Imagined Theatres: Writing for a Theoretical Stage

In Imagined Theatres, some of the leading theorists and writers of the contemporary stage gather togetherto offer a collection of theoretical dramas. These fragments, prose poems, and microfictions describe imaginary performance events that put theory itself onstage to imagine what is possible and impossible in the theatre.

Each scenario is mirrored by a brief accompanying reflection, asking what they might mean for our thinking about the theatre. Taken together, these possible worlds circle around related questions:

• In what way is writing itself a performance?
• How do we understand the relationship between real performances that engender imaginary reflections and imaginary conceptions that form the basis for real theatrical productions?
• Are we not always imagining theatres when we read or even when we sit in the theatre, watching whatever event we imagine we are seeing?