Experiential Theatres

Experiential Theatres is a collaboratively edited and curated collection that delivers key insights into the processes of developing experiential performance projects and the pedagogies behind training theatre artists of the twenty-first century.

Experiential refers to practices where the audience member becomes a crucial member of the performance world through the inclusion of immersion, participation, and play. As technologies of communication and interactivity have evolved in the postdigital era, so have modes of spectatorship and performance frameworks. This book provides readers with pedagogical tools for experiential theatre making that address these shifts in contemporary performance and audience expectations. Through case studies, interviews, and classroom applications the book offers a synthesis of theory, practical application, pedagogical tools, and practitioner guidance to develop a praxis-based model for university theatre educators training today’s theatre students.

Experiential Theatres presents a holistic approach for educators and students in areas of performance, design, technology, dramaturgy, and theory to help guide them through the processes of making experiential performance.

William W. Lewis, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor of Theatre History, Literature, and Criticism at Purdue University. His research focuses on spectatorship, politics, digital cultures, and experiential performance. As a scholar-artist he also utilizes practice-based research, where he integrates interactive technologies into live performance to better understand the relationships between contemporary audiences and mediatized culture. He has published in Theatre Topics, Performance research, GPS: Global Performance Studies, The International Journal of Performance Arts and Digital Media, and Theatre Research International. Recent book chapters have appeared in New Directions in Teaching Theatre Arts (Palgrave, eds. Anne Flitosos and Gail S. Medford) and Avatars, Activism and Postdigital Performance (Bloomsbury, eds. Liam Jarvis and Karen Savage). Will is the founding co-editor of PARtake: The Journal of Performance as Research.

Sean Bartley, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor of Theatre History at Northwestern State University. His research centers around contemporary site-specific, ambulatory, and immersive theatre practices and sports as performance. His work has been featured in TDR: The Drama Review, Theatre History Studies, Theatre Journal, PARtake: The Journal of Performance as Research, and Borrowers and Lenders: The Journal of Shakespeare and Appropriation. Recent book chapters include "You’re Out! Presence and Absence at the Ballpark" in Sporting Performances: Politics in Play (Routledge, ed. Shannon Walsh) and "The President Makes a Play: Putin and Erdogan’s Sporting Diplomacy" with Jared Strange in Performing Statecraft: The Postdiplomatic Theatre of Sovereigns, Citizens, and States (Bloomsbury, ed. James R. Ball III).