Current Table of Contents

• Contributors
  
• Up Front: Connecting Dots
  
• Up Front: Wikiturgy
  
• Bodily Fear: Recent American Performance Controversies
  

  In this article, John Houchin, author of Censorship of the American Theater in the Twentieth Century, continues his exploration of censorship and its social ramifications. In censorship battles throughout history, debates may have been addressed in two or three newspaper articles, only to fade quickly from public view. Houchin argues the swift proliferation of internet and cable communication has protracted these debates, placing even greater pressure on artists, producers, and regulatory agencies. Houchin explores the impact of censorship vis-à-vis four events, events that all revolve around women and the presentation of the female body: Eve Ensler's The Vagina Monologues, Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction" at the 2004 Super Bowl, Don Imus' defamatory comments about the Rutgers women's basketball team, and the play My Name is Rachel Corrie, compiled from the late activist's emails, letters, and journals.

• Controlling the Twenty-First Century: Suppressed Theater and Global Change
  

  In this article, Miriam Felton-Dansky outlines recent debates over censorship and controversial theater in an international context. She describes the history of Western free speech debates since the fall of Communism, delineates recent scandals such as the uproar over Behzti, Jerry Springer: The Opera, and My Name Is Rachel Corrie, explores ideas about the powers of live performance to provoke and offend, and parses contemporary debates about what actually constitutes the conceptual category of "censorship."

• Reports on Stage Censorship and Suppression
  

  This section presents a series of reports and commentary on recent incidents of theater censorship and suppression from around the world, arranged roughly according to chronology. Contributors include Theater magazine staff as well as artists and scholars from around the world, including Howard Barker, Freddie Rokem, Mike Daisey, Rabih Mroué, Reverend Billy, and Dean Damjanovski.

• Censorship, Surveillance, and Protest Theater in Zimbabwe
  

  Praise Zenenga's article navigates the long and troubled history between Zimbabwe's theater artists, and national government and local police strongmen. Zenenga uses the Zimbabwean Censorship and Entertainment Control Act of 1967 as his departure point and compartmentalizes censorship of theater arts into three eras: 1) Zimbabwe's liberation struggle from the late 1960s through the 1970s, 2) the newly won independence of 1980s, with hope of economic and social progress giving way to frustration, and 3) the contemporary clash of President Mugabe's strong response against theater's critique of broken government promises. Even though the Censorship Board demands scripts be registered, Zimbabwean theater artists have found creative ways around censorship throughout these three eras, implementing underground performances and "hit and run" political guerilla theater. Zenenga disturbingly uncovers that, while official government censorship may be decreasing, partly to evade international scrutiny, shadowy interrogation, harassment, and even physical assault of artists are becoming more common.

• The REwind Cantata: South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation in Repertoire
  

  In this excerpt from her forthcoming study Stages of Transition: Performing South Africa's Truth Commission, Cole examines the creation and reception of REwind: A Cantata, a musical performance incorporating recorded testimony from South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, along with the performativity of that ongoing process itself.

• Not Clown
  

  In this interview, theater scholar Jonathan Kalb and acclaimed German director Michael Thalheimer discuss Thalheimer's radically stripped-down approach to canonical dramatic texts, with reference to several recent productions, including Liliom, The Oresteia, Emilia Galotti, Faust I, Faust II, and Lulu.

• Contributors
  
• Up Front: Hungarian Mavericks
  
• Up Front: Pink Operettas and Political Games
  
• Up Front: Drink Me
  
• Hungarian and Independent: New Artists Bring New Forms of Existence
  

  Retracing the movements of Hungarian theater over the past ten years, Andrea Tompa details the rise of Hungary's two most influential independent and contemporary theater directors, Árpád Schilling and Béla Pintér. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, an emergent, internationally prominent Hungarian theater scene took shape: Tompa chronicles the rise of the independent theater movement in the context of the work of other influential directors, such as Viktor Bodó, János Mohácsi, Balázs Kovalik, and Sándor Zsótér, whose daring, performative approaches exploded the psychological-realism tradition. Schilling and Pintér are the heirs: Schilling, praised for the founding of his company Krétakör, whose constant, chameleonic reinvention resists stasis; Pintér, for the theatrical incorporation of Hungarian folk tradition and the resultant questioning of the parameters of identity.

• Notes of an Escapologist
  

  In this manifesto, Hungarian independent director Árpád Schilling, artistic director of the renowned ensemble Krétakör, articulates his ideas on directing, acting, and Hungary's theatrical tradition and producing structures. He gives examples of theatrical exercises used by Krétakör and outlines his vision for the future of Hungarian theater.

• Directing at the Border
  

  In 2006, after nearly two decades of creating distinguished productions, Attila Vidnyánszky, an ethnically Hungarian director from Ukraine, became artistic director of the Csokonai Theatre in Debrecen. Theater critic and historian Nina Király spoke with Vidnyánszky in September 2007. In this interview, Vidnyánszky offers his views on his life and his position in the Hungarian theater today.

• The Screens: A Note on Video
  
• Tales of Mice and Men
  
• Fair Worlds
  
• The Evolving Relationship between Artist and Patron
  
• Rare Beauty Here: Needcompany at Twenty
  
• Contributors
  
• Hearing Voices
  
• Their Piece of the Pie
  
• Letter from Johannesburg: Performance and Urban Fabrics in the Inner City
  
• Market Forces
  
• Artist's Journal: Bauerntheater
  
• Radical Inclusion 'Til It Hurts: Suzan-Lori Parks's 365 Days/365 Plays
  
• "It's the Story of Our Own Village": A Journey in Indian Street Theater
  
• Wireless-less: Author's Preface
  
• Wireless-less
  
• Puppets Invade France: XIVeme Festival Mondial des Theatres de Marionnettes
  
• Ghost Map: OFF Stage: The East Village Fragments
  
• A Happy Union
  
• Planting Wild
  
• Trauma and Patience
  
• Contributors
  
• Up Front: "What Good are Poets in a Bereft Time?"
  
• Up Front: The Best of Times
  
• The Worst Sort of Places
  
• "It's so beautiful here. Come, you come too."
  
• The Rabbit and Its Double
  
• The Iconoclasm of the Stage and the Return of the Body: The Carnal Power of Theater
  
• Agamemnon: A Translator's Note
  
• Agamemnon: Excerpted from Romeo Castellucci's Oresteia (una commedia organica?)
  
• Ibsen the Oracle
  
• Ibsen Our Contemporary: Contemporary Directors on the Playwright's Centenary
  
• Romantic Pragmatist