Experiential Theatres: Praxis-Based Approaches to Training 21st Century Theatre Artists ed. by William W Lewis and Sean Bartley (review)

Reviewed by: Experiential Theatres: Praxis-Based Approaches to Training 21st Century Theatre Artists ed. by William W Lewis and Sean Bartley Paul Masters (He/Him) Experiential Theatres: Praxis-Based Approaches to Training 21st Century Theatre Artists. Edited by William W Lewis and Sean Bartley. New York: Routledge, 2023; pp v + 280. William W Lewis and Sean Bartley's edited collection of essays asks and answers a discipline-defining question: what is the future of undergraduate theatrical training? For these authors, the answer is experiential theatre. The book introduces a varied, multiperspective approach—inviting a paradigm shift in undergraduate theatre education away from "Broadway, regional, and institutional theatres" and toward "emerging theatre-making practices and avenues for applying theatrical tools and knowledge to burgeoning experiential theatres" (1). This project is practical as well as ethical, questioning the purpose and orientation of theatrical training given both a destabilized post-pandemic marketplace and "a growing emphasis on all things experiential in nearly all aspects of contemporary social life" (2). Defining experiential theatre as an umbrella term that houses immersion, participation, game play, and role play, the collected essays focus on methodologies, both applied and theoretical, for developing and devising experiential theatrical work in higher education. A "praxis-based theatrical education," the authors suggest, is the "central impulse behind this book" (18), challenging theatre educators to reappraise the foundational relationship of pedagogy to theatre and theatre to experience. The term "experiential theatre" has often been synonymous with "immersive theatre" in its various iterations; although a number of authors have begun expanding the terminology to include the aforementioned interactive modes. "Interactive," "participatory," and "open frame" are terms often used interchangeably, promising a degree of fourth-wall End Page 108 breaking, audience agency, or simply a 360-degree view of a performance.1 Lewis and Bartley's collection takes an expansive view of experiential performance as a "sensory engagement that gives an audience member the feeling/idea of being enveloped by either a designed or dramaturgical world" (6). More critically, Experiential Theatres does not use this term merely to point toward a neighborhood of theatrical practices but also to delineate the necessity for a "heightened sense of interdisciplinarity" to match the "postdigital" experiences of students (17). The authors define the postdigital "as a periodization where the effect of the digital becomes invisible and ingrained within the fabric of sociality" (13). In a postdigital world, then, interdisciplinarity must reflect the agency, participation, and interactivity borne of ubiquitous digital technologies. Enmeshed in webs of presence and co-presence, digitization and embodiment, students are better served through the integration of interactive, experiential forms that model their day-to-day interconnections with the world and each other. Elaborating on these concepts, the collection goes on to detail praxis-informed theories, methodologies, and practices designed to encourage collaborative efforts in the classroom that often take their cue from ensemble performance and devising practices. Regarding collaboration, the authors define two types: 'Small C' and 'Big C' (17). Small C is identified with traditional, hierarchical models of theatre collaboration, and the latter defines a model where "hierarchies are flattened, and all members of the production team have agency to impact areas outside their priority specialization" (17). This suggested form of collaboration emphasizes agency and interaction, providing students with a broad base of skills for creating and managing audience/participant experiences. Accordingly, three major shifts are deemed essential to this educational approach: "First, a central emphasis on devising courses for all undergraduate students. . . . Second, a new model of collaborative coursework. . . . Finally, an increased effort to promote interdisciplinarity" (18). These changes would intertwine the normally discrete roles students play in creating theatre (e.g., designing, directing, acting) in favor of "collective production development." In turn, students would learn to apply theatrical practices to courses in "the humanities and sciences," leading to "active experimentation" with interactivity and technology (18). For many undergraduate departments, the proposed changes could mean major curricular alterations, but as the authors suggest, these changes are critical in light of transformations in industry economics and technological innovation. With these goals in mind, Experiential Theatres is structured in three complementary sections. The first of these focuses on (Big C) Collaborative experience-making...