Reflective Affective Dramaturgies of Participatory Theatre: Larping Audiences into Performance

As the popularity and diversity of participatory theatre productions increase, scholarly and artistic attention toward the audience as agentive contributors and interpreters must keep pace. Simultaneously, the COVID-19 pandemic has added urgency to the collective artistic encounter and its value to individual and community health. This book proposes “reflective affective” dramaturgies of participatory theatre aimed toward incorporating participants’ reflections and affective responses as material in an emergent exploration of represented systems of power. The volume's interdisciplinary theoretical frameworks stem from performance studies discourses including feminist materialism, phenomenology and affect theory, bringing them together with larp scholarship on character/self performance, agency and emergence. Through its integration of the practical and theoretical, this work serves as an essential study for scholars, students and artists in theatre studies, performance studies, visual art studies, role-play studies, cultural studies, and philosophy. Contents List of Figures List of Tables Chapter 1: Introduction: Urgencies in Interactive Theatre Book Structure Linkages and Lineages: Larp and Theatre Urgencies in Theatre Discourse References Chapter 2: The Potential Machine: Doing Thinking in Research and Performance Performance Philosophy Poststructuralist Lineage: Deleuze and Guattari Micropolitics Artistic Research: Linkages and Separations From Theory to Method References Chapter 3: ‘It Feels Real!’: Excess and Intensity in The Prison Context of The Prison: Carceral Systems Setting the Scene and Building the Characters Dramaturgical Structure in Three Stages Key Challenges in Design and Production Participant Responses and Experiences Disciplinary Micro-Physics References Chapter 4: ‘A Bigger Version of Me’: Self-Presence in New Voices in Art Fleshing Out: Contexts and Key Decisions in Production Three Dramaturgical Journeys Me But Not Me: Chiasmic Relations Sense-Making and Making Sense References Chapter 5: ‘Am I that Kind of Person?’: Reflective Affective Dramaturgies from Concept to Production in Two Truths Post-Truth Iterative Development: Building Physicality, Tensioning, Visuality, and Scenography Art-Making and Embodiment: A Micropolitical Project Extending the Final Thoughts References Index