Search

The article discusses early modern English plays from the 1590s to the 1610s, set in or referring to the Mediterranean, which feature Black African characters in marginal roles. These characters are 'spectral' in that they have no speaking part but appear briefly as attendants, servants, musicians, or indeed slaves. The article argues that their spectrality evokes the presence of Black African slaves in the Mediterranean, which has often been ignored in Early Modern Studies. However, through these characters Black slavery is turned into a mere spectacle, performed for the gaze of the theatre audience in early modern London. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Rhetorik is the property of De Gruyter and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The aim of this paper is to analyze the potential contribution of broadcasting live performing arts in movie theaters to the democratization of high culture. To accomplish this, we analyze the profile of attendees to these events to explore whether this new form of cultural consumption can attract individuals who do not normally attend live performances, thereby renewing high-brow audiences. Using data from the Spanish Survey of Cultural Habits and Practices in Spain (2018–2019), we find that individuals who frequently attend movies are more likely to attend live opera broadcasts in movie theaters, even those who do not consume live opera or even do not listen to opera at all. This is a positive insight suggesting that this initiative may be successful to engage new audiences to high culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses some aspects of the editorial philosophy and zeitgeist reflected in the late Ming qu anthology Yichun jin by examining its preface. Firstly, the anthology primarily collects excerpts from Ming playwrights, as explicitly stated in the preface, to advocate that "there are indeed more exquisite qu after the Yuan [dynasty]." As a form of advertisement and promotion, this selection principle also develops the subjectivity of "our/Ming" plays. Secondly, this article examines Yichun jin"s criteria for selecting plays; either "works for the stage" (taiben) or "works for reading" (moben) are included, indicating that the editor did not adhere to a single standard but attempted to satisfy diverse needs of readers, singers, and the theatergoers; this is distinctive among "the literati-type" of anthologies. Specifically, the first volume of Yichun jin collects play excerpts that center on eroticism. The preface uses the Shijing as its romantic origin, and strongly defends the legitimacy of "qing as its first priority," which aptly reflects the late Ming trend of indulgence. The editor utilizes the "question and answer" strategy in the preface to emphasize his intention, collocating illustrations and ci poems printed in different calligraphy styles to show his intervention and ingenuity. In the first volume, "Youqi xiezhao -- Li," the spring lust in the excerpt of Xixiang ji unveils the erotic aura of this volume. In the last volume, "Yiyang yadiao," apart from its local musical style, the play features excerpts about the separation of couples and lovers to become a contrast with the first volume, balancing the idea of qing in the whole book. The editorial philosophy of the Yichun jin contributed to its stature as a distinguished work among late Ming qu anthologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Signa is the property of Editorial UNED and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article examines the accessibility of theater performances for Deaf audiences in Slovakia, with a main focus on the provision of Theater Sign Language Interpreting (TSLI). Drawing on analysis of current access strategies, the authors highlight examples of good practice aligned with more user-centred, inclusive and participatory access-provision models. Based on the results of an exploratory qualitative research interview with the key representative of the Deaf community involved in their development in the country, the main principles within these strategies are identified. Through this exploration, the article advocates for further enhancement of integrated and inclusive access strategies in Slovak theaters and further reveals the characteristics as well as the potential of professional TSLI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

London's Clean Break Theatre Company was founded in 1979 by two incarcerated women as an issue-based company devoted to "touring plays that revealed the struggles faced by women in prison" ("Our Story"). Over the past forty-five years, Clean Break has expanded the scope of its dramatic inquiry to focus not exclusively on women's incarceration but also more broadly on women's enmeshment in the carceral state. I argue that two Clean Break commissions translate the hard-to-conceptualize relationship between prison and the larger carceral state into a theatrical idiom that audiences can see, sense, and feel. In these plays – Winsome Pinnock's Mules (1996) and Lucy Kirkwood's it felt empty when the heart went at first but it is alright now (2009) – I discover four specific, shared dramaturgical strategies. These elements, which I term carceral dramaturgy, cooperate to stage the dramatic protagonists as trapped within a punitive network of sites and policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Place can shape and influence audience behavior during a performance. This is especially noticeable in the site-specific immersive theatre model, where the performance occurs in a non-theatre setting and audiences have an active role. In this article, we argue that 'place schema' – a term from the interdisciplinary field of environment-behavior studies – provides a conceptual framework for better understanding audience behavior within immersive theatre environments. We know how to behave in a theatre building because we have codified experiences regarding the environment in our minds called place schemata. They help us process spatial information, predict what is likely to happen, and decide how to take action accordingly. However, if this spatial information does not match the 'theatre schema' we have in our minds, as is often the case in an immersive theatre setting, we would need to update our existing schema. In this article, we examine Punchdrunk's Sleep No More (2011 New York production, which is still running) to evaluate how audiences carry the behavioral rules of traditional theatre schema into immersive theatres and consider how expectations, roles, and rules of place influence the relationship between the audience and setting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article contributes to a forum that discusses how publics can be studied within a global framework, specifically staging done by content creator Kedar Nath Das Gupta to present Indian culture to British and American audiences between 1907 to 1942, and how this helped to foster interculturalism.

The theatre has been an amalgamation of history, society, and its representation where it connects with the audience directly. It has been a medium of resistance, protest, and entertainment and a cultural and social tradition in various countries. This paper is an analytical study of feminist theatre and its nuances, showing that theatre, which has been used as a mode to protest and resist, becomes a tool to reclaim and re-own space and body for women. It is essential to theorize Feminist Theatre so that its congruency can be established with the socio-cultural and historical paradigm. All the genres that were written to stabilize feminist thought in the discourse fell back on the conventional praxis of mythology and other texts. For example, Indian narratives borrowed feminine tropes from the classical texts whether it was Rabindranath Tagore or Girish Karnad, women were phenomenal yet subdued. Hence, when men wrote women, there was always a hint of "othering" the female gender in these write-ups; there was always a moralistic judgment of these women. Thus, this study is an attempt to theorize women playwrights and feminist performances that have made an attempt to pave the way for feminist scholarships and feminist theatres to evolve. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of the survey is to determine how theatre directors’ perceive the impact of ongoing technological change on key aspects of theatre management. Design/methodology/approach: The study adopted a qualitative perspective. Empirical data was obtained through interviews with theatre directors. The interviews were in-depth, partly standardised and unstructured. The research sample included theatre directors from different countries. Findings: The research identified aspects of theatre management that are particularly susceptible to the dynamic development of next-generation technology. The theatre managers most frequently perceive the impact of technology in relation to: the meaning and function of the theatre; funding of theatre operations; stakeholder relations; maintaining audience relations; aspects of the production of theatre productions; and staffing policy and the functioning of theatre companies. Strongly negative perceptions of the impact of technology are held by theatre directors on, among other things, the functions and relevance of the theatre, the impact of cultural policy, and the autonomy of arts. In contrast, positive perceptions of the impact of technology mainly related to aspects of the production of theatre performances. Research limitations/implications: The research is primarily limited to theatre directors' perspectives and the purposive nature of the sample cautions against broad claims about the entire population. Moreover, private and not-for-profit theatres are underrepresented. However, these findings could serve as a foundation for quantitative research aiming to generalize and explore new technology implementation processes in theatres. Further research into the implementation of artificial intelligence, perceived as a threat to the arts and theatre companies, seems crucial. Practical implications: The results of the research can be taken into account by theatre directors as they implement next-generation technologies. Originality/value: To the best of the author's knowledge, this article presents the first research on theatre managers' perceptions of ongoing technological changes in key management areas grounded in literature. The study's international scope enhances its value. The findings could benefit theatre directors, cultural organizers, researchers in theatre and cultural management, third-sector organizations in the theatre industry, and developers of new cultural technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Burgerz, first staged in 2018, is a one-person show by British theatre-maker and writer Travis Alabanza. The production re-enacts an incident of transphobic violence Alabanza faced in 2016, during which an assailant threw a burger and yelled a transphobic slur at them. This essay argues that cooking onstage and audience participation combine to create an experience of solidarity among audiences at the performance. It explores how Burgerz incorporates modes of sociality familiar to queer nightlife venues, which in turn helps to facilitate the show's participatory strategies in theatre audiences. Solidarity-making emerges as something spectators feel with one another as an audience unit, with the performer, and with those the performer speaks about in the performance: trans and gender non-conforming people who experience violence in the public sphere. This encourages greater sensitivity towards transphobia and encourages audiences to practise modes of support for and alongside those facing transphobic violence in and beyond the time of performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two key trends stand out within recent scholarship on spectatorship in immersive performance. The first is methodologically driven and falls into the theatre and performance studies sub-field of audience studies and considers individual audience experiences of performance. The second is theoretically driven and uses Jacques Rancière's The Emancipated Spectator as an interpretative lens through which to consider audience experience in general, specifically in terms of agency. Here, I argue that the time has come to introduce additional rubrics for the analysis of spectatorship in immersive theatre, to further discussion and to add a new dimension to our understanding of the phenomenon. To do so, I attempt to unify the methodologically driven with the theoretically driven and propose a new rubric for the analysis of spectatorial experience of immersive performance based upon Friedrich Nietzsche's notion of the Apolline and the Dionysiac as articulated in The Birth of Tragedy. I take Punchdrunk's 2013–14 production The Drowned Man as a paradigmatic example and analyse the co-presence of the Apolline and Dionysiac drives at the point of reception. I utilise a mixed-method approach to surveying the audience experience of three key components of performance, namely scenographic engagement, large-scale, crowd-drawing choreographic sequences, and one-on-one experiences, and suggest that audience records of satisfying moments of performance reflect a balancing of the Apolline and the Dionysiac, whereas frustrating experiences reflect an imbalance. Overall, I argue that by continuing the tradition of developing Nietzsche's binary to understand contemporary practice we gain an additional tool that holds productive possibilities for unpicking how and why moments of immersive performance might be particularly alluring or, conversely, frustrating for difference audiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Didactic theatre for a young audience (TYA) is perceived as a widespread obstacle to the artistic quality and value of TYA. This article rethinks and deconstructs the assumptions that didactic TYA is low-quality, conservative, and unwilling to break taboos, considering changes over the last fifty years. I argue that didactic theatre exploits the medium to deliver a clear message in order to create habitus for young spectators yet may display professional quality as well as break taboos. Discourse opposing didactic theatre does not reflect its prevalence but rather, the desire of artists and scholars to accumulate symbolic capital and prestige for the field and themselves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The White Card (2018) and Fairview (2018), two recent plays by contemporary Black female playwrights Claudia Rankine and Jackie Sibblies Drury, raise questions about how overcoming socially constructed racial categories presupposes the idea of a (theatrical) community as the conceptual framework that informs theater's political efficacy. As such, The White Card and Fairview register the inherent fissures and cleavages that result from various processes of racialization structuring the theatrical performance itself. This article suggests that the plays by Rankine and Drury create a form of theatrical dissensus that fundamentally disrupts how issues of race and racism are rendered tangible in theatrical performances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Starting from the famous night session of the Assemblée nationale on August 4/5, 1789, my article examines the intertwining of political representation, theatrical representation and bon sens or sens commun , as it becomes apparent in journalistic texts from the first phase of the French Revolution. The following questions will be discussed: 1) To what extent does the theater audience function as a paradigm of the public sphere in revolutionary society? How and by what means can the audience gallery of the assembly hall be extended into the media public sphere? 2) If the public sphere of the revolutionary society is to be conceived according to the model of the theater audience, what contribution can it make to the formation of national will and the activation of the public spirit? Is there perhaps a latent sensus non-communis hidden behind the ostensibly propagated sensus communis ? And finally: 3) Does the introduction of the theater paradigm for the public sphere have anything to do with a new time economy of political and communicative action, i.e. with the strong acceleration of political decision-making processes on the one hand, and mass media communication on the other? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this work is to understand the specifics of the cultural layer of opera seria, taking into account the church-specified mystical meaning of this genre and taking into account that artistically self-sufficient music first developed in the Viennese school, and the formed vocal of figurative singing, later designated as bel canto, had a pronounced church genetics and combined the meaning of "dematerialized", extraverbal expression. The elements of proto-Viennese art, indisputable in H. Haеndel's presentation, do not remove the cultural and didactic direction of the entire opera "Caesar in Egypt" by H. Haеndel. The methodological basis of the work is the position of the intonation approach of the school of B. Asaf'ev in Ukraine in the person of I. Lyashenko, I. Kotlyarevsky - and their numerous students who formed their own scientific schools (O. Kozarenko, O. Markova, O. Roschenko, etc.). At the same time, we highlight the hermeneutic-comparative, biographical-descriptive, stylistic-genre methods, as they reflected the discovery of the psychology of creativity in the works of J. Huizingа, M. Eliade, and other art historians. The scientific novelty of the study is determined by the fact that for the first time in Ukrainian musicology, the cultural value of the heritage of opera seria as the brainchild of mystery-didactic thinking became the subject of research, and for the first time in the indicated direction, the above-mentioned work of H. Handel was analyzed. For the first time, the cultural specificity of the performance of a baroque opera is understood, the ecclesiastical essence of which does not coincide with the classics of the staged "opera realism". Conclusions. The generalization of information about the existence of seria from the beginning of the 18th century to the 1720s indicates significant changes in the conditions of the presentation of this genre in the theater and the audience's attitude to the typical features of the characters of the classic seria, with a hagiographic undertone, while the German version by H. Haеndel is "infected" with elements of psychologism and individualization of the characters. Ahistorically, in the pledges of the Christian worldview principles of love and mercy, the historical material is interpreted, clearly aimed at the didactics of attracting the authority of the famous historical figures Caesar, Cleopatra to the pantheon of Christian-recognized forerunners of the work of Christ. Stagingly, considering the mysterious background of seria, one should take into account the seriousness-ecclesiastical nature of the idea of that genre as a "concert in costumes", taking into account the celebratory-initiative nature of the influence of this kind of pro-mysterial performances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay encourages scholars to pay more attention to Shel Silverstein's unfortunately neglected short plays. Arguing that Silverstein's plays are a particularly queer subset of Silverstein's oeuvre, both formally and thematically, one that offers a profound articulation of Silverstein's bohemian critique of our dominant, heterosexist institutions and ideologies, particularly our bourgeois constructions of the family and the family's concomitant ideology of futurity as embodied in the image of the child. Finally, the essay suggests that the ideological and aesthetic work of Silverstein's plays hinges upon the audience's familiarity with his popular persona, Uncle Shelby, the playful playground raconteur behind The Giving Tree and Where the Sidewalk Ends. Shel Silverstein's short plays are a key part of his conceptual continuity. We ought to be more mindful of them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In her play Prima Facie, playwright and lawyer Suzie Miller uses theatre to critique legal responses to sexual violence. This article thus offers an analysis of the play as both feminist theatre and feminist advocacy. We examine the rhetorical and performative strategies it deploys, arguing that they are effective because they mobilise long-standing feminist tropes which use a representative figure of the traumatised victim and the repetition of statistics to position the audience as potential victims of violence. Such strategies, however, fail to account for the complexity of sexual violence, intersectional understandings of it, or its relationship to other structural forms of harm that flow from turning to the state, as articulated by Black feminist scholars. These limitations also function in the play's loop between an indictment of law's failings and recuperating the law as a privileged site for responding to sexual violence. We read this tension as exemplifying the play's enactment of a cruelly optimistic relationship to law, which is, we argue, a recurring feature in feminist cultural advocacy around sexual violence. However, we also suggest that reading the play through the words of its protagonist can open visions of justice beyond what Carol Smart has described as the 'siren call of law'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The IFLA Library Reference Model (LRM) defines work as an abstract entity that represents "the intellectual or artistic content of a distinct creation." The work entity enables the grouping of equivalent content in search results and enables connecting and relating resources across databases and documentation practices, independent of media and format. This article explores how the LRM work entity relates to and is understood in the context of theater performance documentation. It presents an analysis of different conceptual models relevant to performance documentation and examines how databases for performing arts refer to or include works. The main part of the article, however, is a user study based on interviews with theater researchers on how they understand the concept of work in relation to theater performances. The main research contribution of this work is the gained insight into how the concept of work is understood in the context of theater performance documentation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While co-authorship was common practice in early modern drama, poetological treatises remain silent about it. They speak about the poet but not about collaboration. It is, hence, one of the aims of this article to arrive at conceptualisations of co-authorship through immanent reflections of co-creativity and authorial interaction. In particular, we will show that stylistic practices form an essential part of such reflections, which also helps us dissociate style from the identification of individual authorship. Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet and Beaumont and Fletcher's Philaster, or Love Lies A-Bleeding have been chosen to show how juxtapositions and adaptations of style in both single-authored and co-authored works reveal practices of collaboration in early modern theatre. As a result of our investigation, elements of a poetics of collaborative playwriting will emerge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To enrich characterisation and bond with audiences, Jacobethan playwrights included Classical tags, Bible verses and vernacular quotations in their work. Borrowings from other plays were particularly effective: a line of dialogue could 'go viral' straight from the stage. This verbal network, linking hundreds of early modern plays by one-liners, names and catchphrases, can now be investigated through the WordWeb-IDEM database, which contains over ten thousand text extracts that quote each other. The part of John Marston in this dramatic intertextuality is as yet under-researched. He saturated his writing with others' words extensively and idiosyncratically; tracing these overlaps with Marston's unwitting 'collaborators' richly illustrates the research potential offered by the WordWeb-IDEM corpus and its search options. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the creation and reception of The Stream You Step In, a digital series co-produced by Outside the March for University of Windsor students and performed live over Zoom in 2020. While Zoom is assumed to be a care-less medium, we argue that it offers new, altered modes of caring through its disruption of boundaries and de-hierarchisation of many theatrical and training norms. Combining reflections on dramaturgy, directing, and pedagogy with empirical data on audience reception, we suggest how the lessons of pandemic performances might benefit our in-person classrooms and stages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From roughly 1930 to 1950, newsreel theaters played important roles in urban and film cultures. These small (200- to 600-seat) theaters showed hour-long loops of news that patrons could drop into from morning to midnight. Some aspects of the newsreel theater experience extended the rituals of nickelodeon spectatorship of earlier decades, and others predated the post–World War II development of television news consumption. Newsreel theaters allowed patrons to pass the time watching motion picture news, and they became politically charged spaces offering ways for people to watch and react vocally to the news in public as members of groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article gives a brief account of the two-hundred-year-old performance history of Hamlet at Elsinore Castle; this is followed by a discussion of Gertrude as portrayed in nine English or English-speaking Hamlets at Elsinore, beginning with Olivier and the Old Vic in 1937 and concluding with Cape Town Theatre Company eighty-five years later, in 2022. The article discusses different aspects of how Gertrude (as seen through the prism of these particular Hamlet productions) has been portrayed on stage, drawing attention to the fact that, particularly in productions with a star actor in the title role, Gertrude has often been neglected, ignored or marginalised by the director, or else objectified and sexualised for the benefit of the audience: aged down, dumbed down or otherwise commodified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The fragmentary nature of the aesthetic in Artaud lies in its intensity and trauma. As found in his invented language, recorded utterances, drawings of portraits, hieroglyphic texts, and an irregular cadence of his recorded voice--most of which are exquisitely captured in the Artaud Diptych--this article not only seeks the connection to what is described as forms of "language" and the sublime but also informs the privation communicated in the embodied works of Artaud. As such, Artaud is approached within selected theories of the sublime, presented genealogically and interwoven with praxis, exemplified through the plays of two Greek playwrights, Ioli Andreadi and Aris Asproulis. The performances of Artaud Diptych give us that which embodies an Artaudian engagement with the sublime. The argument herein is that the sublime emanates from various aspects of the writing, imagery, and aural qualities immanent to the Artaudian oeuvre. While Artaud's venture into theater writing may be considered a failed experiment, this article shows how he achieved a singularity in the self-transformative process (and as an avenue of self-preservation), using language as word, imagery, and sound, as affective agents toward the sublime, ultimately operating within a mode of intersubjectivity. In the translation of his oeuvre toward theater and the audience, we discover the ultimate success of his intersubjective work as performative philosophy, as revealed by the Artaud Diptych by Ioli Andreadi and Aris Asproulis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The theater has relied, since its first inception and until now, on the production of many new theatrical formulas and performance methods that are in harmony with the requirements of the times and the necessities of life, since it was a ritual devotional, reaching abstraction and post-drama, which was represented in the minimum level in the representational performance. Performance, so the research included four chapters. The first is the methodological one, which contains the research problem, its importance, its objectives, and the definition of the terms that the researcher concluded with the procedural definition. Those engaged in this approach and previous studies and the result of the theoretical framework of indicators, then came the third procedural chapter and the sample of the research sample that was chosen intentionally from the research community that receded in (2013) was determined, then the fourth chapter came the results and conclusions and then recommendations and suggestions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

1 Henry IV is often praised for how it juxtaposes major geo-political events with the more mundane depictions of city life. But the local London scenes generally aren't thought of as events with their own politics and histories. This essay seeks to trace that local history and show how the play engaged in those local politics. It is specifically interested in how the tavern scene at 2.4. is connected to London's regulations on inn performances in the 1590s. The paper makes two interrelated claims about this scene. The first is historical. The 'play extemporary' at 2.4 should be understood as an illegal or, at the very least, an illicit inn performance that is interrupted by the local authorities and thus can be read against the background of increasing restrictions on inn performances. Next, I argue that the play was probably played at inns, including Cross Keys, and so Falstaff's performance should be understood on a meta-level since the audience would have recognised themselves as tavern-goers watching an illicit performance. Together, these readings help to explain some of the puzzling interpretive cruxes of the text and demonstrate how local political events intruded on Shakespeare's play about national, dynastic history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the Theater der Welt 2023 festival in Frankfurt and Offenbach, Germany, which was curated by Chiaki Soma, the first non-European female curator for the festival. The festival aimed to pluralize the world of theater and featured works from all over the world, with a particular focus on Asian performances. The festival included a major arts exhibition called Incubation Pod. Dreaming Worlds, as well as performances such as Yoroboshi- The Weakling, which reimagined a Japanese classic through a Medea-like lens. The festival also showcased immersive video installations and virtual reality performances. Overall, the festival aimed to provide spaces for contemplation, healing, and recovery in the post-pandemic period. [Extracted from the article]

This article discusses a performance protest that took place during the closing ceremony of the International Federation of Theatre Research Conference in Ghana. The performance, led by artist Va-Bene Elikem Fiatsi, aimed to draw attention to the anti-LGBTQ+ bill that had recently been passed by the Parliament of Ghana. Fiatsi's powerful and provocative performance involved singing, clay, and symbolic actions that highlighted the urgency and violence faced by LGBTQ+ individuals in Ghana. The article emphasizes the silence and lack of public comment from the conference organizers and the University of Ghana, and praises Fiatsi for her bravery and ability to convey the experiences of living as a trans woman in a country that denies her existence. [Extracted from the article]

"Immersive In/Sights: Performing the Cancer Experience" is an article that discusses the immersive site-specific performance called "PasPort - A True Adventure" by Mikros Notos Theatre Group. The performance takes place in the Asylon Aniaton Hospice in Athens, Greece, and explores the experience of breast cancer through a blend of immersive theater and medical narratives. The audience is invited to explore different rooms symbolizing various stages of cancer, and the performance addresses topics such as breast reconstruction dilemmas, sexuality, and the pursuit of normalcy post-illness. While the article suggests that the performance could have been more impactful by maintaining a raw and unsettling tone, it acknowledges the importance of concluding on a reassuring note to provide hope for those facing cancer. [Extracted from the article]

Copyright of Impossibilia: Revista Internacional de Estudios Literarios is the property of Impossibilia: Revista Internacional de Estudios Literarios and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article offers a close reading of audience member reflections of A Simpl Twist of Faith, a Canadian play that uses community-engaged theatre practices and site-specific dramaturgy. What can we as scholars, researchers, and artists learn from long-form audience responses? How does site, time, identity, and community infiltrate and overlap in this play? By centering audience reflections, this article offers a critical case-study in ethnographic audience research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the concept of affect in Shakespeare's public theaters, specifically focusing on the relationship between staged emotions, individual emotional responses, and collective feelings in audiences. The author suggests that understanding affect as fluid dynamics can help us understand how emotions manifest in the complex space of the public theater. The article also discusses the historical and cultural context of fluid dynamics in early modern Europe, emphasizing the interconnectedness of technical knowledge, popular imagination, and everyday life. By studying affective dynamics rather than emotional content, the author argues that we can gain insights into the forces that drive movement and thought. Examples from Shakespeare's plays are used to illustrate the complex and often ambiguous nature of affective responses in audiences. The article explores the idea of affective transmission in early modern theater audiences, arguing that the crowded and turbulent nature of the theater created a collective and fluid experience of emotion. It draws on historical and scientific research to support this perspective, highlighting the physical and physiological aspects of audience engagement. The article suggests that understanding the dynamics of affect in the theater requires a fluid-dynamic perspective that considers both social and material factors. [Extracted from the article]

This article uses netnographic research methods, as a form of olfactory sensory mining, to investigate the smell-based experiences of audience members at Punchdrunk's Sleep No More (2011). In doing so, it seeks to contribute to the field of theatre audience research, as well as intervening in archival questions surrounding the documentation of ephemeral, olfactory, experiences. It problematizes the supposedly ephemeral nature of scents in relation to the supposed ephemerality of the live performance experience and, thus, also extends research on Punchdrunk's works by suggesting the potential the olfactory has for triggering the re-immersive experience. This article lays new groundwork for how theatre researchers can study the relationship between the live-performance experience and smell, as well as signalling the need for further olfactory sensory mining in the field of audience studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article casts a spotlight on Khashabi Theatre, one of several independent Palestinian venues in Haifa. It explores Khashabi's dramaturgical–performative discourse with ghosts, and thereby examines how it produces a 'dual presence' of Palestinian urbanism: the ghostly presence of victims of history who were uprooted from the city, and the presence of the contemporary community that, by converging at the theatre, plays a key part in the revival of urban leisure culture. The article discusses the particular location of the theatre in the city and the dramaturgical characteristics of the two plays staged in the first season. It also examines the objects and the actors' bodies as elements that evoke and conjure up ghosts, and shows how artistic practice, which allows alternative places to be established, plays a key role in the struggle for the 'right to the city', which is also the struggle for the 'right of return'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The theater collectives address different topics and have unique ways of creating theater. They also have a role of "playing according to the field" approach that contrasts with traditional approaches like "theater for the people" and "theater for art." These characteristics challenge the old, established examples of theater and are commonly referred to as 'autonomous theater'. The subsidized or unsubsidized theaters usually perform in large, crowded halls for general theater audiences, also known as the audience of the masses. In contrast, these new avant-garde artistic collectives are restricted to performing in their own small venues for specific audiences. They evoke a struggle between the old and established on one hand, and the new and seeking to find a place for themselves on the other, on their stages. The new theater scene is emerging, in small venues with audiences ranging from 30-70 people. These theaters aim to present diverse narratives on topics such as "fringe, new political, LGBT, immigrant issues, disadvantaged groups". Despite being a semi-professional feminist theater group established in 2000, Theatre Boyalı Kuş does not describe itself as a direct "women's theater". Theatre Boyalı Kuş was founded by Jale Karabekir and Zeynep Kaçar, graduates of the Istanbul University Department of Theater Criticism and Dramaturgy. The company took serious steps towards institutionalization with the later addition of Burçak Karaboğa and Duygu Erdoğan. Contrary to what is claimed, Theatre Boyalı Kuş is not a structure that only houses women. It is a group that aims to change the perception of male dominance in theater, by also involving men in their performances but prioritizing female voices in the decision-making mechanisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]