter 7|14 pages

Casting Christopher

Disability pedagogy in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

chapter 8|14 pages

Greening the curriculum

Introducing ecocriticism and ecodrama to students in the classroom and rehearsal studio

part III|46 pages

Studio

chapter 10|8 pages

Deep thought

Teaching critical theory to designers

chapter 12|10 pages

Drag evolution

Re-imaging gender through theory and practice

chapter 13|12 pages

The “best” bad idea

Decentering professional casting practices in university productions

part IV|56 pages

Communities

chapter 14|12 pages

Life first

Interdisciplinary placemaking for the theatre

chapter 15|15 pages

Growing applied theatre

Critical humanizing pedagogies from the ground up

chapter 16|15 pages

Up close and wide awake

Participating in Anna Deavere Smith’s social theatre

chapter 17|12 pages

Tricksters in the academy

“Find the gap, then look for the people”