Prague ...

Here's some photos from our trip to Prague in June this year to meet up with Em and Chris.

[Anth in Cafe Gaspar Kaspar at the Prague Theatre Institute]

[Despite the persuasive advertising we didn't actually go in]

[Em can't keep a straight face]

[John Lennon Wall]

[An advertising billboard in Václavské náměstí: the play being touted is Our Country's Good by Timberlake Wertenbaker. It's based on Thomas Keneally's novel The Playmaker and deals with the first European theatre performance in Australia, a production of George Farquar's The Recruiting Officer in 1789]

I'm Going to Prague ...

... and this is what I'll be talking about:

‘Implacing’ Theatre Practice: A Theoretical Framework

Despite the increased attention that has been directed towards the function of space and place in the production and reception of theatrical performance little sustained academic attention has been directed towards backstage space and the use of such space by theatre practitioners. In Space in Performance (1999) Gay McAuley concludes that this exclusion of backstage space indicates the extent to which many studies of theatre architecture “are in fact concerned with the building as aesthetic object rather than with its function in a complex social process.” (9)

In this paper I will articulate a theoretical framework through which the function of theatre architecture in performance processes might be better understood. Beginning with Edward Casey’s phenomenological approach to ‘place’, and informed by the work of Edward Soja, I will argue that scholars investigating theatre architecture must take into consideration ‘perceived’ space (space as it is empirically measured), ‘conceived’ space (space as it is represented), and ‘lived’ space (space as it is experienced). The meaning of any place, especially a built place, is always complex and contested, and it is the very tension between ‘perceived’, ‘conceived’, and ‘lived’ space that constitutes the ‘matrix of sensibility’ within which any place is made meaningful.

Such a framework encourages a more holistic understanding of the vital relationship between theatre architecture and theatrical performance and opens up avenues for insight into how theatrical performance is made and re-made in different cultural settings and historical moments.

Send me to Prague - Please!

[Send me here]

Okay, I need $3500. And I want to lay out this challenge up front: who can provide me with a way of raising $3500? Sponsorship? Scholarship? Publicity stunt? Street theatre? I will try (almost) anything. Spread the word people! Blog it. This boy needs $3500.

Why? Because I am a struggling early career theatre researcher with no institutional backing (and no money) who has just heard about the conference of his dreams. Today I received an email advising me that the Architecture Working Group of the International Federation of Theatre Research will be holding their first meeting, in Prague, from the 18th to the 20th June, coinciding with the Prague Quadrennial. This is the conference for me. I attended the Scenography Working Group conference in Prague in 2003, and that was good (and you can read the results) - but this will be better. I have spent four years writing a thesis on the finer points of theatre architecture, and now is the time for me to get out there and discuss the results with the heavies! This will not be a holiday!

(Okay, a little qualification, I do have enough money to live, but my wife has been supporting me rather heavily over the last few years and now I need to return the favour by not directing my income (and hers!) towards conferences, books and other academic follies. So, if you think I'm a bit crazed, think of this as a favour to her.)

That's the gist. Help me out! Who has a killer idea for how I can raise $3500?*

*A free foot massage and simultaneous lecture on the backstage areas of Sydney theatre buildings for the person with the best idea.