Theatre practitioner

Theatre practitioner is a modern term to describe someone who both creates theatrical performances and who produces a theoretical discourse that presents his or her practical work. A theatre practitioner may be a director, a dramatist, an actor, or—characteristically—often a combination of these traditionally-separate roles. "Theatre practice" describes the collective work that various theatre practitioners do.

The term is not ordinarily applied to theatre-makers prior to the rise of modernism in the theatre, instead describing theatre praxis from Stanislavski's development of his 'system', through Meyerhold's biomechanics, Antonin Artaud's Theatre of cruelty, Bertolt Brecht's epic and Jerzy Grotowski's poor theatre, down to the present day, with contemporary theatre practitioners including Augusto Boal with his Theatre of the Oppressed, Dario Fo's popular theatre, Eugenio Barba's theatre anthropology and Anne Bogart's viewpoints.

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Theatre of Cruelty

The Theatre of Cruelty (French: Théâtre de la Cruauté) is a form of theatre developed by avant-garde playwright, actor, essayist, and theorist, Antonin Artaud, in The Theatre and its Double. Originally a member of the surrealist movement, Artaud eventually began to develop his own theatrical theories. The Theatre of Cruelty can be seen as break with traditional Western theatre, and a means by which artists assault the senses of the audience, and allow them to feel the unexpressed emotions of the subconscious. While Artaud was only able to produce one play in his lifetime that reflected the tenets of the Theatre of Cruelty, the works of many theatre artists reflect his theories. These artists include Jean Genet, Jerzy Grotowski, and Peter Brook.

History

Antonin Artaud was a member of the surrealist movement in Paris in the 1920s, and was well known as an actor, playwright, and essayist of avant-garde theatre. Much of the avant-garde theatre developed in France from 1914-1939, can be seen as a revolt against tradition. Deeply affected by the events of World War I, the artists of the movement felt increasing skepticism of the existing societal structures that had allowed for global warfare.

Theatre

Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music, and dance. Elements of art and stagecraft are used to enhance the physicality, presence and immediacy of the experience. The specific place of the performance is also named by the word "theatre" as derived from the Ancient Greek θέατρον (théatron, "a place for viewing"), itself from θεάομαι (theáomai, "to see", "to watch", "to observe").

Modern Western theatre comes, in large measure, from ancient Greek drama, from which it borrows technical terminology, classification into genres, and many of its themes, stock characters, and plot elements. Theatre artist Patrice Pavis defines theatricality, theatrical language, stage writing, and the specificity of theatre as synonymous expressions that differentiate theatre from the other performing arts, literature, and the arts in general.

Applied Drama

Applied Drama, also known as Applied Theatre, Interactive Theatreor Applied Drama and Theatre (ADT) is an umbrella term for the use of drama practice in an educational, community or therapeutic context. It is often done in non-theatrical spaces, with participants who do consider themselves to be artists.

There are several forms and practices considered to be under the umbrella of Applied Drama.

History and definition

Applied Drama is a term that has been contested, gaining popularity in towards the end of the 20th century to describe drama practice in an educational, community or therapeutic context.

James Thompson states that "Applied theatre is a participatory theatre created by people who would not usually make theatre. It is, I would hope, a practice by, with and for the excluded and marginalised."

Judith Ackyroyd confirms the inclusion of both of these elements in ADT: "I have identified two features which I believe to be central to our understanding of applied theatre; an intention to generate change (of awareness, attitude, behaviour, etc), and the participation of the audience."

Anywhere Theatre Festival

Anywhere Festival is an annual Brisbane based festival for performance anywhere but traditional theatre spaces. The first anywhere-but-in-a-traditional-theatre concept was brought to Brisbane in 2011 by creative director Paul Osuch and his partner, Ally McTavish. Their theory is that we need to take traditional story-telling out of theatre buildings and back to where life really takes place, in the community.

The festival – which holds performances anywhere but in a traditional theatre – began in 2011 with 4000 attendees and 31 productions. Since it began, the Anywhere Festival (they dropped the "Theatre" in 2015) has grown in size and popularity as it inhabited the nooks and crannies of this city of ours

The idea behind Anywhere is that the art of theatre should not be constrained by, well, a theatre nor by a time frame of two plus hours with interval, or even a genre.

The idea behind Anywhere Festival is that you don't - you shouldn't - have to go to a traditional theatre space to see theatre. You shouldn't have to pay a lot of money for tickets, and artists shouldn't be limited by space or cost or time. For 10 days this month, you can see exciting theatre in parks, backyards, bedrooms, lifts, trains and even on Twitter, not just in Brisbane but as far away as Toowoomba to the west, and Yandina to the north.