Restaging the Sixties

Restaging the Sixties examines the artistry, politics, and legacies of radical theater groups - the Living Theatre, the Open Theatre, the Performance Group, the San Francisco Mime Troupe, El Teatro Campesino, At the Foot of the Mountain, the Free Southern Theater, and Bread and Puppet theater - that came to prominence in the U.S. during the volatile period of the late sixties and early seventies. Each of the specially-commissioned essays is from a leading theater artist, critic, or scholar. The essays follow a three-part structure that first provides a historical overview of the group's work, then an exploration of the group's significant contributions to political theater, and finally, the legacy of those contributions. The volume explores how creations such as the Living Theatre's ""Paradise Now"" and the Performance Group's ""Dionysus"" in 69 overlapped with political interests that, in the late 1960s, highlighted the notion of social collectives as a radical alternative to mainstream society. Situating theatrical practice within this socio-political context, the book considers how radical theaters sought to redefine the relationship between theater and political activism, and how, as a result, they challenged the foundations of theater itself.