Programming theater history : the Actor's Workshop of San Francisco / Herbert Blau ; introduction by Elin Diamond.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Blau, Herbert.

Contributor:

Actor's Workshop (San Francisco, Calif.)

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Theater--California--San Francisco--History--20th century.

Theater.

History.

California--San Francisco.

Physical Description:

xiv, 177 pages, 32 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (some color) ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Abingdon, Oxon ; New York : Routledge, 2013.

Summary:

Herbert Blau founded, with Jules Irving, the legendary Actor's Workshop of San Francisco in 1952, starting with ten people in a loft above a judo academy. Over the course of the next thirteen years and its hundred or so productions, it introduced American audiences to plays by Brecht, Beckett, Pinter, Genet, Arden, Fornes, and various unknown others. Most of the productions were accompanied by a stunningly concise and often provocative program note by Blau. These documents now comprise, within their compelling perspective, a critique of the modem theater. They vividly reveal what these now canonical works could mean, first time round, and in the context of 1950s and 1960s American culture, in the shadow of the Cold War. Programming Theater History curates these notes, with a selection of The Workshop's incrementally artful program covers, Blau's recollections, and evocative production photographs, into a narrative of indispensable artefacts and observations. The result is an inspiring testimony by a giant of American performance theory and practice, and a unique reflection of what it is to create theater history in the present. Book jacket.

Contents:

Introduction / by Elin Diamond

A loft, in the early days

Coming up the ramp: mid-term variations

Alienation and the absurd: the mystery remains

Reason not the need: faith or fury, farce or dream

Mixed blessings and the sorcery of persuasion

Home stretch: what will the future think?

The winding sheet: a requiem-coda.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780415516693

0415516692

9780415516709

0415516706

OCLC:

773023808