American Avant-Garde Theatre: A History (Theatre Production Studies) - Hardcover

Aronson, Arnold

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 041502580X ISBN 13: 9780415025805

Publisher: Routledge, 2000

Synopsis

This stunning contribution to the field of theatre history is the first in-depth look at avant-garde theatre in the United States from the early 1950s to the 1990s. American Avant-Garde Theatre offers a definition of the avant-garde, and looks at its origins and theoretical foundations by examining:
*Gertrude Stein
*John Cage
*The Beat writers
*Avant-garde cinema
*Abstract Expressionism
*Minimalism
There are fascinating discussions and illustrations of the productions of the Living Theatre, the Wooster Group, Open Theatre, Ontological-Hysteric Theatre and Performance Group. among many others. Aronson also examines why avant-garde theatre declined and virtually disappeared at the end of the twentieth century.

About this title

Review:

""American Avant-Garde Theatre offers its reader stimulating descriptions of subversive acts staged by the Living Theatre, the Open Theatre, Richard Foreman, Rober Wilson, the Wooster Group and, in lesser detail, Jack Smith, Reza Abdoh and a handful of others.."
-Daniel Mufson, "American Theatre
"Aronson ties his observations together with useful, sometimes amusing tidbits....."
-Daniel Mufson, "American Theatre
"Aronson's prose...avoids the often nebulous catch-phrases that clutter the more theoretical discussions of the same topic.."
-Daniel Mufson, "American Theatre
"Aronson's essential, engaging book treats another American theater--one equally significant and, in some respects, more fascinating.."
-J. Fisher, "Choice
"There is something delightfully practical about Arnold Aronson's "American Avant-Garde Theatre: A History. Concise, informed, and accessible, it is in many respects the primer that scholars have long sought for courses on US avant-garde theatre...the book offers an insightful look at some of the most widely celebrated moments in postwar US experimental performance."
-James Harding, Mary Washington College "Theatre Journal, March 2003

About the Author:

Arnold Aronson is Professor of Theatre at Columbia University, USA.

About this edition

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 041502580X
• ISBN 13: 9780415025805
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 257