Stanislavsky in the World: The System and its Transformations Across Continents

About the Author

Jonathan Pitches is Professor of Theatre and Performance in the School of Performance and Cultural Industries at the University of Leeds, UK. He specialises in the study of performer training and has wider interests in intercultural performance, environmental performance and blended learning. He is founding co-editor of the journal of Theatre, Dance and Performance Training and has published several books in this area: Vsevolod Meyerhold (2003), Science and the Stanislavsky Tradition of Acting (2006/9) Russians in Britain (2012)and Stanislavsky in the World (with Dr Stefan Aquilina 2017). He is currently working on two new book projects, Great Stage Directors Vol 3: Komisarjevsky, Copeau, Guthrie (2017) and Performing Landscapes: Mountains (2018), supported by the AHRC.

Stefan Aquilina is Director of the School of Performing Arts and Senior Lecturer in Theatre Studies at the University of Malta.

Product Description

Stanislavsky in the World is an ambitious and ground-breaking work charting a fascinating story of the global dissemination and transformation of Stanislavsky's practices.

Case studies written by local experts, historians and practitioners are brought together to introduce the reader to new routes of Stanislavskian transmission across the continents of Europe, Asia, Africa, Australasia and South (Latin) America. Such a diverse set of stories moves radically beyond linear understandings of transmission to embrace questions of transformation, translation, hybridisation, appropriation and resistance.

This important work not only makes a significant contribution to Stanislavsky studies but also to recent research on theatre and interculturalism, theatre and globalisation, theatre and (post)colonialism and to the wider critical turn in performer training historiographies.

This is a unique examination of Stanislavsky's work presenting a richly diverse range of examples and an international perspective on Stanislavsky's impact that has never been attempted before.