Experiential Theatres: Praxis-Based Approaches to Training 21st Century Theatre Artists

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.

William W. Lewis, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor of Theatre History, Literature, and Criticism at Purdue University. His research focuses on spectatorship, politics, digital cultures, and experiential performance. As a scholar-artist he also utilizes practice-based-research where he integrates interactive technologies into live performance to better understand the relationships between contemporary audiences and mediatized culture. Will believes strongly in the ethos behind deep collaboration and collective working processes. He is the founding co-editor of PARtake: The Journal of Performance as Research and has co-edited with Sonali Pahwa the special issue Reterritorializing Digital Performance from North to South for the International Journal of Performance Arts and Digital Media.

Sean Bartley, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor of Theatre History at Northwestern State University. His research centers on contemporary site-specific, ambulatory, and immersive theatre practices and sports as performance. His work has been featured in TDR: The Drama Review, Theatre History Studies, Theatre Journal, PARtake: The Journal of Performance as Research and Borrowers and Lenders: The Journal of Shakespeare and Appropriation. Recent book chapters include ’You’re Out! Presence and Absence at the Ballpark in Sporting Performances: Politics in Play (Routledge, ed. Shannon Walsh) and The President Makes a Play: Putin and Erdogan’s Sporting Diplomacy with Jared Strange in Performing Statecraft: The Postdiplomatic Theatre of Sovereigns, Citizens, and States (Bloomsbury, ed. James R. Ball III).