The Complete Brecht Toolkit

by Stephen Unwin

Overview

A practical, hands-on guide - for actors, directors, teachers and students - to Brecht's theory and practice of theatre, with a full set of exercises to help put theory into practice.

The Complete Brecht Toolkit examines, one by one, Brecht's many, sometimes contradictory ideas about theatre - and how he put them into practice. Here are explanations of all the famous key terms, such as Alienation Effect, Epic Theatre and Gestus, as well as many others which go to make up what we think of as 'Brechtian theatre'.

The book also explores the practical application of these theories in Acting, Language, Music, Design and Direction.

Also included are fifty exercises contributed by Julian Jones, to help student actors investigate Brecht's ideas for themselves, becoming thoroughly familiar with the tools in the Brecht toolkit.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781780013862
Publisher:	Hern, Nick Books
Publication date:	03/20/2014
Sold by:	Bookwire
Format:	eBook
Pages:	224
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Stephen Unwin is one of Britain's leading theatre and opera directors. He worked at the Traverse Theatre in the 1980s, founded English Touring Theatre in 1993, and in 2008 was appointed Artistic Director of the Rose Theatre, Kingston. He has written guides to Shakespeare's Plays; Ibsen, Chekhov and Strindberg; Twentieth-Century Drama; the Plays of Bertolt Brecht; and So You Want To Be A Theatre Director?

Julian Jones, who contributed the exercises included in The Complete Brecht Toolkit, is Senior Lecturer in Acting at Rose Bruford College of Theatre and Performance.

Stephen Unwin is one of the UK's leading theatre and opera directors. He founded English Touring Theatre in 1993 and opened the Rose Theatre Kingston in 2008, becoming Artistic Director until 2014. He has written guides to Shakespeare's and Brecht's plays, as well as to Ibsen, Chekhov, Strindberg, and Twentieth-Century Drama. He is also the author of The Complete Brecht Toolkit and So You Want To Be A Theatre Director?

As a writer for the stage, his work includes: Laughing Boy, adapted from Sara Ryan's book Justice for Laughing Boy (Jermyn Street Theatre, London, 2024) and All Our Children (Jermyn Street Theatre, 2017).

He is a campaigner for the rights and opportunities of people with learning disabilities and was appointed the Chair of KIDS in November 2016, the national charity providing services to disabled children, young people and their families.