Physical Theatre

[Katie]

So I am about to embark on graduate studies in Devised and Physical theatre. As such, I have been devouring books on physical theatre, and plays that lend themselves to working more in the physical or give opportunities for devising physical pieces for the work. Some examples would be "Small Mouth Sounds" by Bess Wohl and several of Duncan MacMillan's plays: "Lungs", "People Places and Things", "Monster".

What are some of your favorite books/plays that explore physical and devised work? I know that devised work is inherently artist generated and generally doesn't work from an existing script, but many activities and exercises geared toward devising also hold great value when working from a text.

[Hanna]

Hi! This might not be the kind of thing you're looking for but a while back I read Sarah Sigal's book "Writing in collaborative theatre-making" and it offers different examples of how companies han work with writers in different types of collaborative processes.

[Katie]

That definitely piques my interest! I will add that to my list.

[Kenny]

Katie wrote: "So I am about to embark on graduate studies in Devised and Physical theatre. As such, I have been devouring books on physical theatre, and plays that lend themselves to working more in the physical..."

What a great topic Katie. Thank you for bringing it to the page. Here some texts on physical theatre I find to be helpful.

1) The Frantic Assembly Book of Devising Theatre

2) At Work with Grotowski on Physical Actions

3) The Active Text: Unlocking Plays Through Physical Theatre

4) Through the Body: A Practical Guide to Physical Theatre

Hope this helps ~~ Kenny

[Katie]

Kenny, thank you! Some I have, and some I do not!

I LOVE Frantic Assembly's book. I'm a teacher and I use the crap out of it with my advanced kids and they have such a ball with it. It's packed with SO much, I need to go back through it. Particularly interesting to me is how scientific they get with the element of music in their works.

While I've heard of Grotowski and know a little bit about him and his work, I have not delved into him yet and I need to. Thank you for the book suggestion; there are several out there on his work and biographical information, wasn't sure which one to go with.

I will definitely check out "The Active Text" as I am currently reading "Through the Body" also by Dymphna Callery. She's really great at practical use of devised work. And there's new-to-me improv exercises that I can't wait to test on my advanced theatre kiddos.