Restaging the sixties : radical theaters and their legacies / edited by James M. Harding & Cindy Rosenthal.

Ann Arbor : University of Michigan Press, [2007]

viii, 452 pages ; 24 cm

BEIN 2023 2147: Number line on title page verso indicates first printing: 2009 2008 2007 2006 4 3 2 1. Paperbound. Presentation inscription from Cindy Rosenthal to Judith [Malina] and Hanon [Reznikov]. From the Living Theatre records.

In the volatile period of the late sixties and early seventies, several theater groups came to prominence in the United States, informing and shaping activist theater as we know it today. Restaging the Sixties examines the artistry, politics, and legacies of eight radical collectives: the Living Theatre, the Open Theatre, the Performance Group, the San Francisco Mime Troupe, El Teatro Campesino, At the Foot of the Mountain, the Free Southern Theater, and Bread and Puppet Theater. Each of the specially commissioned essays is from a leading theater artist, critic, or scholar. The essays follow a three-part structure that first provides a historical overview of each group{u2019}s work, then an exploration of the group{u2019}s significant contributions to political theater, and finally, the legacy of those contributions. The volume explores how creations such as the Living Theatre's Paradise Now and the Performance Group{u2019}s Dionysus in 69 overlapped with political interests that, in the late 1960s, highlighted the notion of social collectives as a radical alternative to mainstream society. Situating theatrical practice within this socio-political context, the book considers how radical theaters sought to redefine the relationship between theater and political activism, and how, as a result, they challenged the foundations of theater itself.

English

February 19, 2007

Includes bibliographical references (pages 411-421) and index.

History.