Workers’ Theater Movement
The Workers’ Theatre Movement (WTM) was an international project, largely promoted by the Workers International Relief, to conjoin left militant radical theaters during the period…
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Little Theater Movement
The Little Theater Movement comprised a web of amateur theater activities undertaken across much of the United States between 1912 and 1925. Little Theater opposed…
Independent Theatre Movement
The Independent Theatre Movement in Europe was a primary shaping influence on modern dramatic literature and theatrical modernism. These small independent theaters were committed to…
Matsui, Sumako (1886–1919)
Matsui Sumako was the first superstar shingeki actress in Japan’s modernist theater movement.
Mayama, Seika (1878–1948)
Mayama Seika was a novelist, historian, and one of the most prominent playwrights in Japan’s modernist theater movement.
Ryan, Oscar (1904–1989)
The leading cultural activist in the Canadian Communist Party in the 1930s, Oscar Ryan was the formative figure in the Workers’ Theatre movement in Canada…
Shin Kabuki
Shin Kabuki literally “new kabuki,” a modern outgrowth of traditional kabuki and one of the fruits of Japan’s modernist theater movement.
Shuji, Terayama (1935–1983)
Terayama Shūji was an avant-garde Japanese poet, playwright (for stage and radio), filmmaker, and photographer associated with New Wave cinema and underground theatre movements such…
Craig, Edith (1869–1947)
Edith (“Edy”) Craig, lesbian theater director and women’s suffrage activist, directed numerous plays and historical pageants, making significant contributions to the Little Theatre Movement in…
Murayama, Tomoyoshi (1901–1977)
Tomoyoshi Murayama was a multi-disciplinary Japanese artist associated with the interwar avant-garde and leftwing theater movements. After briefly attending Tokyo Imperial University, Murayama moved to…
Itō, Michio (1893–1961)
Michio Itō was a modern dancer and choreographer who worked in Europe, the United States, and Japan. After training at the Dalcroze Institute in Hellerau,…
Tudor, Antony (1908–1987)
Born into a modest household in London’s East End, Antony Tudor changed the way we look at ballet and what it was thought to express.…
Delsarte, François (1811–1871)
A performer and teacher of voice and movement, François Delsarte developed a theory of expression that influenced modern dance, actor training, poetic recitation, silent film,…
Young Vienna
Young Vienna was an informal, heterogeneous literary circle that existed in Vienna for little more than a decade, beginning in approximately 1890. Hermann Bahr and…
Shingeki
Shingeki (literally “new theater”) is a word coined in late Meiji period Japan (1868–1912) referring to dramatic works and theater performance styles imported and adapted…
Jooss, Kurt (1901–1979)
Kurt Jooss is often understood to be a founding figure in dance theater, both for his choreography Der grüne Tisch (The Green Table, 1932), which…
Robbins, Jerome (1918–1998)
Jerome Robbins was one of the master choreographers of the twentieth century who transformed musical theater and ballet. Beginning with Fancy Free (1944), Robbins left…
Efflatoun, Inji (1924–1989)
Inji Efflatoun was an Egyptian painter, feminist, and political activist. She completed her secondary education at the Lycée Français in Cairo where she was introduced…
Osanai, Kaoru (1881–1928)
Osanai Kaoru was a Japanese director, playwright, critic, teacher, theater manager, and translator. A key figure in the shingeki movement, Osanai is credited with moving…
Angura
Angura has been called the most effective fusion of art and politics from Japan’s turbulent years of social protest in the 1960s and 1970s. Angura…
Reinhardt, Max (1873–1943)
Born Max Goldmann to Jewish parents in Baden, Austria and nicknamed “the Magician” by the press, Max Reinhardt was pivotal in establishing theater directing as…
Constructivism
Prior to World War II, Constructivism attracted little interest from British artists apart from the few involved with Circle in 1937. Circle consisted of a…
Jiyū-gekijō [Free Theater]
Jiyū-gekijō [Free Theater], founded in 1909 by the director Osanai Kaoru (1881–1928) and kabuki actor Ichikawa Sadanji II (1880–1940), was established to produce contemporary realist…
Ishii, Baku (1886–1962)
Baku Ishii is widely regarded as the creator of Japanese modern dance. He was born in Mitane-cho, Akita Prefecture in 1886. Despite his difficulty adapting…
Katsureki-mono
“Living history” plays were historical kabuki plays produced during the Meiji period 10s and 20s (1868–1888) in an attempt to reform the practices associated with…