This course will examine the interplay of theatrical theory, theatrical practice, and dramatic writing, in relation to contemporaneous societies and cultures, from the first experiments in penetrating the boundaries of “realism” at the end of the nineteenth century, through the present day. Areas of exploration include the invention of the avant garde, the rise of the auteur-director, political theatre, competing theories about the actor’s body and the actor’s emotions, performance art, feminist theatre, queer theatre, and the integration of non-western theatre into shared theatre practice in the colonial and post-colonial world.