Directing Postmodern Theater: Shaping Signification in Performance

By Jon Whitmore

Book Overview

Directing Postmodern Theater brings together critical theory and contemporary theater practice to provide valuable tools for directing in today's expansive performance world.Postmodern theater places new and novel demands on stage directors. It is more experimental, and the boundaries of what constitutes a performance have shifted. Dialogue is no longer always the primary mode of communication, and music, sound, movement, and other visual elements are being explored as ways to make meaning onstage.Directing Postmodern Theater identifies the key communications systems at work in the theater: linguistic, visual, aural, olfactoral, and physical. Further, it pinpoints and examines twenty semiotic sign-systems that can be manipulated by directors to bring about meaningful communication. It is also the first book to bridge the gap between theoretical discussions of semiotics and the actual practice of producing theater. For those theories to have an impact, argues Whitmore, they must be linked to the process of transforming a playscript or concept into a living performance. This book fills the gap in practical yet provocative ways, grounding theoretical discussions in examples from specific postmodern productions.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0472065572
• ISBN13: 9780472065578
• Release Date: June 1994
• Publisher: University of Michigan Press
• Length: 254 Pages
• Weight: 0.98 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.9" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

This book is great for all directors!

If you are a director, READ THIS BOOK! It's based in theory but Whitmore transforms the semiotics into practical application in very clear ways. I'm so glad I bought it.

Useful compendium to the study of contempoary theatre.

Whitmore's guide is an excellent tool for any theorist of theatre studies and a brilliant introduction for the under-graduate. Unlike other 'essential' reading upon ones book list, this really is worth your money. It is a very useful introduction to the use of semiotics in theatre, and is presented in a simple manner that isn't patronising: nor does it make it any the less suitable for higher academic purposes. It allows one to understand some theory of post-modern theatre, using examples from contempoary practioners, while gradually (through each new chapter) building upon the intricate workings of theatre's most pioneering medium. Whitmore should be congratulated on one of the finest reference books I have come across to date.