A close scrutiny of how theatre companies operate is an often neglected aspect of theatre life in Africa, yet, as companies profiled here grapple with the issues of 'creativity and collaboration' much is revealed about the way theatre companies across the continent face the challenges of financial constraints, the political complications of sponsorship and funding, the need for creative or intellectual freedoms, the intricacies of contracts and the crucial decisions about venues and audiences. Volume Editor: JAMES GIBBS, University of the West of England. The contributors include: DEXTER...

This collection brings together essays written over a thirty-five year period. They reflect James Gibbs's position vis-a-vis the Ghanaian theatre as sometimes a remote onlooker, sometimes an enthusiastic participant observer, deeply involved in issues of perception and influence in a society moving through colonialism to nationalism, independence and beyond. The main body of the book is divided into four sections. The first, "Outsiders and Activists," looks at theatre for community development during the late 1940s, some connections between drama and film, and the astonishing involvement in...

First title in the African Theatre series with accounts of Theatre for Development workshops and critical discussions of the theme which continues to be a major area of endeavour in African theatre. North America: Indiana University Press

Women have struggled to be heard in the world of modern African theatre. Traditionally they had secure roles as dancers, singers and storytellers, but as theatre became professionalised and commercialised, control increasingly lay with the literate elites. This volume is testimony to the scope of their work as playwrights, musicians and actors from the Algerian diaspora to the new South Africa. BR> Guest edited by JANE PLASTOW North America: Indiana U Press; South Africa: Wits U PressBR

'Diasporas', as used in the title of this volume, refers to a multitude of groups and communities with widely differing histories, identities and current locations. This book brings together essays on theatre by people of African descent in North America, Cuba, Italy, the UK, Israel and Tasmania. Several chapters present overviews of particular national contexts, others offer insights into play texts or specific performances. Offering a mix of academic and practitioner's points of views, Volume 8 in the African Theatre series analyses and celebrates various aspects of African diasporic...

This volume in the African Theatre series includes the familiar territory of South Africa and Zimbabwe but also countries which have received little previous attention, such as Angola and Namibia. The articles range from evaluations of single plays to accounts of play-making processes, theatre for development and the relationship between modern drama and indigenous performance. Guest edited by DAVID KERR North America: Africa World Press

African performers, dramatists and directors have far out-paced chroniclers, critics and librarians, and as a result, those preparing accounts of theatre movements and performance on the continent have very limited resources to work on. African Theatre 9 addresses the topic of theatre history and, more specifically, looks at a selection of theatrical movements and events between 1850 and 1950. Drawing on such archived resources as are available, this volume seeks to recover moments from the past by bringing together papers that explore the complexity of the relationships that characterised a...

Focuses on the ways African theatre and performance relate to various kinds of media. Includes contributions on dance; popular video, with an emphasis on video drama and soaps from Eastern and Southern Africa, and the Nigerian 'Nollywood' phenomenon; the interface between live performance and video (or still photography), and links between on-line social networks and new performance identities. As a group the articles raise, from original angles, the issues of racism, gender, identity, advocacy and sponsorship. Volume Editor: DAVID KERR is Professor of English in the University of Botswana,...

Drawing on expertise from across the African continent this collection reflects the realities for women working and making theatre: how Egyptian director Dalia Basiouny has documented the "Tahrir Stories" of the Egyptian Revolution; how in Uganda women have used various theatrical devices, such as oral poetry, to seek common ground in a rural-urban inter-generational theatre project; and the use of physical theatre to examine disavowed memory in South Africa. The contributors also look at how practitioners are re-thinking performance space and modes of performance for gendered advocacy in...