Shakespeare and Audience in Practice

Shakespeare and Audience in Practice
Author: Stephen Purcell
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 263
Release: 2013-11-26
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1350316881

What do audiences do as they watch a Shakespearean play? What makes them respond in the ways that they do? This book examines a wide range of theatrical productions to explore the practice of being a modern Shakespearean audience. It surveys some of the most influential ideas about spectatorship in contemporary performance studies, and analyses the strategies employed both in the texts themselves and by modern theatre practitioners to position audiences in particular ways.

Shakespeare and Costume in Practice

Shakespeare and Costume in Practice
Author: Bridget Escolme
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Total Pages: 215
Release: 2021-12-24
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 9783030571511

What is the role of costume in Shakespeare production? Shakespeare and Costume in Practice argues that costume design choices are central not only to the creation of period setting and the actor’s work on character, but to the cultural, political, and psychological meanings that the theatre makes of Shakespeare. The book explores questions about what the first Hamlet looked like in his mourning cloak; how costumes for a Shakespeare comedy can reflect or critique the collective nostalgias a culture has for its past; how costume and casting work together to ask new questions about Shakespeare and race. Using production case studies of Hamlet, Much Ado About Nothing, and The Tempest, the book demonstrates that costume design can be a site of experimentation, playfulness, and transgression in the theatre – and that it can provoke audiences to think again about what power, race, and gender look like on the Shakespearean stage.

Shakespeare’s Audiences

Shakespeare’s Audiences
Author: Matteo Pangallo
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 341
Release: 2021-03-28
Genre: Literary Collections
ISBN: 1000352579

Shakespeare wrote for a theater in which the audience was understood to be, and at times invited to be, active and participatory. How have Shakespeare’s audiences, from the sixteenth century to the present, responded to that invitation? In what ways have consumers across different cultural contexts, periods, and platforms engaged with the performance of Shakespeare’s plays? What are some of the different approaches taken by scholars today in thinking about the role of Shakespeare's audiences and their relationship to performance? The chapters in this collection use a variety of methods and approaches to explore the global history of audience experience of Shakespearean performance in theater, film, radio, and digital media. The approaches that these contributors take look at Shakespeare’s audiences through a variety of lenses, including theater history, dramaturgy, film studies, fan studies, popular culture, and performance. Together, they provide both close studies of particular moments in the history of Shakespeare’s audiences and a broader understanding of the various, often complex, connections between and among those audiences across the long history of Shakespearean performance.

Shakespeare and Audience in Practice

Shakespeare and Audience in Practice
Author: Stephen Purcell
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 216
Release: 2013-11-26
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1137375256

What do audiences do as they watch a Shakespearean play? What makes them respond in the ways that they do? This book examines a wide range of theatrical productions to explore the practice of being a modern Shakespearean audience. It surveys some of the most influential ideas about spectatorship in contemporary performance studies, and analyses the strategies employed both in the texts themselves and by modern theatre practitioners to position audiences in particular ways.

Shakespeare and Gesture in Practice

Shakespeare and Gesture in Practice
Author: Darren Tunstall
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 200
Release: 2018-05-19
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1137606401

When actors perform Shakespeare, what do they do with their bodies? How do they display to the spectator what is hidden in the imagination? This is a history of Shakespearean performance as seen through the actor's body. Tunstall draws upon social, cognitive and moral psychology to reveal how performers from Sarah Siddons to Ian McKellen have used the language of gesture to reflect the minds of their characters and shape the reactions of their audiences. This book is rich in examples, including detailed analysis of recent performances and interviews with key figures from the worlds of both acting and gesture studies. Truly interdisciplinary, this provocative and original contribution will appeal to anyone interested in Shakespeare, theatre history, psychology or body language.

Unearthing Shakespeare

Unearthing Shakespeare
Author: Valerie Clayman Pye
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 239
Release: 2017-01-20
Genre: Drama
ISBN: 1317208781

What can the Globe Theatre tell us about performing Shakespeare? Unearthing Shakespeare is the first book to consider what the Globe, today’s replica of Shakespeare’s theatre, can contribute to a practical understanding of Shakespeare’s plays. Valerie Clayman Pye reconsiders the material evidence of Early Modern theatre-making, presenting clear, accessible discussions of historical theatre practice; stages and staging; and the relationship between actor and audience. She relays this into a series of training exercises for actors at all levels. From "Shakesball" and "Telescoping" to Elliptical Energy Training and The Radiating Box, this is a rich set of resources for anyone looking to tackle Shakespeare with authenticity and confidence.

Shakespeare: Actors and Audiences

Shakespeare: Actors and Audiences
Author: Fiona Banks
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 296
Release: 2018-11-15
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1474274005

Shakespeare: Actors and Audiences brings together the voices of those who make productions of Shakespeare come to life. It shines a spotlight on the relationship between actors and audiences and explores the interplay that makes each performance unique. We know much about theatre in Shakespeare's time but very little about the audiences who attended his plays. Even today the audience's voice remains largely ignored. This volume places the role of the audience at the centre of how we understand Shakespeare in performance. Part One offers an overview of the best current audience research and provides a critical framework for the interviews and testimony of leading actors, theatre makers and audience members that follow in Part Two, including Juliet Stevenson and Emma Rice. Shakespeare: Actors and Audiences offers a fascinating insight into the world of theatre production and of the relationship between actor and audience that lies at the heart of theatre-making.

The Cambridge Guide to the Worlds of Shakespeare

The Cambridge Guide to the Worlds of Shakespeare
Author: Bruce R. Smith
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2016
Genre: LITERARY CRITICISM
ISBN: 9781107057258

This transhistorical, international and interdisciplinary work will be of interest to students, theater professionals and Shakespeare scholars.

Shakespeare and Gender in Practice

Shakespeare and Gender in Practice
Author: Terri Power
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 208
Release: 2015-12-01
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1137408545

Cross-gender performance was an integral part of Shakespearean theatre: from boys portraying his female characters, to those characters disguising themselves as men within the story. This book examines contemporary trends in staging cross-gender performances of Shakespeare in the UK and USA. Terri Power surveys the field of gender in performance through an intersectional feminist and queer theoretical lens. In depth discussions of key productions reveal processes adapted by companies for their performances. The book also looks at how contemporary performance responds to new cultural politics of gender and creates a critical language for understanding that within Shakespeare. This book features: - First-hand interviews with professional artists - Case studies of individual performances - A practical workshop section with innovative exercises

The Oxford Handbook of Shakespeare and Performance

The Oxford Handbook of Shakespeare and Performance
Author: James C. Bulman
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 766
Release: 2017-11-16
Genre: Drama
ISBN: 0191510823

The Oxford Handbooks to Shakespeare are designed to record past and present investigations and renewed and revised judgments by both familiar and younger Shakespeare specialists. Each of these volumes is edited by one or more internationally distinguished Shakespeareans; together, they comprehensively survey the entire field. Shakespearean performance criticism has firmly established itself as a discipline accessible to scholars and general readers alike. And just as performances of the plays expand audiences' understanding of how Shakespeare speaks to them, so performance criticism is continually shifting the contours of the discipline. The 36 contributions in this volume represent the most current approaches to Shakespeare in performance. They are divided into four parts. Part I explores how experimental modes of performance ensure Shakespeare's contemporaneity. Part II tackles the burgeoning field of reception: how and why audiences respond to performances as they do. Part III addresses the ways in which technology has revolutionized our access to Shakespeare, both through the mediums of film and sound recording and through digitalization. Part IV grapples with 'global' Shakespeare, considering matters of cultural appropriation in productions played for international audiences. Together, these ground-breaking essays attest to the richness and diversity of Shakespearean performance criticism as it is practiced today