Working Together in Theatre: Collaboration and Leadership

This book explores how theater artistry melds the forces of collaboration and leadership, igniting creativity from the first spark of an idea to the climactic curtain call.

It throws the spotlight on the dynamic interplay of roles, covering the collaboration between producer, director, playwright, actor, designer, stage manager, dramaturg, and stage crew. Each chapter illuminates various strategies and insights, revealing how you can harness these transformative techniques on your own journey, crafting spellbinding productions through the power of collective creativity. In this new edition, Joel Veenstra builds upon, updates, and expands on Robert Cohen’s original concepts in the following ways:

- Updated case studies and examples drawn from the combined 75 years of professional theatre-making experience of Cohen and Veenstra, as well as insights from their extensive network of collaborators
- Revised flow and scope to include the collaborator’s worldview, specific practices for creating collaborative milieu from the start, and conflict resolution tools
- Modernized with new research, perspectives, and insights from leadership experts like Brené Brown and Simon Sinek, and team-based organizations like Google and The Second City
- Refreshed exercises to enhance practical understanding and application of the concepts
- Expanded lens for applications beyond the realm of theatre-making to any collaboration
- Revised appendices with recommended digital resources

Robert Cohen is the Founding Chair of the Drama Department at the University of
California, Irvine, US, where he is a Professor Emeritus of Drama. He is also a longtime professional
theatre director, playwright and drama critic. He is author of the defining text Acting Power and
many other theatre books, including Acting One, Advanced Acting, Acting in Shakespeare and
Creative Play Direction. He has received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Association
for Theatre in Higher Education.

Joel Veenstra teaches stage management, improvisation, and collaborative production in
the Drama Department at the University of California, Irvine, US. He has worked on hundreds of
productions as an Actors’ Equity Association stage manager, production manager, or producer.
He currently serves as the Western Regional Director of the Stage Management Association, the
national professional organization for stage managers. He is also active in the improvisation and
applied improvisation world as the co-director and co-creator of Global Improvisation Initiative
and having served on the international Board of the Applied Improvisation Network (AIN).