The Wooster Group and Its Traditions

This is the first collection of critical essays to appear about the Wooster Group. Since the 1970s this groundbreaking, New York-based performance company has led the way in crystallizing the conditions of contemporary stage practice at the intersection of several cultural and artistic traditions. As demonstrated by the assembled critics, each of them an authority in the field, these traditions extend into the past as well as into the future, through the Wooster Group’s impact on the latest generation of performance artists. The company’s consequent institutionalization is posited and challenged in the essays constituting Part I of the collection. Part II tackles the work-in-progress, mapping its idiomatic stage vocabulary and providing case studies, ranging from Frank Dell’s The Temptation of St. Antony to To You, The Birdie! (Phedre). Part III presents productions by kindred artists such as Elevator Repair Service, the Builders Association, Cannon Company, and Richard Maxwell. Lavishly illustrated with photographs, this collection should prove invaluable to anyone with an interest in the current theatrical scene and its place in the wider institutional, artistic, and historical contexts.