Working Group Statement

Our working group was originally founded by the late David Bradby under the name of “Directors/Collectives”. Our change of name in 2010 reflected our members’ widespread interests which encompass a wide range of contemporary theatre, dance and performance practice across all genres. We continue to pursue the group’s original ambition of exploring artistic work and academic perspectives that defy and challenge established preconceptions of neat and tidy categories such as ‘playwrights’ theatre’, ‘directors’ theatre’, ‘dance’ and ‘devised performance’. At the same time, we have expanded our understanding of ‘collective creation’ to also include reflections on the spectators’ role and complicity in the event of performance. Our expanding focus was, in particular signalled by including the emerging field of dramaturgy in our remit.

We are a group of academics and practitioners working in/on a variety of different forms and capacities, from classical drama to dance, puppet theatre to playwriting. We also interact closely with theatre professionals, including the Dramaturgs Network, as well as working groups on related topics in other international subject organisations such as the German Society for Theatre Studies. Our main intention is to provide a stimulating platform for exchange and debate both at the annual TaPRA conferences and by organising interim events on a specific topic/focus, often with invited guest speakers. So far, we invited Ivo van Hove (Toneelgroep Amsterdam), Toni Racklin (Barbican), Simon Stephens, Sebastian Nübling, Lizzie Clachan (Shunt), Ramin Gray as well as academic speakers Alan Read, Maria Delgado, Johan Callens, Robert Shaughnessy and Dan Rebellato to participate in our one-day workshops.

For our work, we have set ourselves the following aims:

• to explore working practices in different forms and genres, and to reflect their artistic as well as socially situated and ideological contexts
• to test and articulate terminologies and methodologies for the study of directing and dramaturgic practice
• to define and conceptualise processes of authorship and spectatorship,
• to investigate contemporary performance relations of narratives, performing bodies, and theatre technologies that transcend the binary opposition of ‘text-based drama’ and ‘devised performance’, and builds transdisciplinary bridges to other fields, such as dance and the visual arts.
• to explore the reflection of aesthetic, social, and ethic responsibilities of theatre in the changing socio-cultural contexts of the twenty-first century.

The Group operates a website and mailing list at http://groupspaces.com/TaPRADirDram/

Annual Conference: Call for Papers 2012

This year we will be considering Brecht’s work in the theatre. On the one hand, Brecht was a magpie, appropriating from many theatre traditions, practitioners and theorists wherever he found something he considered ‘useful’. On the other, he defined ‘usefulness’ exclusively as serving the political and social ends of his theatre and was critical of others who took his ideas merely to perpetuate their own less critical agendas. The working group welcomes historical and/or contemporary research into whether Brecht’s political and social mission has or had the efficacy he sought, whether it needs to be rethought or even rejected in the light of new social orders that have superseded him. Is Brecht useful any more, or was he ever useful? Objects of inquiry need not, of course, explicitly refer to Brecht or consciously use his ideas or practices – it is more the case that contributors use Brecht as a stimulus, a point of reference, or, perhaps, as a counterpoint in their presentations.

We ask participants to read the third chapter of Meg Mumford’s recent book, Bertolt Brecht (Abingdon: Routledge, 2009), ‘The Caucasian Chalk Circle: A Model Production’, pp. 91-129, as a way of locating the relationship between Brecht’s much discussed theories and his often overlooked practice. Participants are also recommended to consult Brecht’s most comprehensive account of his thoughts on theatre, the ‘Short Organum for the Theatre’, which appears in Brecht on Theatre (London: Methuen, 1964), pp. 179-205.

We invite members and potential members of the working group to submit abstracts for contributions to the conference, which may be in the form of 20-minute papers  or practice-as-research, 10-minute ‘provocations’, or any other suitable format. The working group particularly promotes contributions from graduate students and early career researchers, as well as from more established scholars and practitioners. Please send 250-word abstracts or statements of intent to the conference convenors, David Barnett ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ) and Sarah Grochala ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ).

 Deadline for abstracts: 27 April 2012

NB: We kindly request participants wishing to attend without presenting to register their interest to assist us with planning, preparation, and communication of the working group sessions. In this case, if you are a new member, please simply send David and Sarah a brief summary of your research interests and/or current projects and your reasons for joining the working group.

Interim Event 2012

Current Working Group Convenors

David Barnett, University of Sussex

Peter M Boenisch, University of Kent (until September 2012) 

Jacqueline Bolton, University of Reading/V&A (from September 2012) 

Sarah Grochala, Queen Mary, University of London 

Lourdes Orozco, University of Leeds

Past Working Group Convenors

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