Drawing on the author’s two decades of seeing, writing on, and teaching about puppetry from a critical perspective, this book offers a collection of insights into how we watch, understand, and appreciate puppetry.Reading the Puppet Stage uses examples from a broad range of puppetry genres, from Broadway shows and the Muppets to the rich field of international contemporary performing object experimentation to the wealth of Asian puppet traditions, as it illustrates the ways...

A new volume of the longstanding theatre journal, documenting conversations that traverse disciplinary boundariesTheater Symposium, Volume 32 delves into the collaborative dynamics and ritualistic exchanges within performance during the collective resurgence into a hopeful post-COVID world. This volume’s contributors embark on a journey through the vibrant realm of material performance, with puppetry at the forefront, guiding readers into an expan...

From ice puppets to robots, from intricate marionettes to abstract forms, Making Meaning in Puppetry investigates the elusive and multifaceted how of how puppets make meaning in performance.This engaging collection develops a vocabulary for understanding and articulating how the puppet’s meaning-making systems work across the book’s three distinct parts. Part 1 on Materiality illuminates how materials are chosen and dramaturgy is crafted into a puppet’s design; Pa...

The Routledge Companion to Puppetry and Material Performance offers a wide-rangingperspective on how scholars and artists are currently re-evaluating the theoretical, historical,and theatrical significance of performance that embraces the agency of inanimate objects.This book proposes a collaborative, responsive model for broader artistic engagement in andwith the material world. Its 28 chapters aim to advance the study of the puppet not only as athe...

This anthology of essays aims to explore the many types of relationships that exist between puppets, broadly speaking, and the immaterial world.The allure of the puppet goes beyond its material presence as, historically and throughout the globe, many uses of puppets and related objects have expressed and capitalized on their posited connections to other realms or ability to serve as vessels or conduits for immaterial presence. The flip side of the puppet’s troubling uncanniness is ...

This anthology of essays, a companion to Puppet and Spirit: Ritual, Religion, and Performing Objects, Volume I, aims to explore the many types of relationships that exist between puppets, broadly speaking, and the immaterial world.The allure of the puppet goes beyond its material presence as, historically and throughout the globe, many uses of puppets and related objects have expressed and capitalized on their posited connections to other realms or ability to serve as vess...

Women and Puppetry is the first publication dedicated to the study of women in the field of puppetry arts. It includes critical articles and personal accounts that interrogate specific historical moments, cultural contexts, and notions of "woman" on and off stage.Part I, "Critical Perspective," includes historical and contemporary analyses of women’s roles in society, gender anxiety revealed through the unmarked puppet body, and sexual expression within oppressive social c...