Overview

This significant contribution to the study of the live and recorded broadcasting of stage plays focuses on National Theatre Live a decade after its launch in 2009. Assessing livecasting through the concepts of spectacle, materiality and engagement, it examines the role played by audiences in livecasting. Illustrated by in-depth analyses of recent NT Live shows, including A Midsummer Night‘s Dream (2019), Antony and Cleopatra (2018) and Small Island (2019), the book is complemented by insights from practitioners involved in the making of the livecasts. Finally, livecasting is contextualized within recently emerged forms of Covidian (virtual) theatre during the pandemic in order to offer some thoughts on the future of the genre of theatrical performance. Combining lively analyses of recent theatre performances with auto-ethnographic accounts, Heidi Lucja Liedke turns to 20th-century thinkers such as Walter Benjamin and Bertolt Brecht in order to understand livecasting’s place in a continuum of developments taking place on the borders of media, film and performance for the past 100 years. As well as embedding livecasting in its historical context of 19th-century electrophone technology, Liedke assesses its position in contemporary discourses on the meaning of theatre for spectators in the pre- and post-pandemic moment, and points towards the form’s future.

Full Product Details

Author:   Heidi Lucja Liedke (Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany)
Publisher:   Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Imprint:   Methuen Drama
Dimensions:   Width: 13.80cm , Height: 1.60cm , Length: 21.40cm
Weight:   0.300kg
ISBN:  

9781350341005

ISBN 10:   1350341002
Pages:   240
Publication Date:   23 January 2025
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Manufactured on demand  
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Table of Contents

List of Figures Acknowledgements Introduction: Locating Livecasting – Twenty-First Century British Theatre on the Threshold Locating Livecasting Constructing the Live Distractions, Slippages and Turns: Spectacle – Archive Research Overview Aims and Structure of the Book Part I: Spectacle and Materiality Chapter 1. Old New Media: The Optionality of the Theatre Space and Different Forms of Embodiment in Early Live Theatre and Music Broadcasting Early Broadcasting Technologies as Substitutes Acousmatic Livecasting in the Nineteenth Century: Visual Landscapes Not A Substitute for the Real Thing – The NT’s Dip Into Broadcasting in the 1940s and 1950s The Launch of NT Live Then and Now: The Fifth Auditorium Chapter 2. Watching Others Having Fun – Livecasting as Spectacle The Best of British Theatre Spectacle and Theatre on Screens – Images and Deception Sports Events, Spectacle and NT Live Framing Livecasting: Mediated Spectacle and Communitas Livecasting as Affective Spectacle: A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Bridge Theatre/NT Live) Chapter 3. Capturing the Atmosphere: The Material-Theatrical A Word on Wires, Screens and Electricians from a Brechtian Perspective Theatrical and Cinematic Modes – Filmed Theatre Spatially Extended Atmospheres: The Materiality of the Theatrical Space Shifts Making the Theatrical Experience Porous: Stuttering Screens PART II: Engagement Chapter 4. Livecasting, Liveness, and the Feeling I Spectator-Centric Theatre and Modes of Engagement with Livecasts Livecasts, Liveness and “We” Bakhtinian and Benjaminian Traces—Fabrics of Engagement I Feel, Therefore I am (a Spectator) Chapter 5. Quasi-Experts in the Context of Livecasting Immediacy and Afterlife Quasi-Experts at Work: Liveness and After-Liveness Enabled by Social Media We Are In It Together: Critiquing the Experience Online Against a Stagnation of Theatre Chapter 6. Covidian Theatre: The Move to Small Screens and into Homes Masks and Socially Distanced Theatre Viral Affect on Screens Covidian Theatre Retrospective Synchronicity and NT At Home Chapter 7. Concluding Discussion and Future Directions: What Remains of Livecasting? Responsible Responsiveness and Liveness What Remains of Livecasting? Works Cited Index

Reviews

Makes a significant contribution to how we understand the live recording and broadcasting of stage plays ... Liedke’s reflections on social media marketing, technological mediation, and pandemic-era adaptations are particularly valuable for understanding new digital strategies and performance models in Britain’s major theatre institutions. The book will therefore appeal to theatre practitioners, scholars, and readers interested in more thoroughly examining the intersections of theatre and media. * Theatre Journal * There is […] a mix of historical depth, European sensibility, absorption in Anglo-American scholarship and a sense of liveness in the writing itself, as it is informed by the Zoom conversations and research projects which were part of the pandemic experience of live theatre … A book that has much to offer readers. * Studies in Theatre and Performance * Livecasting in Twenty-First-Century British Theatre is a rich, rigorous and provocative study of both this new creative hybrid of cinema, television and theatre and of the radical cultural changes imposed by lockdown. An essential read for those studying this form – and for those who make it. * John Wyver, Professor of the Arts on Screen, University of Westminster, UK *

"""Livecasting in Twenty-First-Century British Theatre is a rich, rigorous and provocative study of both this new creative hybrid of cinema, television and theatre and of the radical cultural changes imposed by lockdown. An essential read for those studying this form - and for those who make it."" --John Wyver, Professor of the Arts on Screen, University of Westminster, UK"

Livecasting in Twenty-First-Century British Theatre is a rich, rigorous and provocative study of both this new creative hybrid of cinema, television and theatre and of the radical cultural changes imposed by lockdown. An essential read for those studying this form – and for those who make it. * John Wyver, Professor of the Arts on Screen, University of Westminster, UK *

Author Information

Heidi Lucja Liedke is Interim Professor in English Literature at Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany. From 2018-2020 she was a Humboldt Postdoctoral Fellow at Queen Mary, University of London, UK. She is the co-editor of a special issue of Theatre Research International on “Presence, Politics, Resistance: Tendencies in (Post-)Pandemic Performance and Theatre” (March 2023). Her work has been published in Performance Matters (2019), Journal of Contemporary Drama in English (2021) and Participations (2021). Twitter: @heidilulie

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