Clive Barker and His Legacy: Theatre Workshop and Theatre Games

Description

An edited collection of essays exploring the work and legacy of the academic and theatre-maker Clive Barker. Together, the essays trace the development of his work from his early years as an actor with Joan Littlewood's company, Theatre Workshop, via his career as an academic and teacher, through the publication of his seminal book, Theatre Games (Methuen Drama). The book looks beyond Barker's death in 2005 at the enduring influence of his work upon contemporary theatre training and theatre-making. Each writer featured in the collection responds to a specific aspect of Barker's work, focusing primarily on his early and formative career experiences with Theatre Workshop and his hugely influential development of Theatre Games. The collection as a whole thereby seeks to situate Clive Barker's work and influence in an international and multi-disciplinary context, by examining not only his origins as an actor, director, teacher and academic, but also the broad influence he has had on generations of theatre-makers.

Nesta Jones recently retired as a Professor and Director of Research at Rose Bruford College of Theatre and Performance. She has long associations with several higher education institutions: Goldsmiths, University of London, where she was Reader in Theatre Arts and Head of Drama for many years; Trinity College, University of Dublin, as a researcher and lecturer; the founding and development of The Lir, Ireland's National Academy of Dramatic Art; and New York University at its base in London where she lectures in Modern Drama in Performance. She has published books on J.M. Synge, Sean O'Casey, Brian Friel, and David Mamet, and articles on performance and production processes in several peer reviewed journals; contributed numerous papers to international conferences in Europe, the Middle East and North America; and has worked in the professional theatre directing productions and conducting workshops in the UK, across mainland Europe and the USA. She is on the Editorial Board of Stanislavski Studies (Taylor & Francis) and a Contributing Editor for New Theatre Quarterly (Cambridge University Press) for both of which she has also written articles; and is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. Paul Fryer recently retired as Head of Research Degrees and Director of The Stanislavski Centre at Rose Bruford College of Theatre and Performance (UK). He was awarded a Professorship of the College in Summer 2015. He now holds Visiting Professor posts at Leeds and London South Bank Universities. Holder of a Masters' degree in Drama from the University of London, and a PhD from the University of Manchester, Paul's research specialism is centred on opera, opera singers and the early (pre-sound) film industry. In collaboration with the British composer, Barry Seaman, Paul has worked on the restoration of several rare silent films, making them newly accessible to a contemporary audience. He has presented film screenings/programmes and lectures at The British Film Institute, The Buxton Festival, The State Museum of Theatre and Music (St Petersburg, Russia), Oxford University, Emory University (Atlanta), University of Pennsylvania, George Washington University, The University of Cincinnati and The Library of Congress (Washington DC). He presented a series of film programmes for Seattle Opera as part of The Ring Cycle, and for Canadian Opera as part of the inaugural season at the Four Seasons Opera House in Toronto. He has published widely as both an author and an editor, and his most recent book, Eleonora Duse and Cenere (Ashes): Centennial essays (with MariaPia Pagani) was published by McFarland in Spring 2017. He has also completed a new collection, Composers on Screen, which is due early in 2018. In January 2013, he curated the exhibition, Stanislavski on Stage, at Pushkin House in London, and he is currently planning a new exhibition of the work of the designer Viktor Simov. Paul is editor-in-chief of the journal Stanislavski Studies, published by Routledge/Taylor and Francis, and co-convenor of the international research project The S Word, which explores the influence of Stanislavski on contemporary theatre. Clive Barker was born in Middlesbrough in 1931. Having trained in stage management at the Bristol Old Vic School, he joined Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop in 1955. Here he acted and also conducted training sessions for the company. He took part in the first productions of The Hostage and Fings Ain't What They Used T'be at Stratford East, and appeared in the West End productions of, among others, Oh, What a Lovely War! and Tom Stoppard's After Magritte. Among the plays he directed were the Royal Court production of Shelagh Delaney's Lion in Love, the British premiere of Slavomir Mrozek's The Police and Marlowe's Dr Faustus for the German National Theatre in Weimar. He directed in Germany, the US and in Colombia, where he was Associate Director of the Teatro Libre de Bogota. From 1966-1974 he was Lecturer in the Department of Drama and Theatre Arts at Birmingham University and after a short period as director of the Northcott Theatre in Exeter he was Senior Lecturer in Theatre Studies at the University of Warwick until his retirement in 1996. He served on the boards of many arts organisations, many catering for the less advantaged in society: he was a Trustee of Ed Berman's Interaction from its inception in 1968, 7:84 (England), Geese Theatre Company who work in prisons, and, more recently, the International Workshop Festival and The Shysters, a group of actors with learning disabilities. He had a major stroke in 2002 which limited his ability to continue working, but when he died of another stroke on 17 March 2005, it was in the foyer of York Theatre Royal after leading a workshop with The Shysters.

Clive Barker ... made an exceptional contribution to British theatre studies and its international standing. No one else of his generation travelled the extraordinary distance from a conventional stage management course to become a world leader in actor training workshops, as well as an editor and scholar of distinction. He was a pioneer in bridging the uneasy divide between professional theatre and its serious study in British universities ... His book, Theatre Games (1977), was enormously influential for theatre practitioners and teachers in many countries. Its freshness of thought and imaginative instruction was presented in a highly accessible form, astutely combining practical advice, a digest of games, and stimulating theories. The success of Theatre Games was built on the best of radical foundations ... For almost two decades following Theatre Games, [Barker] worked on the international theatre workshop circuit, at the highest levels. Participants in these workshops, numbering many thousands, were treated to a method that was brilliantly inventive in its lack of presumption and ever-present humour. In this, Barker had the touch of an outstanding creative innovator. -- Baz Kershaw * Guardian * A massive contribution to the art of theatre ... Dazzlingly astute and a thrilling read. * The Stage (on 'Theatre Games') *