Technology has long ago been acknowledged as one of the leading components in the work of modern theatre directors. However, little attention has been paid to the specific medialities of technology into the formation of directing models and their crucial contribution to the development of the role of the theatre director. This research sets out to examine and compare the directorial work of three well-known directors (Elizabeth LeCompte, Rabert Lepage and Kalie Mitchell) relating to the use of the medialities of technology and technology's impact on the production of particular theatrical aesthetics, as well as to the developmental identity of the aforementioned three directors. It also presents a historical background of key issues surrounding the relationship between director's theatre and technology, and formulates a homogenous systematic theoretical framework by discussing major premises of this specific type of director's theatre. In an attempt to extend previous efforts to formulate directing theatre theories based on acting systems and dramaturgy, a methodological approach is adopted based on data (such as printed and audio-visual material, attendance at productions and rehearsals, as well as training in courses on media arts, directing, production and stage management, lighting and sound design, philosophy and film theory) in order to study the theatrical effects of the use of technology. This thesis argues that the directing models of fragmentary technology. totalising technology and technological hybridisation through three key techniques, namely the use of technology-based collaborators, old and new media and techno-acting, manifest the development of the role of the director within a trajectory from mediality to multi-mediality and inter-mediality. The findings suggest that an important dialogue between the three models exists and that even though the three directors have used differing theatricalities, a significant development of their roles as directors suggests the inextricable link between theatre directing and technology. The findings indicate that technology should be granted a greater recognition by theatre scholarship for the development of the role of the theatre director and that the formation of a homogenous theatre theory from the point of view of directing and technology should be examined as one of the most significant criteria for researching theatre directing today.

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There have been a number of attempts in the Western tradition to categorise dramatic form. German critic and theorist Manfred Pfister attempts to divide it into 'closed' and 'open' form, drawing on a historical distinction between 'dramatic' and 'epic'. Versions of closed form based on interpretations of Aristotle include: pragmatic (neo-classical) theories of craftsmanship based on Dryden; a prescriptive theory of playwriting developed by Gustav Freytag; the 19th century well-made play; and a theory of the dramatic developed by John Howard Lawson. The extent to which naturalistic drama can be described as 'closed' or 'open' form is debateable however, with some critics seeing Ibsen's shift into naturalism as an irrevocable move into closed form and others arguing that he invented a new dialectical form of construction. Szondi identifies a shift around the beginning of the 20th century from a more objective dramaturgy towards a subjective one, manifested in modernist forms of drama. Ranciere describes modernist work as belonging to an aesthetic regime which avoids the codes and genres of the mimetic. However, cinema has introduced codes and genres into the aesthetic regime and it is possible that open form drama could do likewise. Some apparently open form plays characterized by epic subjectivity nevertheless retain characteristics of closed form structure. This can be said of surrealist plays which use the technique of 'automatic writing' to open up dramatic form. An attempt to write a play on spatial principles based on surrealist collage similarly opens up dramatic form to some extent while retaining many elements of closed form. The surrealists drew nonsystematically on Freud's theory of the unconscious. An attempt to write a modernist dream play drawing more systematically on the formal characteristics of Freud's theory of dream-work results in a more formally coherent piece. It is possible to identify similar formal characteristics in Strindberg's A Dream Play. A dramaturgical approach which is more systematic than that of other playwrights of the European avant-garde can be found in the theory and playwriting of Gertrude Stein. Stein foregrounds the 'landscape' of a play. She also develops new approaches to characterization based on 'active being' rather than action and to narrative based on repetition and a lack of suspense. Attempts to stage Stein's plays have led directors to create parallel action on stage or to find ways of staging the subtext subjectively borrowing techniques from Method acting. These attempts suggest that the invention of a systematic, formally coherent open form dramaturgy necessitates a new relationship between performance and text in staging the work, and similar attempts at solving the staging problems of open form drama can be found in the appendices to this thesis. Original aspects of this project are: the plays written; the systematic use of Freud's The Interpretation of Dreams as a playwriting manual; the discussion of Stein in terms of a systematic dramaturgy of open form playwriting; and the use of unpublished archive material to discuss the Judson Poets' Theater productions of Stein's work.

This thesis draws on the literatures surrounding identity, emotion and affect in order to consider the theatrical as a site of the political. In doing this it takes an interdisciplinary approach, using concepts from international politics, philosophy, anthropology, history and theatre to construct its case. The argument opens with a review of literatures pertaining to identity and emotion, both in international relations and more widely in the literatures of political philosophy, morality and ethics. Having established that there is a sound academic footing for inclusion of both in a study of the political, the argument proceeds to explore the literature relating to the theatrical – its history, uses and potential. After a discussion of methodologies, with a focus on quantitative technologies, particularly feminist, ethnographic and mediative methodologies; the discussion moves first to an introduction to the field sites and then an analysis of the fieldwork proper. The fieldwork, conducted among theatre students and professionals in Israel and Palestine, consists of interviews and observations drawn from workshops and performances. Through this empirical research the thesis demonstrates an understanding among theatre professionals that their art performs as a political site. The thesis concludes with a summary of the proceeding work, a reiteration of the main themes and a brief reflection on underlying emotional currents within the text. My original contribution to the literature of international politics lies in my exploration of the political nature of the theatrical. This interdisciplinary approach seeks to further the direct engagement of academic politics with political life “on the ground”, as well as an expansion of the ways in which we conceptualize that political life.

'Dramaturgy' and the 'dramaturg' have entered the discourse of English theatre practitioners over the past two decades. For individuals working within subsidized building-based producing theatres, understandings and applications of dramaturgical practice have been significantly shaped by the structures and objectives of literary management - a role, established within the industry since the 1990s, dedicated to the development of new plays and playwrights. In Germany, the dramaturgical profession dates back to the latter half of the eighteenth century and, since the twentieth century, has held a remit inclined more towards the programming and production of theatre works than the developing and commissioning of new theatre writing. In Germany and across mainland Europe, dramaturgs hold a recognized position at the heart of producing structures; in England, the role and status of the dramaturg are less defined. Despite a decade or so of concerted explanation and exploration, the concept of dramaturgy continues to be met with indifference, principally associated with practices of literary management which, this thesis shall argue, risk eliding the critical and creative scope of dramaturgy as it is practised on the continent. Through an assessment of the cultural, philosophical and economic contexts which inform processes of theatre-making, this thesis seeks to articulate and analyse these contrasting practices of dramaturgy. Chapters One and Two focus upon contemporary definitions of dramaturgy in England, addressing the role of the dramaturg within new play development and analysing the impact that distinctions between 'script-led' and 'non-script-led' approaches to theatre have had upon the reception of dramaturgical practice. Chapters Three and Four then compare those aspects of German and English theatre practice which I believe critically determine the agency of a dramaturg within production processes. These aspects may be summarized respectively as, on a microlevel, the relationship between text and performance and, on a macro-level, the relationship between theatre and society. This thesis regards dramaturgy as a creative practice defined in relation to a shared set of attitudes towards the production and reception of theatre, and argues that a specifically dramaturgical contribution to theatremaking rests in this analysis of the dynamic between performance and spectator.

This thesis, a collection of previously published materials, reflects a plural and evolving engagement with theatre and performance over the past fifteen years or so: as researcher, writer, editor, teacher, practitioner, spectator. These have rarely been discreet categories for me, but rather different modalities of exploration and enquiry, interrelated spaces encouraging dynamic connectivities, flows and further questions. Section 1 offers critical accounts of the practices of four contemporary theatre directors: Jerzy Grotowski, Robert Wilson, Peter Brook and Ariane Mnouchkine. Section 2 draws on elements of contemporary philosophy and critical thinking to explore the mutable parameters of performance. lt proposes performative mappings of certain unpredictable, energetic events 'in proximity of performance', to borrow Matthew Goulish's phrase: contact, fire, animals, alterity, place. Section 3 contains examples of documentation of performance practices, including a thick description of a mise en scene of a major international theatre production, reflections on process, training and dramaturgy, a performance text with a framing dramaturgical statement, and personal perspectives on particular collaborations. The external Appendix comprises a recently published collection of edited and translated materials concerning five core collaborative projects realised by Ariane Mnouchkine and the Theatre du Soleil at their base in the Cartoucherie de Vincennes, Paris. The core concerns of this thesis include attempts to think through: • the working regimes, poetics and pedagogies of certain directors, usually in collaborative devising contexts within which the creative agency of performers is privileged; • the processes and micro-politics of collaboration, devising, and dramaturgical composition; the dramaturgical implications of trainings, narrative structures, spaces, mise en scene, and of images as multi-layered, dynamic 'fields'; • the predicament and agency of spectators in diverse performance contexts, and the ways in which spectatorial roles are posited or constructed by dramaturgies; • the imbrication of embodiment, movement and perception in performance, and the plurality of modes of perception; • the critical and political functions of theatre and theatre criticism as cultural/social practice and 'art of memory' (de Certeau), of dramaturgies as critical historiographies, and of theatre cultures (and identities) as plural, dynamic, and contested; • performance as concentrated space for inter-subjectivity and the flaring into appearance of the 'face-to-face' (Levinas); the possibility of ethical, 'response-able' encounter and exchange with another; identity as relational and in-process, alterity as productive event, the inter-personal as political; • the poetics and politics of what seems an unthinkable surplus (and constitutive 'outside') to the cognitive reach of many conventional frames and maps in theatre criticism and historiography; an exploration of acts of writing as performative propositions and provocations ('critical fictions') to think the event of meanings at/of the limits of knowledge and subjectivity. This partial listing of recurrent and evolving concerns within the thesis traces a trajectory in my evolution as a writer and thinker, a gradual displacement from the relatively 'solid ground' of theatre studies and theatre history towards more fluid and tentative articulations of the shifting 'lie of the land' in contemporary performance and philosophy. This trajectory reflects a growing fascination with present process, conditions, practices, perceptions 'in the middle', and ways of writing (about) performance as interactive and ephemeral event.

This thesis explores the emergent genre of cybertheatres or networked performance, that is, performance that employs the Internet and/or other types of networking technologies (telecommunication, mobile) and attitudes. I argue that networking technologies produce hybrid spacetimes or heterotopias (Foucault), which function as stages for networked performances, a novel and increasingly popular field of practice and research. The aims of this project are to a) articulate networked performance as a distinct genre, which is a hybrid between theatre/performance and networking technologies, b) situate this within a lineage of performance practice, c) identify and analyse its principal ontological and dramaturgical elements and, d) explore appropriate curatorial strategies for its presentation to a spectrum of audiences. To achieve these aims I undertake a critical analysis of cybertheatres, starting from 1967 and focusing on current practices. My analysis unfolds through engagement with discussions along two pivotal conceptual vectors, and through applied exploration of two core elements of practice: The conceptual vectors along which this thesis develops are: 1. Space: I examine the spatial nature of the networks that host cybertheatres, employing British group Blast Theory as my case-study. 2. Presence: I question the validity of the presence vs. absence dichotomy within networked environments. I investigate this through the work of Belgian duo Entropy8Zuper!, relaunched as Tale of Tales. Further on, I undertake a practical exploration relating to the subject of the curation of cybertheatres. I reflect upon and evaluate the three-day event Intimacy: Across Digital and Visceral Performance (December 2007), which I initiated, produced, co-directed and co-curated, to propose curatorial strategies that are appropriate to emergent practices in general and cybertheatres in particular. I close by a shift of voice from the author to the collective: I join the collaborative project Deptford.TV as a method of studying artistic, curatorial and social platforms that demonstrate Web 2.0 attitudes, and argue for the genre's particular potential for new forms of social engagement within a computer-mediated culture.

This study sets out to explore the life histories of long-term, regular theatregoers and their motivating factors over time. It follows an interpretive framework and innovates by using reminiscence workshops as the research tool. It argues that reminiscence workshops enable richer, deeper data to be obtained than alternative, interpretive methods such as interviews or focus groups, or quantitative surveys found in previous studies from Baumol & Bowen (1966) to Bunting et al (2008). Data are analysed using a phenomenological approach influenced by Schutz (1967) and the four-part life course model developed by Giele & Elder (1998). The thesis examines key themes emerging from the life histories of thirty-one participants. The findings indicate the importance of a ‘theatrical epiphany’ which is effective in creating a turning point in an individual’s life trajectory. The epiphany occurs if factors such as play, magic, make-believe, religion, and the production’s visual impact and relevance, are present. Most individuals experience their theatrical epiphany after encouragement to attend by a ‘familiar’, a person well-known to them and trusted. The study indicates that many theatregoers are active participants in theatre-making after their epiphany. Their profile suggests a high level of educational achievement, and a career in education. It is suggested that the theatregoer continues to be motivated to attend productions by seeking secondary epiphanies containing similar elements to those found during their original epiphany. In addition, many theatregoers look for intimacy of scale, the ‘magic’ created by the synthesis of make-believe and nature, and in particular, Shakespeare productions. As theatregoers gain in cultural capital, they themselves become ‘familiars’ and initiate the young into theatregoing. This thesis suggests that Bourdieu’s (1984) theory of distinction can be expanded to include the concept of the ‘familiar’, and indicates that in contemporary Britain, cultural capital results more from education and play than class background.