ECW PRESS is proud to announce the release of a new book by Ric Knowles (former Chair of Drama and a founding member of the Centre for Cultural Studies at the University of Guelph): The Theatre of Form and the Production of Meaning: Contemporary Canadian Dramaturgies.
How do dramatic forms shape social formations? This first book-length study of Canadian dramatic structures asks this question of an extraordinarily wide range of contemporary plays and playwrights, from Michael Cook and David French, through George F. Walker, Judith Thompson, and Sally Clark, to Monique Mojica, John Mighton, and feminist performance art. Knowles begins with a look at inherited naturalistic and modernist forms based, respectively, on time and space. He then uses this division to extend his inquiry first into post-naturalist forms of collective and collaborative creations, community plays, and historical meta-dramas; and then into post-modernist structures of environmental theatre and dialogic monologue. The book concludes with a brief epilogue on the structures of spacetime, as Canadian theatre moves "toward a quantum dramaturgy."
Skip Shand, Professor of English and Drama Studies at York University, describes "The Theatre of Form" as "a welcome study of the cultural work inherent in contemporary Canadian dramaturgies, carried out by a prolific and energetic materialist scholar whose practical knowledge and theorized judgement about theatre in Canada are arguably without equal. This is theatre scholarship which is socially engaged in the best possible way."
Look for The Theatre of Form at your local bookstore, or ask the store
to order it for you if you don't see it on the shelves (you can tell them
that the ISBN is 1-55022-399-2 and that ECW books are distributed by General
with sales representation by the LPG Group). List price: $19.95. Desk and
review copies are available directly from ECW PRESS. Telephone Holly Potter
or Francesca LoDico at: (514) 398- 8326, or email: france@zoo.net.
Holly Potter
Project Manager
ECW PRESS
3483 rue Peel, Suite 23
Montreal, QC
H3A 1W8
Tel. (514) 398-8326; FAX (514) 398-8220
website: www.ecw.ca/press
David Gardner has been asked to reprise his paper on Viking Entertainment (ACTR 1997) for the 10-day Viking Millennium International Symposium to be held September 15-24, 2000 in St. John's, L'Anse-aux-Meadows, Labrador Straits, and Cornerbrook. David's session will be at 2:00pm on Wednesday September 20 at L'Anse-aux-Meadows.
In 1999, Gregory Reid, ACTR rep for Quebec, was a recipient of the Université de Sherbrooke's first-ever prize for excellence in teaching. The award included a parchment, a copy of the Vice-Rector's award speech delivered at the convocation, and a five-thousand-dollar grant.