Eds: Jonathan Pitches and Stefan Aquilina (Bloomsbury, 2017)

Stanislavsky in the World is an ambitious and ground-breaking work charting a fascinating story of the global dissemination and transformation of Stanislavsky's practices.

Case studies written by local experts, historians and practitioners are brought together to introduce the reader to new routes of Stanislavskian transmission across the continents of Europe, Asia, Africa, Australasia and South (Latin) America. Such a diverse set of stories moves radically beyond linear understandings of transmission to embrace questions of transformation, translation, hybridisation, appropriation and resistance.

This important work not only makes a significant contribution to Stanislavsky studies but also to recent research on theatre and interculturalism, theatre and globalisation, theatre and (post)colonialism and to the wider critical turn in performer training historiographies.

This is a unique examination of Stanislavsky's work presenting a richly diverse range of examples and an international perspective on Stanislavsky's impact that has never been attempted before.

Although theatre is the most local of art forms, this important collection documents how the Stanislavsky system became a major force in theatrical globalization in the 20^th century. From Malta to Bangladesh to China it shows how actors and pedagogues came to share a common artistic vocabulary.  (Prof. Christopher Balme, current Chair in Theatre Studies at the University of Munich)

Contributions include:

• Ian Maxwell’s discussion of a ‘received Stanislavsky’ and the tyranny of distance in Australian actor training;
• Peta Tait’s analysis of acting idealism and emotions as mobilised by Hayes Gordon and The Ensemble Theatre in Sydney;
• Hilary Halba’s account on the System experienced through the Maori World in New Zealand;

• Marie-Christine Autant-Mathieu’s discussion of selected affinities between Stanislavsky and the French Theatre Tradition;
• Siyuan Liu’s analysis of Stanislavsky’s impact on a Chinese School of Performance and Directing;
• Raúl Serrano’s teacher-perspective on current Stanislavskian teaching at the Escuela de Teatro de Buenos Aires in Argentina;
• Moez Mrabet’s discussion of Stanislavsky’s impact on both modern theatre and contemporary actor training in Tunisia;
• Syed Jamil Ahmed’s articulation of the System as postcolonial appropriation and assimilation in Bangladesh.

The book’s official launch will be held as follows:

Date:                5^th June 2017

Time:               17:00

Venue:             Alec Clegg Studio, stage@leeds building, University of Leeds