Summer brings street arts festivals galore! As this edition of Total Theatre Magazine goes to press, Brighton and Norfolk are basking in early summer sunshine, easing us into the outdoor season. For where to head next, see the round-up of summer festivals and events in our feature on outdoor performance. Also outside of the black boxes and red plush theatres is our special focus on rural touring, in which Alex Murdoch of Cartoon de Salvo explains why getting upstaged by the raffle is not such a bad thing!
Back indoors, there’s a look at Sham Theatre’s Black Stuff from the perspective of the role of the dramaturg in the creation process, and a threeway reflection on Miriam King’s The Reading Room in our regular series, Being There.
Another regular spot is our Absolute Beginners page, a slightly tongue-in-cheek look at an artform, strand of practice, or role within the theatre-making process. This time, the Canny Granny gets her teeth into Live Art – chewing over the meat and spitting out the gristle. Live Art is also on the agenda in our report from the National Review of Live Art 2008, held in Glasgow.
Further afield, Pippa Bailey takes us to the Adelaide Performing Arts Market 2008, her trip coinciding with new Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s groundbreaking apology to the aboriginal peoples of Australia.
Total Theatre Magazine prides itself on featuring the voice of the artist. Most of our editorial articles are written by practising artists and theatre-makers, making our publication a unique documentation of contemporary theatre and performance practice. A highlight of this issue is an artist’s diary written by Tina Bicat, who records her work over the past year as designer on Punchdrunk’s The Masque of the Red Death and with other physical & visual theatre companies.
As always, a pretty eclectic mix, reflecting the broad family that is ‘total theatre’.
It just remains for me to let you know that this issue of Total Theatre Magazine marks a transition point. We will in future be published by the University of Winchester, a relationship that I am sure will usher in an exciting new phase of growth and change. If you wish to contribute to that development, your support is very much welcomed. We will in future rely to an even greater extent on our subscriber base, so urge you (if you don’t already) to subscribe; to encourage colleagues to subscribe; and to suggest to educational establishments and other institutions that they take out a multi-access (print and electronic) subscription.
We also very much welcome your thoughts on the editorial content of Total Theatre Magazine. What are we doing well? What could we do better? As always, you can contact me with your comments, criticisms, or suggestions.
Please note our new postal addresses for the administration and editorial sections. Our email addresses and website remain the same. We look forward to hearing from you!
