Second thoughts are best: Edward Gordon Craig and an education through theatre design

Abstract

Craig’s vision of theatre making was one of ongoing reinvention; to turn over what had been and to look for new ‘truths'. It required a mastery of the multiple domains of theatre practice: the visual, the performative and the technical as well as an acute engagement with the intangible, the poetic and perhaps the spiritual. This paper will focus on the UK; to provide a sense of the emergence and development of theatre design as a site of study and to place Craig’s vision of the ‘theatre athlete’ in the context of contemporary theatre design education. Perhaps a hundred years on from ‘On The Art of the Theatre’, this is a good time for ‘second thoughts’; to review and evaluate Craig’s legacy and influence and to consider what advice he might have for us in contemplating the next hundred