Critical Acting Pedagogy: Intersectional Approaches (Routledge Advances in Theatre & Performance Studies)

Critical Acting Pedagogy: Intersectional Approaches invites readers to think about pedagogy in actor training as a research field in its own right: to sit with the complex challenges, risks, and rewards of the acting studio; to recognise the shared vulnerability, courage, and love that defines our field and underpins our practices.

This collection of chapters, from a diverse group of acting teachers at different points in their careers, working in conservatoires and universities, illuminates current developments in decolonising studios to foreground multiple and intersecting identities in the pedagogic exchange. In acknowledging how their positionality affects their practices and materials, 20 acting teachers from the United Kingdom, the United States, Europe, and Oceania offer practical tools for the social justice acting classroom, with rich insights for developing critical acting pedagogies. Authors test and develop research approaches, drawn from social sciences, to tackle dominant ideologies in organisation, curriculum, and methodologies of actor training.

This collection frames current efforts to promote equality, diversity, and inclusivity in the studio. It contributes to the collective movement to improve current educational practice in acting, prioritising well-being, and centering the student experience.

Lisa Peck is Senior Lecturer in Theatre and Performance Practice at the University of Sussex. Her research interests include actor training, theatre-making pedagogies, women in theatre, critical pedagogies, and site-based performance.

Evi Stamatiou is Senior Lecturer and Course Leader of the MA/MFA Acting for Stage and Screen at the University of East London. She is a practitioner-researcher of actor training with two decades of international experience as an actor and creative.