The Dark Theatre is an indispensable text for activist communities wondering what theatre might have to do with their futures, students and scholars across Theatre and Performance Studies, Urban Studies, Cultural Studies, Political Economy and Social Ecology. The Dark Theatre returns to the bankrupted warehouse in Hope (Sufferance) Wharf in London’s Docklands where Alan Read worked through the 1980s to identify a four-decade interregnum of ‘cultural cruelty’ wreaked by financialisation, austerity and communicative capitalism. Between the OPEC Oil Embargo and the first screening of The Family in 1974, to the United Nations report on UK poverty and the fire at Grenfell Tower in 2017, this volume becomes a book about loss. In the harsh light of such loss is there an alternative to the market that profits from peddling ‘well-being’ and pushes prescriptions for ‘self-help’, any role for the arts that is not an apologia for injustice? What if culture were not the solution but the problem when it comes to the mitigation of grief? Creativity not the remedy but the symptom of a structural malaise called inequality? Read suggests performance is no longer a political panacea for the precarious subject but a loss adjustor measuring damages suffered, compensations due, wrongs that demand to be put right. These field notes from a fire sale are a call for angry arts of advocacy representing those abandoned as the detritus of cultural authority, second-order victims whose crime is to have appealed for help from those looking on, audiences of sorts.

"Three chilling tales. Two ghostly performers. One thrilling night. Legend has it that many years ago a book of terrifying tales was found. Now, you are invited to discover the secrets of The Book of Darkness & Lightif you dare. Join The Storyteller and The Musician for an evening of spine-tingling tales and haunting live music. Three ghostly stories to delight and horrify, accompanied by the beautiful sounds of the violin. Be thrilled, chilled and thoroughly entertained by this charming storytelling experience. But, be warned, once the pages of the book are opened, anything could happen."

Theatre in the Dark: Shadow, Gloom and Blackout in Contemporary Theatre responds to a rising tide of experimentation in theatre practice that eliminates or obscures light. It brings together leading and emerging practitioners and researchers in a volume dedicated to exploring the phenomenon and showcasing a range of possible critical and theoretical approaches. This book considers the aesthetics and phenomenology of dark, gloomy and shadow-strewn theatre performances, as well as the historical and cultural significances of darkness, shadow and the night in theatre and performance contexts. It is concerned as much with the experiences elicited by darkness and obscured or diminished lighting as it is with the conditions that define, frame and at times re-shape what each might 'mean' and 'do'. Contributors provide surveys of relevant practice, interviews with practitioners, theoretical reflections and close critical analyses of work by key innovators in the aesthetics of light, shadow and darkness. The book has a particular focus on the work of contemporary theatre makers – including Sound&Fury, David Rosenberg and Glen Neath, Lundahl & Seitl, Extant, and Analogue – and seeks to deepen the engagement of theatre and performance studies with what might be called 'the sensory turn'. Theatre in the Dark explores ground-breaking areas that will appeal to researchers, practitioners and audiences alike.

Drawing and Rendering for Theatre, A Practical Course for Scenic, Costume, and Lighting Designers is designed for those of you who are theatrical designers and want to improve your drawing and rendering skills. This gorgeous full-color book includes many examples of student drawings, analyzed and critiqued for areas that need improvement. It also includes numerous examples of design renderings by professional theatrical designers. In addition to the general sections on drawing and painting, it includes separate chapters on costume, scenic, and lighting rendering that include information specific to these design areas.

Focusing on the work of painter, choreographer and scenic designer Oskar Schlemmer, the "Master Magician" and leader of the Theatre Workshop, this book explains this "theatre of high modernism" and its historical role in design and performance studies; further, it connects the Bauhaus exploration of space with contemporary stages and contemporary ethics, aesthetics and society. The idea of "theatre of space" is used to highlight twentieth-century practitioners who privilege the visual, aural, and plastic qualities of the stage above character, narrative and, themes (for example Schlemmer himself, Robert Wilson, Tadeusz Kantor, Robert Lepage). This impressive volume will be of use to students and academics involved in the areas of twentieth-century performance, the history of performance art, the history of avant-garde theatre, modern German theatre, and Weimar-era performance.

An insider's view of Black theatres of the world and how they reflect their culture, concerns, and history.