As we move into autumn and what often feels like a “new theatre year”, it seems a good time to look at books on making theatre for this year’s Autumn Reading.
Frantic Assembly is a physical theatre company that makes brave and bold theatre creating pieces through much movement and music. The Frantic Assembly Book of Devising Theatre by the co-founders, director Scott Graham and choreographer/movement director Steven Hoggett, starts with essays that give an insight into the company’s creative process including what is physical theatre (and why they hate answering that question), the use of music and their creation of pre-shows and owning a space. What follows is a wealth of practical exercises for theatre makers, and notes on creating and developing scenes. Whether you are making physical or devised theatre or any other form of theatre, this is an invaluable, practical book.
Katie Mitchell is one of today’s most adventurous and respected theatre directors (one whose work I greatly admire). She has directed theatre and opera both in the UK and extensively in Europe. In her book The Director’s Craft, Mitchell takes the reader through the directing process from the director’s first response to the text to the final night. Beginning with detailed advice on the director’s preparation of a text and production, the book moves on to detail how to cast, work with a production team, and ideas on how to run a rehearsal room. Section 3 covers the get-in and technical rehearsals through to opening the production and the final performance and the book concludes with a section where Mitchell covers how she learned the skills she has described. Like the Frantic Assembly book, this is another practical exercise based book, one which will be invaluable to those making text-based work.
I picked theatre making as the topic for this year’s Autumn Reading to allow me to highlight one particular book, which is technically not a book – Kneehigh Theatre’s Cookbook. The Cookbook was an online resource with behind-the-scenes videos, documentation, designs, and plans for how Kneehigh made work and why. Kneehigh closed in June 2021, its archive of material being donated to Falmouth University. However, I could not locate the current whereabouts of the Cookbook or anyone who knows what has happened to it; I continue to investigate.
[Update April 2023 – Kneehigh Cookbook is to be made available online as part of a digital archive. Read my update here.]