ABSTRACT
Anne Bogart, whose work as artistic director of the Saratoga International Theatre Institute (SITI) goes hand-in-glove with her longtime commitment to actor training, asserts that erotic openness is paramount in the work of theatre directors, even dedicating one of the seven essays in her 2001 book A Director Prepares to eroticism. “The role of attraction and eroticism in the theatre is rarely discussed and yet both are vital ingredients in the creative act and the dynamics between audiences and actors,” the chapter begins.2 According to Bogart, the greater part of theatre is a seduction between actors and audiences:
[E]rotic tension between the stage and the beholder is part of what makes the theatre experience so attractive. The theatre is a place where it is possible to meet one another in an energetic space unmediated by technology. The sensory stimulation allowed in theatre, authorized by its very form, allows the corporeal imagination to exercise itself.3
