Programme Notes

I have just finished reading this small but perfectly formed book published by the Live Art Development Agency and I would highly recommend it.

Here is the blurb on the website of Unbound - where you can buy it for a reduced price (I have put a link to the site in my links bar):

Programme Notes: Case studies for locating experimental theatre is a collection of case studies, interviews and essays which explores the ways in which contemporary theatre is changing through new relationship between mainstream venues and experimental practices. Programme Notes is a unique resource reflecting models of exciting and innovative collaborations at work across the UK.

Contributions by: Lyn Gardner, Tim Etchells, Neil Bartlett, Stella Hall, John McGrath, Alan Rivett, Mark Borkowski, Rose Fenton, Brian Logan, Lucy Neal, Keith Khan, Simon Casson, Louise Jeffreys, Judith Knight, and Toni Racklin.

Here is a quote from Tim Etchells that I particularly like the sentiment of:

Inside the theatre there are only the performers and the audience.

Onstage the performers will have some material items - this night's variation on flimsy or not-so-very flimsy scenery, plus props, costumes and whatever other stuff. The audience, for their part, will most likely have their coats, their handbags and the contents of their pockets but that's all - aside from the performers, the audience and the stuff they each have with them that' s really all there is. The whole of the rest of the world- its physical locations and landscapes, its entire population, its complete set of objects and all of its very very many unfolding events, large and small, significant and banal - is invariably outside this room, this place, emphatically absent.

I like the the concise nature of the book and the way it brings together a current discourse about the location and situation of experimental theatre and the position it is in - posed to trample over the ever present theatrical mainstream of social realism (ITS STILL HERE!).

All we need is for the audiences, critics, and funding bodies to teeter it over the edge.