Anne Bogart: Viewpoints

by Michael Bigelow Dixon (Editor), Joel Smith (Editor), Jon Jory (Foreward)

Including contributions from... Porter Anderson, Gregory Gunter, Eelka Lampe, Ellen Lauren, Charles L. Mee, Jr., Paula Vogel, Anne Bogart, Mel Gussow, Tina Landau, Eduardo Machado, Tadashi Suzuki, plus the text of Small Lives/ Big Dreams created by the SITI Company.

Genres: Theatre, Nonfiction

256 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 1995

About the author

Michael Bigelow Dixon was Literary Manager and, in his last year, Associate Artistic Director at Actors Theatre of Louisville from 1985 to 2001. He then worked for six years as Literary Director and Director of Studio Programming at the Guthrie Theater and after that was Resident Director at The Playwrights' Center in Minneapolis for two years. He has directed numerous world premiere productions of plays by Julie Marie Myatt, Lee Blessing, Steven Dietz, Jessica Goldberg, Melanie Marnich, Kelly Stuart and Naomi Wallace. Mr. Dixon has written more than 20 published and produced plays, most with Val Smith, and has edited 35 volumes of plays and criticism with Amy Wegener, Tanya Palmer, Liz Engelman, and Michele Volansky. He launched a creative retreat, Tofte Lake Center, in the Boundary Waters of northern Minnesota, and he is currently Assistant Professor in the Theatre Department at Goucher College.

Reviews

[Sara-Margaret · Rating 3 out of 5]

Contains a lot of great info. 3 Stars because there was a lot of repetition of information and personal stories that don’t necessarily help the reader understand the Viewpoints.

[Kyle · Rating 4 out of 5]

So much support from a vibrant community that helped Anne and SITI get started, this collection of essays, keynotes and panel presentations trace back to the roots of Viewpoints (without making too big of a deal over Mary Overlie’s original six) while setting the sights on future endeavours. The success stories often mention her formatives travels during her childhood and the critical lens on American theatre these Asian excursions afforded her. Lauren delves into the personal connection, Suzuki maintains his respectful distance, while Anderson gets all speculative on virtual reality, already waning by 1995, as the vegan option to his meaty message on live performance. A wonderful window onto the company’s past, with an exemplary script (but only a handful of production photos) to give a sense of how it all began.

[Joanna Bair · Rating 3 out of 5]

Honestly this book has been hyped up to me over the years. There’s one essay on her viewpoints. The rest is mostly just people’s experiences working with her. Some of the dramaturgy process was interesting but I can’t say I learned too much that will help me out when I direct. Can’t say anything broke down or helped me understand the viewpoints better which is what I thought this was going to be.
A nice scholarly resource though.

[Karthik · Rating 5 out of 5]

Most brilliant insight into theatre

[Jeremy]

A great essay / practice book - i read this and practiced viewpoints before the work book came out and was great to see practice to theory come alive.

[Lori · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted a book about how to use viewpoints in the rehearsal process - got the wrong one! This one is all about her with a tiny bit about viewpoints. Ugh!!!