The Politics of American Actor Training

The essays in this volume address the historical, social, colonial, and administrative contexts that determine today's U.S. actor training, as well as matters of identity politics, access, and marginalization as they emerge in classrooms and rehearsal halls. It considers persistent, questioning voices about our nation’s acting training as it stands, thereby contributing to the national dialogue the diverse perspectives and proposals needed to keep American actor training dynamic and germane, both within the U.S. and abroad. Prominent academics and artists view actor training through a political, cultural or ethical lens, tackling fraught topics about power as it plays out in acting curricula and classrooms. The book offers a survey of trends in thinking on actor training and investigates the way American theatre expresses our national identity through the globalization of arts education policy and in the politics of our curriculum decisions.

Ellen Margolis is Associate Professor and Chair of Theatre, Pacific University, Oregon. She is an award-winning director and actor, with writings published in Radical Acts anthology, in theatre journals and short play collections. As playwright, she has done productions and workshops with Vital Theatre, Theatre Limina, Portland Center Stage/PlayGroup, and received commissions from the Susan G. Komen Foundation and Mile Square Theatre. She served as Literary Director, International Centre for Women Playwrights, 2002–2004.

Lissa Tyler Renaud has been Director of California-based Actors’ Training Project since 1985. Recipient of National Science Foundation and Ford Foundation grants among others, she spent six years overseas as Visiting Professor/Master Teacher of Directing, Theory, Acting, Voice and Ideokinesis. She is a recitalist and award-winning actress, and lectures and publishes widely on the avant-garde and contemporary actor training, in the U.S. and Asia. She serves as co-editor for the International Association of Theatre Critics.