Overview

How can an understanding of theatre in the city help us make sense of urban social experience? Theatre& the City explores how relationships between theatre, performance and the city affect social power dynamics, ideologies and people's sense of identity. The book evaluates both material conditions (such as architecture) and performative practices (such as urban activism) to argue that both these categories contribute to the complex economies and ecologies of theatre and performance in an increasingly urbanised world. Foreword by Tim Etchells.

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9780230205222

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Reviews

'...Palgrave Macmillan's excellent new outward-looking, eclectic Theatre& ... series.These short books, written by leading theatre academics, do much to reintroduce some of the brightest names in theatre academia to the general reader. Plus, the matrix of references to bigger books soon builds quite a comprehensive catch-up reading list for those of us who graduated more than a decade ago and are interested in where contemporary thinking is at...' - Guardian Theatre Blog, September 2009, http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/theatreblog/2009/sep/10/theatre-critics-academics-artists 'Harvie's engagingly presented and well organized study of theatre and the city effectively combines performative with cultural analysis and offers an introduction to this important subject that should prove attractive to students, scholars, and general readers alike.' - Marvin Carlson, Sidney E. Cohn Distinguished Professor of Theatre and Comparative Literature, City University of New York, USA 'Why city?... Because the city can trap you, nurture you, teach you, unravel you, unspeak you. Because you are just one amongst many here and the dynamic of one in relation to many (conversation, dialogue, difference, the negotiation of public space) is what theatre emerges from and thrives on, what art must address and what cities must somehow contend with if they are to survive.' - Tim Etchells 'Jen Harvie's combative Theatre & The City has an eye for the contradictions in the urban economy, wondering how the 'temporrary community of the auditorium reflects the city beyond.' - Plays International

Author Information

JEN HARVIE is Professor of Contemporary Theatre and Performance at Queen Mary, University of London, UK. She is co-editor of the Theatre& series, author of Staging the UK (2005), co-author of The Routledge Companion to Theatre and Performance (2006) and co-editor of Making Contemporary Theatre (2009).

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