Sample reading list for Theatre Studies 1A: Reading the Stage

Key texts for semester one:

Aston, E., and G. Savona. Theatre as Sign System. London: Routledge, 1991.
Kushner, Tony. Angels in America. Part One: Millennium Approaches. London: Nick Hern,
1992.

We also recommend the following as general introductions to the field of Theatre Studies:

Balme, Christopher. The Cambridge Introduction to Theatre Studies. Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 2008.
Fischer- Lichte, Erika. The Routledge Introduction to Theatre and Performance Studies.
London: Routledge, 2014.

To accompany the workshop-seminars, we also recommend Augusto Boals Games for Actors and
Non-Actors, Alison Oddeys Devising Theatre, and Deirdre Heddon and Jane Millings Devising
Performance.

Online and digital resources

We currently have subscriptions to a number of digital archives which include many of the key
performance texts studied on the first year course and across the degree. These include:

The Routledge Performance Archive: http://www.routledgeperformancearchive.com/

Drama Online: http://dramaonlinelibrary.com/

All electronic resources can be accessed using your Glasgow University ID.

Essential and Recommended Reading

Essential texts are those which contain the key arguments and ideas that we will be exploring. The
lectures are not summaries of these texts but explore, apply and test their ideas (often in relation to
the live performances that you may have seen this semester).

Further reading will add to your understanding, and allow you to locate the arguments that have
been introduced to you in the wider field of theatre and performance studies. For further guidance,
please talk with your lecturers.

Unit 1: Liveness

Essential

Reason, Matthew. Documentation, Disappearance and The Representation of Live Performance,

Palgrave Macmillan, 2006. ELECTRONIC RESOURCE

Recommended

Auslander, Philip. The Performativity of Performance Documentation. PAJ 28:3(2006): 1-10.

McAuley, Gay. The Video Documentation of Theatrical Performance. New Theatre Quarterly 38
(1994): 183-194.

Read, Claire. Live, or almost live : the politics of performance and documentation. International
Journal of Performance Arts and Digital Media 10:1(2014): 67-76.

Schechner, Richard. Performance Studies: an Introduction. London: Routledge, 2002.

(chapters/sections 2, 4 and 6)

Auslander, Philip. Liveness: Performance in a Mediatised Culture. New York: Routledge, 2008.

Etchells, Tim. Certain Fragments. London: Routledge, 1999. (section 1: essays)

States, Bert O. The Actors Presence: Three Phenomenal Modes. Zarrilli, Phillip, ed. Acting (Re)
Considered. London: Routledge, 1995.

Unit 4: Acting and Not-Acting

Essential Texts

Zarrilli, Philip (ed), Acting (Re)Considered, London: Routledge, 1995. You must read chapters 1, 4, 21
and 23. ELECTRONIC RESOURCE.

Innes, Christopher, Avant Garde Theatre 1892 1992, London: Routledge, 1993. ELECTRONIC
RESOURCE.

Auslander, Philip, from acting to performance, London: Routledge, 1997.ELECTRONIC RESOURCE

Live Art Development Agency (eds), Programme Notes: Case Studies for Locating Experimental
Theatre, London: Live Art Development Agency, 2007. ELECTRONIC RESOURCE

Witts, Noel and Brayshaw, Teresa (eds) The Twentieth Century Performance Reader, 3rd edition,
London: Routledge, 2013. ELECTRONIC RESOURCE

Frost, Anthony and Yarrow, Ralph, Improvisation in Drama, Basingstoke: Macmillan Education, 2007.
Chapter 3. ELECTRONIC RESOURCE.

Further Reading

Schechner, Richard, Performance Studies: An Introduction, London: Routledge, 2002.

Brandt, George, (ed), Modern Theories of Drama, (Part 3: Anti-Naturalism) Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1998.

Kershaw, Baz, The Radical in Performance: Between Brecht and Baudrillard, London: Routledge,
1999.

Aronson, Arnold, American Avant Garde Theatre: a History, London: Routledge, 2000.