ABSTRACT
There is a strong and vital relationship between theatre-making and popular music, despite the dominance of analogies to Western classical music. This chapter explores this relationship paying particular attention to the role that 'jazz' and related concepts of improvisation have played for the processes and imaginations of theatre-makers. It focuses on aspects of jazz as a musical practice that despite being multi-faceted and historically and contextually highly contingent can be associated with a number of key characteristics which have also featured most prominently in the analogies and appropriations proposed within the world of theatre. Jazz theatricality as a 'form of social mediation' runs through the three following case studies. Continuing the started discussion of Chaikin, the Open Theatre and Shepard act as more extensive case study, followed by two more contemporary ensembles and productions, which form both a contrast and extension of the close relationship of theatre and jazz formed.
