Performance Theory
Routledge Classics Series

Few have had quite as much impact in both the academy and in the world of theatre production as Richard Schechner. For more than four decades his work has challenged conventional definitions of theatre, ritual and performance. When this seminal collection first appeared, Schechner's approach was not only novel, it was revolutionary: drama is not just something that occurs on stage, but something that happens in everyday life, full of meaning, and on many different levels. Within these pages he examines the connections between Western and non-Western cultures, theatre and dance, anthropology, ritual, performance in everyday life, rites of passage, play, psychotherapy and shamanism.

Author's Note; Acknowledgements; Introduction: The fan and the web; 1. Approaches; 2. Actuals; 3. Drama, script, theater, and performance; 4. From ritual to theater and back: the efficacy-entertainment braid; 5. Towards a poetics of performance; 6.Selective inattention; 7. Ethology and theater; 8. Magnitudes of performance; References; Index

General and Undergraduate

One of contemporary theatre's most celebrated directors, he is also a world-renowned artist and scholar.

This cogent and provocative compilation of essays is now a classic text for students of the emergent discipline of performance studies.