Theatre & Architecture

The purpose of the Theatre & Architecture Working Group is to explore all that theatre architecture has been historically, is at present, and might be in the future.

We consider built projects alongside unbuilt or speculative architectures, studying these from a wide range of practical and theoretical perspectives. We continue to investigate the ways in which space can be manipulated to bring performers and spectators into dynamic relationship inside traditional theatre auditoria, while also asking how else the disciplines of theatre and architecture inter-sect. Over the next four years (2015-19), we will be focusing on three major strands of enquiry: a) theatre projects - especially those that provide insights into performing arts venues beyond Europe and North America); b) inter-disciplinary practices - including performance practices that closely engage with, radically undermine, critically re-examine or nakedly depend on architecture for their meaning and value, and architectural practices which employ performance, performativity and/or theatricality to transform our experiences of the built environment; c) inter-disciplinary pedagogies - especially those driven by the question of what is gained for students of one discipline in the encounter between that discipline and the other. We seek to develop theoretical paradigms appropriate to theatre and architecture and to the relationship between them – articulating the many contemporary sites of exchange between these fields and re-examining historical encounters in the light of recent developments in spatial theory and design practice, architecture theory and practice, and theatre/performance studies.

The Theatre & Architecture Working Group is currently composed of scholars and practitioners and industry professionals working in or between theatre, performance, architecture and spatial design. The Working Group is made up of members living/working in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Germany, Greece, Holland, India, New Zealand, Portugal, Serbia, Spain, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

To stay in touch with the Working Group please subscribe to our Mailing List or join our Facebook Group

Working Group Convenors:

Dr Višnja Žugić [visnja.zugic@gmail.com] (2022-2026)

Dr Shauna Janssen [shauna.janssen@concordia.ca] (2021-2025)

Prof Dorita Hannah [dorita.m.hannah@gmail.com] (2018-2026)

Past Working Group Convenors:

Dr Andrew Filmer [awf@aber.ac.uk] (2012-2020)

Dr Juliet Rufford (2010-2018)

Prof Frank Hildy (2006-2012)

The image is from National Theatre Wales' production of Aeschylus' The Persians (2010) directed by Mike Pearson and designed by Mike Brookes and Simon Banham