Theatre and the Digital

by Bill Blake, Margherita Laera (Editor), Natalie Alvarez (Editor)

Overview

Why should the digital bring about ideas of progress in the theatre arts?

This question opens up a rich seam of provocative and original thinking about the uses of new media in theatre, about new forms of cultural practice and artistic innovation, and about the widening purposes of the theatre's cultural project in a changing digital world. Through detailed case-studies on the work of key international theatre companies such as the Elevator Repair Service and The Mission Business, Bill Blake explores how the digital is providing new scope for how we think about the theatre, as well as how the theatre in turn is challenging how we might relate to the digital.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781137355775
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	10/02/2014
Series:	Theatre And , #48
Edition description:	2014
Pages:	100
Product dimensions:	6.80(w) x 4.30(h) x 0.20(d)

About the Author

Bill Blake is Assistant Professor and Director of the Program in Dramatic Literature at New York University, USA.

Margherita Laera is a Senior Lecturer in Drama and Theatre at the University of Kent, where she serves as Deputy Head of the School of Arts and Architecture. She is the author of Playwriting in Europe: Mapping Ecosystems and Practices with Fabulamundi (Routledge Focus, 2022); Theatre & Translation (Methuen Drama, 2019) and Reaching Athens: Community, Democracy and Other Mythologies in Adaptations of Greek Tragedy (Peter Lang, 2013), and editor of Theatre and Adaptation: Return, Rewrite, Repeat (Methuen Drama, 2014). Margherita also works as a theatre translator from and into Italian and English. She is co-editor of the 'Theatre &' book series for Methuen Drama, and founder of Performing International Plays, an organization promoting theatre (in) translation in secondary schools.

Natalie Alvarez is Professor of Theatre and Performance Studies and Associate Dean of Scholarly, Research, and Creative Activities in The Creative School at Toronto Metropolitan University. She is the author, editor, and co-editor of four award-winning books including Sustainable Tools for Precarious Times: Performance Actions in the Americas (2019) and Immersions in Cultural Difference: Tourism, War, Performance (2018).

Table of Contents

Series Editors' Preface
Foreword
1. Introduction
2. The Promise of Something Different
3. The Idea of Progress in the Arts
4. The Digital Imperative
5. New Mediaspeak
6. Digital Unease
7. Online Presence
8. What Can Theatre Do Without
9. Theatre Apps
10. Mission Business
11. Conclusion
Further Reading
Index.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

Accessible and engaging, ideal for first year undergraduates, FE students and those further on in academic study. It raises important questions around intimacy, immediacy and audience experience, opening up a stimulating discussion about current theatre practices in general, as much as in relation to the digital.' – Josephine Machon, Middlesex University, UK

'The clarity is admirable – a beautifully written book.' – Edward Scheer, University of New South Wales, Australia

'An engaging and focused introduction' – Liam Jarvis, Royal Holloway, University of London, UK