Experiential Theatres is a collaboratively edited and curated collection that delivers key insights into the processes of developing experiential performance projects and the pedagogies behind training theatre artists of the twenty-first century.
Experiential refers to practices where the audience member becomes a crucial member of the performance world through the inclusion of immersion, participation, and play. As technologies of communication and interactivity have evolved in the postdigital era, so have modes of spectatorship and performance frameworks. This book provides readers with pedagogical tools for experiential theatre making that address these shifts in contemporary performance and audience expectations. Through case studies, interviews, and classroom applications the book offers a synthesis of theory, practical application, pedagogical tools, and practitioner guidance to develop a praxis-based model for university theatre educators training today's theatre students.
Experiential Theatres presents a holistic approach for educators and students in areas of performance, design, technology, dramaturgy, and theory to help guide them through the processes of making experiential performance.
Experiential refers to practices where the audience member becomes a crucial member of the performance world through the inclusion of immersion, participation, and play. As technologies of communication and interactivity have evolved in the postdigital era, so have modes of spectatorship and performance frameworks. This book provides readers with pedagogical tools for experiential theatre making that address these shifts in contemporary performance and audience expectations. Through case studies, interviews, and classroom applications the book offers a synthesis of theory, practical application, pedagogical tools, and practitioner guidance to develop a praxis-based model for university theatre educators training today's theatre students.
Experiential Theatres presents a holistic approach for educators and students in areas of performance, design, technology, dramaturgy, and theory to help guide them through the processes of making experiential performance.
Recipient of the 2024 Edited Works Award from the Association of Theatre in Higher Education
"As new technologies present themselves, their use value extends only as far as they can contribute to processes that increase democratization, equity, and inclusion in the theatre. That contribution requires the type of scaffolding found in Lewis and Bartley's collection. Social media, large language models, virtual and hybrid presence(s), and their ilk require absorption and integration with theatrical activity to the point that they respond to creative inputs and manipulations. Experiential Theatres illuminates this moment in unique ways that will undoubtedly prove useful to faculty, students, and curricular designers looking to reimagine their relationship to technology, pedagogy, narrative, and the experiential."
Paul Masters, Boston Conservatory at Berklee
"The book offers an incredibly useful codification and categorization of experiential theatre practice... the innovative structure of this edited collection makes a significant stride forward in how researchers, artists, and teachers draw together scholarship, artistic practice, and pedagogical insight to offer new knowledge to the field. What is most refreshing and exciting about this volume is how the editors have curated and structured the work to reflect their manifesto for theatre and performance pedagogy."
Sarah Weston, New Theatre Quarterly
"As new technologies present themselves, their use value extends only as far as they can contribute to processes that increase democratization, equity, and inclusion in the theatre. That contribution requires the type of scaffolding found in Lewis and Bartley's collection. Social media, large language models, virtual and hybrid presence(s), and their ilk require absorption and integration with theatrical activity to the point that they respond to creative inputs and manipulations. Experiential Theatres illuminates this moment in unique ways that will undoubtedly prove useful to faculty, students, and curricular designers looking to reimagine their relationship to technology, pedagogy, narrative, and the experiential."
Paul Masters, Boston Conservatory at Berklee
"The book offers an incredibly useful codification and categorization of experiential theatre practice... the innovative structure of this edited collection makes a significant stride forward in how researchers, artists, and teachers draw together scholarship, artistic practice, and pedagogical insight to offer new knowledge to the field. What is most refreshing and exciting about this volume is how the editors have curated and structured the work to reflect their manifesto for theatre and performance pedagogy."
Sarah Weston, New Theatre Quarterly
Recipient of the 2024 Edited Works Award from the Association of Theatre in Higher Education
"As new technologies present themselves, their use value extends only as far as they can contribute to processes that increase democratization, equity, and inclusion in the theatre. That contribution requires the type of scaffolding found in Lewis and Bartley's collection. Social media, large language models, virtual and hybrid presence(s), and their ilk require absorption and integration with theatrical activity to the point that they respond to creative inputs and manipulations. Experiential Theatres illuminates this moment in unique ways that will undoubtedly prove useful to faculty, students, and curricular designers looking to reimagine their relationship to technology, pedagogy, narrative, and the experiential."
Paul Masters, Boston Conservatory at Berklee
"The book offers an incredibly useful codification and categorization of experiential theatre practice... the innovative structure of this edited collection makes a significant stride forward in how researchers, artists, and teachers draw together scholarship, artistic practice, and pedagogical insight to offer new knowledge to the field. What is most refreshing and exciting about this volume is how the editors have curated and structured the work to reflect their manifesto for theatre and performance pedagogy."
Sarah Weston, New Theatre Quarterly
"As new technologies present themselves, their use value extends only as far as they can contribute to processes that increase democratization, equity, and inclusion in the theatre. That contribution requires the type of scaffolding found in Lewis and Bartley's collection. Social media, large language models, virtual and hybrid presence(s), and their ilk require absorption and integration with theatrical activity to the point that they respond to creative inputs and manipulations. Experiential Theatres illuminates this moment in unique ways that will undoubtedly prove useful to faculty, students, and curricular designers looking to reimagine their relationship to technology, pedagogy, narrative, and the experiential."
Paul Masters, Boston Conservatory at Berklee
"The book offers an incredibly useful codification and categorization of experiential theatre practice... the innovative structure of this edited collection makes a significant stride forward in how researchers, artists, and teachers draw together scholarship, artistic practice, and pedagogical insight to offer new knowledge to the field. What is most refreshing and exciting about this volume is how the editors have curated and structured the work to reflect their manifesto for theatre and performance pedagogy."
Sarah Weston, New Theatre Quarterly