Visualising Lost Theatres
Virtual Praxis and the Recovery of Performance Spaces
Published on 25. August 2022
Book
Hardback
220 pages
978-1-108-47675-1 (ISBN)
Description
This pioneering study harnesses virtual reality to uncover the history of five venues that have been 'lost' to us: London's 1590s Rose Theatre; Bergen's mid-nineteenth-century Komediehuset; Adelaide's Queen's Theatre of 1841; circus tents hosting Cantonese opera performances in Australia's goldfields in the 1850s; and the Stardust showroom in 1950s Las Vegas. Shaping some of the most enduring genres of world theatre and cultural production, each venue marks a significant cultural transformation, charted here through detailed discussion of theatrical praxis and socio-political history. Using virtual models as performance laboratories for research, Visualising Lost Theatres recreates the immersive feel of venues and reveals performance logistics for actors and audiences. Proposing a new methodology for using visualisations as a tool in theatre history, and providing 3D visualisations for the reader to consult alongside the text, this is a landmark contribution to the digital humanities.
Reviews / Votes
Visualising Lost Theatres makes a major contribution to the fields of both Theatre Studies and Digital Humanities. Readers are invited to imagine anew the 'lost' theatres of the book's title, from the Rose in 1590s London to the Stardust Hotel in 1950s Las Vegas. The authors' use of digital tools and methods to explore those venues allows them to offer new ways to understand canonical figures such as Shakespeare and Ibsen, while also highlighting the importance of other forms of live performance such as Cantonese opera. The book ranges across many fields - architecture, tourism, digital culture heritage, translation, and more - but its contribution to Theatre Studies is particularly immense, not just expanding what we know but providing new tools and methods for future research. Patrick Lonergan, NUI GalwayMore details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Cambridge
United Kingdom
Edition type
New edition
Product notice
sewn/stitched
Cloth over boards
Illustrations
Worked examples or Exercises
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 152 mm
Thickness: 14 mm
Weight
463 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-108-47675-1 (9781108476751)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Joanne Tompkins | Julie Holledge | Jonathan Bollen
Visualising Lost Theatres
Virtual Praxis and the Recovery of Performance Spaces
E-Book
08/2022
Cambridge University Press
€92.49
Available for download
E-Book
07/2022
Cambridge University Press
€78.99
Available for download
Persons
Joanne Tompkins is Professor Emerita at the University of Queensland, Australia. She has published widely in theatre studies, especially on spatiality and theatre, and on cultural politics in theatre. She has won awards for her research and her editing, and the Australasian Association for Theatre, Drama and Performance Studies offers an editing award named in her honour. She was awarded an honorary doctorate from Queen Mary, University of London in 2015 and is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Humanities. She founded Ortelia, a company which provides virtual reality models of examples of cultural heritage, and she is a co-founder of AusStage (with Julie Holledge).
Content
Introduction: Theatre Venues and Visualisation; 1. The Rose Theatre and Stage Movement in Marlowe's Doctor Faustus; 2. Komediehuset and Henrik Ibsen's Stagecraft in his First Theatre; 3. A Colonial Audience Watching Othello at the Queen's Theatre; 4. Cantonese Opera and the Layering of Space on the Australian Goldfields; 5. The Design of Attraction at the Stardust Showroom in Las Vegas; Conclusion: Visualising the Future of Theatre Research.