Performance Practice and Process

ELAINE ASTON is a senior lecturer of Contemporary Performance at Lancaster University, UK where she teaches and researches feminist theatre, theory and performance, a field in which she is widely published. Her authored studies include An Introduction to Feminism and Theatre (1994); Caryl Churchill (1997/ 2001); Feminist Theatre Practice (1999) and Feminist Views on the English Stage (2003). She has co-edited four volumes of plays by women and, with Janelle Reinelt, co-edited The Cambridge Companion to Modern British Women Playwrights (2000).GERALDINE HARRIS is a senior lecturer in Theatre Studies at Lancaster University, UK, where she teaches and researches on gender and identity in performance. She has just finished writing a book entitled Beyond Representation, Aesthetics and Politics in Television Drama for Manchester University Press. She has also published numerous articles and book chapters on the work of female performance practitioners and a monograph Staging Femininities (Manchester University Press, 1999). Since the 1980s she has also been closely engaged with the practice of devising and wth writing texts for performance, both with students and with professional companies such as Insomniac and Third Angel.

• Performance Practice and Process: Contemporary (Women) PractitionersA Passionate Desire to Communicate: Bobby BakerBeing Curious: Leslie Hill and Helen ParisSpeaking Out: SuAndi(Women) Writing for Radio: Sarah Daniels with Sally AvensImagining, making, changing: Split BritchesGiving Voice(s) to Others: Rebecca PrichardPerformance Storytelling: Vayu NaiduLessons in Bad Behaviour: Jenny Eclair.

'Clear, engaging and informative...The advice offered by the practitioners - those who have been there and are still there - is invaluable, and indeed inspirational.' - Deirdre Heddon, University of Glasgow, UK '[This book] is a successful attempt to "get inside" the practice of eight (female) practitioners who work and write for a range of performance disciplines...The material in the book will serve as a useful resource for teachers, students and makers of performance in a firmly pragmatic way.' - Amanda Bolt, Platform 'Instead of hiding behind a notebook, Aston and Harris take the courageous step of committing to a genuine process of enquiry where they challenge themselves to not focus on what they have learned to look for, but to be ' in the moment' and to see what arises; the book is all the richer for it...The work is characterised by a desire to get down and (sometimes literally) dirty with the processes of creative practice and offers its results with warmth, humour and integrity.' - Emma Brodzinski, Contemporary Theatre Review