ABSTRACT
The processes of devising rely on the creativity of performers, and practitioners throughout the twentieth century tested methods of working that both reflected and challenged contemporary intellectual and cultural views of selfhood and performance. The concept of the creative actor was, as Philip Auslander points out, integral to the ‘problematic of the self ’ that entered the popular imagination in the early twentieth century and that has continued to be revised thereafter (Auslander 1997: 29). This chapter will explore the ways in which performers came to be regarded as central to the devising process.
