THET408U

This class brings the backstage into the limelight. It explores the larger implications for theatre historiography when the actions occurring backstage and those occurring centre stage are conceptualized as a single culture event: when, in short, the behind-the-scenes work and labor of the theatre share equal billing with the products that theatres produce. As a catalyst for these considerations, the course will examine moments where theatre's main stage has openly explored its often uneasy relationship with its backstage, and we will use these moments as opportunities for making the process side of theatrical productions the focal point in critical discourses about the cultural and political work theatre that theatre does more generally.