Collections

Theater & Film – LibreTexts (Various CC licences)

Supplemental Materials

Improvisation Recipe Book (CC BY)

The following recipes, or games, are intended to be used as reference and study for an improvisation. course This format has been set up to help with ease of quick learning and immediate application.

Introduction to Theater – Learning Resources (CC BY)

The purpose of this book is to provide open educational resources for those who study theater.

Storytelling on Screen: An Online Playback Theatre Archive and Guidebook (CC BY-NC-SA)

Playback Theatre is a form of community-centered storytelling theater where the audience tells stories, which are then reflected by a company of actors and musicians. This resource consists of a collection of full-length recordings of online Playback Theatre performances, and a 55-page explanatory guidebook. The guidebook explains the adaptation to online performances and some of the key concepts, roles, and forms involved in online Playback Theatre. The resource as a whole is suitable for a wide range of theatre students in courses such as applied theatre, theatre for social justice, improvisation, theatre appreciation, or acting. The guidebook contains hyperlinks to specific sections of the archive where students can see a given form or concept in action, allowing for a comparison of how different companies approach a given form.

Textbooks

Actors and the Art of Performance (CC BY)

This textbook opens with a cascade of contradictory motives for becoming an actor. These motives converge in the particular fascination of theater, in which ethics are realized in the aesthetic.

An Introduction to Technical Theatre (CC BY-NC)

An Introduction to Technical Theatre draws on the author’s experience in both the theatre and the classroom over the last 30 years. Intended as a resource for both secondary and post-secondary theatre courses, this text provides a comprehensive overview of technical theatre, including terminology and general practices.

Film Appreciation (CC BY)

This textbook covers film appreciation both analyzing film form and film style. The elements of film form are the building blocks of cinema: all of the tools that a filmmaker has at her disposal to tell her story.

La France Sauvée ou le Tyran Détrôné: A Dramaturgical Casebook (CC BY-NC-SA)

This is a dramaturgical casebook on La France Sauvée, an unfinished play by Olympe de Gouges, translated by Clarissa Palmer, with contextual information on the French Revolution.

Technical Theatre Practicum (CC BY)

Welcome to the exciting world of technical theatre. Studying this topic can lead to many different careers in several different sectors of the economy. The general skills needed for any of the careers or sectors have many things in common. Workers need to be deadline-coriented, as most productions have firm timelines that cannot be altered.

The Theatre of Shelley (CC BY-NC-ND)

A full-length study of Shelley’s plays that covers Shelley’s role as a playwright and dramatist and contains chapters on each of Shelley’s dramatic works

Theatre and War: Notes from the Field (CC BY)

A book by Nandita Dinesh offering a description of her own experiences in conflict zones across the world to offer a theoretical and practical reflection on making theatre in times of war.

Theatrical Worlds (CC BY-NC-ND)

A textbook providing an introduction to theatre, including theatrical production and special topics in theatre.

 Web of Performance: An Ensemble Workbook (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

If you love being involved in theatre and you’re also searching for opportunities to make a positive difference in your community, this workbook was written for you. You may think that theatre and all the other things you are passionate about represent different directions in your life, but they don’t have to be separate. They can converge in performance studies, a category of theatre based on the idea that nearly everything we do is related to performing. Once you begin to understand how performance is connected to all aspects of our lives, you can use that knowledge to invent, create, and build performance based activities that you can integrate into all the other interests that define who you are and what you want to do in your life. This workbook has been designed and written for students in high school and university who may be interested in how performance works. The chapters cover broad topics drawn from the field of performance studies, an academic field developed out of theatre studies, anthropology, sociology and cultural studies in the 1980s and 1990s. Web of Performance covers key topics in performance studies: Performance as a form of Play, Ritual, Healing, Education, Power, Identity and Everyday Life. Each of these topics works like a web, inviting students to explore in multiple directions, across many threads.

Videos

Shakespeare in China (CC BY)

The seminar ‘Shakespeare in China – A conversation with Lin Zhaohua’ is a series of videos covering the event was held by the Confucius Institute for Scotland as part of the Edinburgh International Festival in 2013. The seminar was dual-language with both English and Chinese being translated by participants.

Websites

Howlround Theatre Commons (CC BY)

A free and open platform for theatre makers worldwide. We amplify progressive, disruptive ideas about theatre and facilitate connection between diverse practitioners. We function as a “commons” — a social structure that invites open participation around shared values.