Author Description

The Great Stage Directors Set I offers an an authoritative account of the work, lineage and legacy of the major theatre directors from the late nineteenth and first half of the twentieth centuries. Across the four volumes and the companion series Set II: European Post-1950, it provides a uniquely rich study of the genealogy and development of a practice through focus on individual directors and the wider context and artform in which they worked. For professional practitioners and those developing their skills, as well as those engaged in the analysis of theatre practices, forms and history, it will prove an essential resource. Each volume provides substantial treatment of three major directors, with each director considered by two specialists, combining analysis of the director’s practical craft with accounts of the historical, cultural and theoretical context of their practice. Links between the featured directors and other artists and directors from the period are traced to round out the picture of influences and artistic development. Volume 1: Stanislavski, Antoine and Saint Denis (edited by Professor Peta Tait, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia): the engagement with ‘realism’ Volume 2: Meyerhold, Piscator, Brecht (edited by Dr David Barnett, University of Sussex, UK): theatre as a mechanism of political enactment and critique, with the experiments in acting practice, scenic arrangements and audience address Volume 3: Copeau, Komisarjevsky, Guthrie (edited by Professor Simon Shepherd, Central School of Speech and Drama, London, UK): experiments in modes of working and staging Volume 4: Reinhardt, Granville Barker, Jessner (edited by Professor Peter W. Marx, University of Cologne, Germany): the engagement with aesthetic modernism as part of a set of formal languages, leading to new approaches to the expressive apparatus