Towards a theory of experimental music theatre: 'showing doing', 'non-matrixed performance' and 'metaxis'

Although recent years have seen the emergence of sustained research on experimental music theater, most of this is of a largely descriptive nature. To address the shortcomings of such approaches, this essay outlines a theory of experimental music theater based on a clear definition and a number of constitutive features. A number of theoretical terms from the fields of performance theory and theater practice are introduced, namely “showing doing” (Richard Schechner), “non-matrixed performance” and “non-matrixed representation” (Michael Kirby), and “metaxis” (Augusto Boal). The analytical effectiveness of this theoretical framework is demonstrated by discussion of case studies drawn both from the “classics” of experimental music theater (John Cage, Mauricio Kagel) and from recent work (Christopher Fox, David Bithell, Trond Reinholdtsen)

Theatre of War: a witness to love, tragedy, and parody

Central to American nineteenth century life was the theater. As the fratricidal fighting of the American Civil War broke out and divided the nation, this centrality remained, and audiences crowded into the theaters. For both north and south, the theater provided an outlet through which Americans could enjoy plays, performances, music, and variety shows that appealed to all social classes of American society. However, in order to understand the operations of theater companies during the war itself, it is first essential to examine the state of the theater as a concept during the mid-nineteenth century, and in the pre-war years. [excerpt

Predicting theater chair absorption from reverberation chamber measurements - comment

The relationship between the measured acoustic absorption coefficient of an array of theater chairs and the ratio of the perimeter length to plan area of the array is considered. It is shown that the linear relationship measured by Bradley in a reverberation chamber and reported in ''Predicting theater chair absorption from reverberation chamber measurements'' [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 91, 1514-1524 (1992)] is to be expected from simple theory. This means that any nonlinear influence of diffracted energy on the relationship is small. Bradley is also unduly harsh on the usefulness of a chair absorption measurement method involving screens. A sample result is given, showing that this method can predict in-situ theater chair absorption with reasonable accuracy