When I was approached to write a digital theatre textbook, I jumped at the chance. There is no better medium than the Internet to teach the extraordinary responsiveness and fluidity of theatre. As there is no print version, I can update freely as the art form shifts around us, which has happened more rapidly in the past two years than ever before. And perhaps most importantly, within this publication you will find topical and current videos that will help you easily envision the kinetic and visual world of theatre—impossible in a traditional printed textbook. I’m thrilled to be able to offer you an educational document that captures, even in a small way, the raw and exciting experience of live theatre.
Robert Cucuzza is the Associate Professor of Theatre Arts at Los Angeles Mission College. His theatre directing work runs the gamut of musicals, farce, naturalistic plays, adaptations of classics, original work, and devised pieces. In the Los Angeles area, he has directed plays at REDCAT, South Coast Rep, CalArts, the Steve Allen Theatre, Son of Semele, the Lee Strasberg Institute, and at Pierce College and Occidental College. As a Creative Consultant, he has worked with Miss Prissy and her street dance company The Underground, Rosanna Gamson Worldwide, and with the Creative Entertainment division of Walt Disney Imagineering, where he has developed large scale live events. As a playwright, director and producer in New York, he spent six years as an artist-in-residence at Richard Foreman’s Ontological Theater where he mounted many highly-acclaimed original plays and was a co-founder of the Obie Award-winning Blueprint Series.
As an actor, he is a member of the Obie Award-winning company Elevator Repair Service, with whom he performed in Total Fictional Lie, Room Tone, and originated the role of Tom Buchanan in Gatz — a complete staging of the entire text of “The Great Gatsby.” With ERS and Gatz he has played Off Broadway and on the West End in London, and in major festivals and theaters in the U.S, all over Europe and across the globe. He has also performed in three plays written and directed by Richard Foreman at the legendary Ontological-Hysteric Theater in New York.
As a filmmaker, he has written, directed, produced and edited the films The Invincible Ecksteins, The Blue Horizon, Speed Freaks and several shorts. His film The Armed Boy— a silent film created to accompany Karl Jenkin’s modern choral mass “The Armed Man”—was commissioned by the Rackham Symphony Choir in Detroit.
As an acting teacher he has taught at CalArts, the Lee Strasberg Theatre & Film Institute, and Pierce College. In New York City, he taught at the New York Film Academy and founded ACME Acting Lab, a student-driven acting studio devoted to the creation of professionally produced original plays and films.
Originally from Bradford, PA, Cucuzza is a 1990 graduate of Carnegie Mellon University where he received a BFA in Literary and Cultural Studies with a minor in Theatre. He holds a 2011 MFA in Directing from CalArts. He was the recipient of a 1990 Thomas J. Watson Fellowship for a one-year independent study of experimental theater in Europe and a 2010-11 recipient of a Beutner Family Award for Excellence in the Arts at CalArts.
Chapter 1 | The Immediacy of Theatre
Chapter 2 | The Theatre Audience
Chapter 3 | Theatre as Reflection
Chapter 4 | Theatre Spaces
Chapter 5 | The Playwright
Chapter 6 | The Director
Chapter 7 | The Producer, Stage Manager, and Dramaturg
Chapter 8 | The Designers
Chapter 9 | The Actor
Chapter 10 | The Theatrical Process
Chapter 11 | Engaging in Theatre