This book explores the role and centrality of women in the development of collaborative theatre practice, alongside the significance of collective creation and devising in the development of the modern theatre.
Tracing a web of women theatremakers in Europe and North America, this book explores the connections between early twentieth century collective theatre practices such as workers theatre and the dramatic play movement, and the subsequent spread of theatrical devising. Chapters investigate the work of the Settlement Houses, total theatre in 1920s' France, the mid-century avant-garde and New Left collectives, the nomadic performances of Europe's transnational theatre troupes, street-theatre protests, and contemporary devising. In so doing, the book further elucidates a history of modern theatre begun in A History of Collective Creation (2013) and Collective Creation in Contemporary Performance (2013), in which the seemingly marginal and disparate practices ofcollective creation and devising are revealed as central-and women theatremakers revealed as progenitors of these practices.
Part I. First Wave, 1900-1945.- 1. Raising the Curtain on Suzanne Bing's Life in the Theatre; Jane Baldwin.- 2. From Neva Boyd to Viola Spolin; Scott Proudfit.- 3. A Democratic Legacy; Elizabeth A. Osborne.- 4. Aleksandra Remizova; Andrei Malaev-Babel.- PART II. Second Wave, 1945-1985.- 5. Mnouchkine & Co.; David Calder.- 6. Ruth Maleczech, JoAnne Akalaitis, and the Mabou Mines Family Aesthetic; Jessica Silsby Brater;- 7. "Hers and His";Siobhan O'Gorman.- 8. From the Center to the Heartland; Anne Fletcher.- 9. Historiographing a Feminist Utopia; Michelle MacArthur.- 10. Monstrous Regiment; Sarah Sigal.- PART III. Third Wave, 1985-2014.- 11. Judith Malina and the Living Theatre; Cindy Rosenthal.- 12. Bryony Lavery; Karen Morash.- 13. Women, Transmission, and Creative Agency in the Grotowski Diaspora; Virginie Magnat.- 14. The Women of Odin Teatret; Adam Ledger.- 15. Doing What Comes Naturally?; Alex Mermikides and Jackie Smart.- 16. Collective Creation Downtown 2014; Rachel Anderson-Rabern.- 17. Between Africa and America; Nia O. Witherspoon.- 18. Hands like starfish/Feet like moons; Victoria Lewis.- 19. Pussy Riot and Performance as Social Practice; Julia Listengarten.
