Theatre practitioner

A theatre practitioner is someone who creates theatrical performances and/or produces a theoretical discourse that informs their practical work.^[1] A theatre practitioner may be a director, dramatist, actor, designer or a combination of these traditionally separate roles. Theatre practice describes the collective work that various theatre practitioners do.^[2]

The term was not ordinarily applied to theatre-makers prior to the rise of modernism in the theatre. Instead, theatre praxis from Konstantin Stanislavski's development of his system is described through Vsevolod Meyerhold's biomechanics, Antonin Artaud's Theatre of cruelty, Bertolt Brecht's epic, and Jerzy Grotowski's poor theatre. Contemporary theatre practitioners include Augusto Boal with his Theatre of the Oppressed, Dario Fo's popular theatre, Eugenio Barba's theatre anthropology, and Anne Bogart's viewpoints.^[3]

References

Footnotes

1. Milling and Ley (2001, vi, 173) and Pavis (1998, 280). German: Theaterpraktiker, French: praticien, Spanish: teatrista.
2. Pavis (1998, 392).
3. McCullough (1996, 15-36) and Milling and Ley (2001, vii, 175).

Bibliography

• Counsell, Colin. 1996. Signs of Performance: An Introduction to Twentieth-Century Theatre. London and New York: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-10643-6.
• McCullough, Christopher, ed. 1998. Theatre Praxis: Teaching Drama Through Practice. New Directions in Theatre Ser. London: Macmillan. ISBN 978-0-333-64996-1. New York: St Martin's P. ISBN 978-0-312-21611-5.
• McCullough, Christopher. 1996. Theatre and Europe (1957–1996). Intellect European Studies ser. Exeter: Intellect. ISBN 978-1-871516-82-1.
• Milling, Jane, and Graham Ley. 2001. Modern Theories of Performance: From Stanislavski to Boal. Basingstoke, Hampshire and New York: Palgrave. ISBN 978-0-333-77542-4.
• Pavis, Patrice. 1998. Dictionary of the Theatre: Terms, Concepts, and Analysis. Trans. Christine Shantz. Toronto and Buffalo: U of Toronto P. ISBN 978-0-8020-8163-6.