Contemporary European Theatre Directors

This expanded second edition of Contemporary European Theatre Directors is an ambitious and unprecedented overview of many of the key directors working in European theatre over the past 30 years. This book is a vivid account of the vast range of work undertaken in European theatre during the last three decades, situated lucidly in its artistic, cultural, and political context. Each chapter discusses a particular director, showing the influences on their work, how it has developed over time, its reception, and the complex relation it has with its social and cultural context. The volume includes directors living and working in Italy, Germany, France, Spain, Poland, Russia, Romania, the UK, Belgium, Switzerland, and the Netherlands, offering a broad and international picture of the directing landscape. Now revised and updated, Contemporary European Theatre Directors is an ideal text for both undergraduate and postgraduate directing students, as well as those researching contemporary theatre practices, providing a detailed guide to the generation of directors whose careers were forged and tempered in the changing Europe following the end of the Cold War.

Maria M. Delgado is Professor and Director of Research at The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, University of London. She has published widely in the area of Spanish-language theatre and film. Her books include 'Other' Spanish Theatres (2003, revised Spanish-language edition, 2017), Federico García Lorca (2008), and ten co-edited volumes. Dan Rebellato is Professor of Contemporary Theatre at Royal Holloway University of London. He has published widely on post-war British theatre and his books include 1956 and All That (1999) and Theatre and Globalization (2009). He is also a playwright whose works have been performed on stage and radio in the UK, Europe, and the USA.

List of plates Notes on contributors Foreword by Mark Ravenhill Acknowledgements Revised introduction to first edition Maria M. Delgado and Dan Rebellato Introduction to the second edition Dan Rebellato and Maria M. Delgado 1. Ariane Mnouchkine: Activism, formalism, cosmopolitanism Brian Singleton 2. Patrice Chéreau: Staging the European crisis David Fancy 3. Lev Dodin: The director and cultural memory Peter Lichtenfels 4. Silviu Purcarete: Contemporising classics Aleksandar SaSa Dundjerovic 5. Frank Castorf and the Volksbühne: Berlin's theatre of deconstruction Marvin Carlson 6. Daniel Mesguich: 'Unsummarisable' mises en scène Jim Carmody (with additional material by Dominic Glynn) 7. Declan Donnellan and Cheek by Jowl: 'To protect the acting' Aleks Sierz 8. Piotr Borowski and Poland's Studium Teatralne: Where process becomes performance Paul Allain 9. Christoph Marthaler: The musicality, theatricality, and politics of postdramatic direction David Barnett 10. Jan Lauwers: Performance realities - memory, history, death Janelle Reinelt 11. Simon McBurney: Shifting under/soaring over the boundaries of Europe Stephen Knapper (with additional material by Dan Rebellato) 12. Ivo van Hove: Celebrity and reader Dennis Flannery 13. Deborah Warner: Experiments of words, bodies, and place Adam J. Ledger 14. Romeo Castellucci: The director on this earth Alan Read 15. Kristian Frédric: Boxing with the 'gods' Judith G. Miller 16. Krzysztof Warlikowski: Rupturing taboos, curating publics Bryce Lease 17. Calixto Bieito: Staging excess in, across, and through Europe Maria M. Delgado 18. Rodrigo García and La Carnicería Teatro/Boucherie Théâtre: From the collective to the director Lourdes Orozco 19. Katie Mitchell: Learning from Europe Dan Rebellato 20. Thomas Ostermeier: A 'sociological theatre' for the age of globalised precarity Peter M. Boenisch Postscripts 21. Peter Sellars: Identity, culture, and the politics of theatre in Europe Maria M. Delgado 22. The director's new tasks Patrice Pavis Translated by Joel Anderson Index