Research and Development in British Theatre

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This is the first book to explore how research and development (R & D) is used in contemporary British theatre-making, how it exists as a specific, often discrete methodology and how you can use it in your own theatre-making.

Featuring chapters by internationally recognised researchers, as well as interviews with innovative theatre-makers, it provides emerging theatre-makers with a handy guide to using R&D as part of their own practice, offering hints and tips from practitioners across the British theatre landscape.

Giving insights into their experience of A&D are artistic director Jenny Sealey, movement directors Joseph Alford and Vicki Ikbogwe, performer Selina Thompson, designers Tom Morris and Sophie Jump, composer Lilian Henley, and writers Alex Kelly, Sabrina Mahfouz and Inua Ellams.

Where R&D has been explored in other books, it has been framed as simply the early stages of rehearsal or as an element in a devised project. However, R&D is not limited to early on in a process or to devised projects: it is a recognised and holistic approach to work on scripted drama, both new and existing.

This book argues for and makes possible R&D as a discrete period of practical creativity that can also function as an end in itself without the need for a direct line between R&D and output or product, in line with this shift in direction from the Arts Council and major policy campaigns.

It is within this context and the prevalence of R&D as a key methodology in the work of the most exciting and innovative theatre companies in the UK that this important book sits, offering guidance on one of the most fertile and creatively engaging processes in contemporary theatre.

Reviews

This book is a revelation, enabling the reader to go up-stream and see the sources of shows from the first inklings in the minds of their makers. By mixing trenchant argument and analysis with insightful first-person interviews with key theatre folk, it builds to a compelling case for the need for R&D and a rallying cry for it to be funded. * Steve Waters, Professor of Scriptwriting, University of East Anglia, UK *

Author Bio

Tom Cantrell is Reader in Theatre and Associate Dean for Learning, Teaching and Students in the Arts and Humanities Faculty at the University of York, UK. His research explores performance and, in particular, acting processes. He has published four books on acting: Acting in British Television (Palgrave, 2017) and Exploring Television Acting (Bloomsbury, 2018), both with Christopher Hogg. He co-edited Playing for Real with Mary Luckhurst (Palgrave, 2010), and wrote Acting in Documentary Theatre (Palgrave, 2013).

Katherine Graham is Lecturer in Theatre at the University of York, UK. Her research explores the agency of light and other scenographic materials in performance. She has published work about light in Contemporary Theatre Review, Studies in Theatre and Performance and Theatre and Performance Design. She is the lead editor of the forthcoming Contemporary Performance Lighting (Bloomsbury, 2021) and a co-convenor of TaPRAs scenography working group. She has also worked extensively as a designer for theatre and dance in the UK and Ireland.

Karen Quigley is Senior Lecturer in Theatre at the University of York, UK. Her research explores moments of unstageability and impossibility in contemporary theatre and performance, particularly in terms of the creative relationship between text and performance. Her first monograph, Performing the Unstageable: Success, Imagination, Failure, was published by Bloomsbury in February 2020.

Mark Smith is Lecturer in Theatre at the University of York, UK. His research examines production and directorial processes across a range of contexts, with a particular interest in intersections between physicality and text. He has co-authored a manuscript on Frantic Assembly with Professor Mark Evans (Routledge) and has also published work about Forced Entertainments durational and marginal performances.