Join FSU School of Theatre for a Week with Director Richard Schechner

FSU's School of Theatre is hosting  world renown scholar, performance theorist, theater director and author Richard Schechner for a series of engaging lectures. Each of these events if free and open to the public. 

About Richard Schechner: 

Schechner’s books and essays have been translated into more than 20 languages. He is the general editor of the Enactments Book Seriesfor Seagull Books and the Worlds of Performance Book Series for Routledge.  He was a producing director of the Free Southern Theater and the founding artistic director of The Performance Group and East Coast Artists. His theatre productions include Dionysus in 69 (after Euripides’ The Bacchae), Sam Shephard’s The Tooth of Crime, Bertolt Brecht’s Mother Courage and Her Children, August Wilson’s Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Anton Chekhov’s Three Sisters and Cherry Orchard, Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Seneca’s Oedipus,  Swimming to Spalding,YokastaS and Imagining O. He has directed, led workshops, taught and lectured in every continent except Antarctica. During the time of COVID, Schechner has led and participated in many webinars. His honors include numerous fellowships, awards and three honorary doctorates. In 2023, Schechner was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
 

Events: 

Schechner on Dionysus in ’69 (film and talk back)

7-9 p.m. Monday, Sept. 18

Conradi Studio Theatre

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Screening of one of the emblematic productions of American avant-garde theatre, Dionysus in 69, Richard Schechner’s most famous performance, with a short introduction and an after-screening discussion. Film length: 90 minutes
 

Schechner on His Directing Career

4:30-6:30 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 19

Conradi Studio Theatre

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Richard Schechner has directed plays with leading professional actors in the United States, Taiwan, China, India, and the Republic of South Africa. His productions have won major awards such as the BITEF (Belgrade International Experimental Theatre Festival) Prize, two OBIEs (New York Off Broadway prize), and the Mondello Prize (Italy). Schechner is the founding director of The Performance Group and East Coast Artists. His directing — and his book Environmental Theater — have pioneered immersive theatre, site-specific performances, and audience participation. He has both radically reinterpreted and deconstructed canonical texts and worked closely with performers on devising productions worldwide.
 

Schechner’s Short History of Stage Directing

7-8 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 20

Fine Arts Building, Room 249

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Modern Euro-American directing started with the practice of the Saxe-Meiningen theatre company (1866-1890), sponsored by its reigning duke, George II, whose operative stage manager, Ludwig Chronegk, was the first European director in the modern sense. Similar activities occurred at about the same time in Iran, but there was no link between the two practices. This lecture focuses on Europe and the USA. Schechner will discuss/analyze some of the ideas and practices of Konstantin Stanislavsky, Gordon Craig, Vsevolod Meyerhold, Bertolt Brecht-Erwin Piscator, Peter Brook,  Antonin Artaud, The Living Theatre, Jerzy Grotowski, Tadeusz Kantor, Robert Wilson, Richard Foreman, The Builders Association,  Elevator Repair Service, Lee Breuer-Mabou Mines, Anne Bogart and Rachel Chavkin. He will outline key themes and their exemplars: realism-naturalism, expressionism-bio-mechanics, visual theatre, movement theatre, “poor theatre”, environmental theatre and experimental theatre on Broadway. The lecture will be illustrated by slides. 
 

Schechner on The Legacy of Jerzy Grotowski

5-6:30 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 21

Fine Arts Building, Room 249

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Jerzy Grotowski was one of the formative theatre artists and thinkers of the 20th century, in the line of Konstantin Stanislavsky, Vsevolod Meyerhold, Antonin Artaud, and Juliusz Osterwa. Richard Schechner corresponded with  Grotowski in 1963 and met him in person in 1966. In 1967, Schechner participated in the first USA workshop led by Grotowski and his lead actor at that time, Ryszard Cieslak. Schechner remained one of Grotowski’s friends and supporters, particularly during the Laboratory Theatre period. As editor of TDR, Schechner published several important articles by and about Grotowski. Schechner is co-editor (with Lisa Wolford Wylam) of The Grotowski Sourcebook (1997).  This event will take the form of a dialogue between Richard Schechner and Kris Salata. The event will include the screening of fragments of rarely seen video material as well as a Q&A with the audience.
 

Schechner on The Ramlila of Ramnagar, India: Outdoor Environmental Theatre

3-4:30 p.m. Friday, Sept. 22

Fine Arts Building, Room 249

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Each September and October for 30 or 31 days in Ramnagar, India (across the Ganges River from Varanasi), local people under the guidance of the Maharaja of Banaras enact in detail the life of Rama, Vishnu’s seventh avatar. Each day, they stage another episode of Rama’s life — his birth, training, marriage, exile into the forest with his wife Sita and brother Lakshmana, the kidnapping of Sita by the 10-headed demon king Ravana, the war against Ravana and his demon hordes to recover Sita, Rama, Sita, and Lakshmana’s triumphant return home to Ayodhya where Rama, after re-uniting with his other brothers, Bharata and Shatrughna,  is coronated king of Kosala. Directed by vyases, priest-theatre directors, Ramlila is staged throughout Ramnagar in the streets, fields, in specially built theatrical environments, and inside the palace of the Maharaja.

Thousands of spectators believe that Rama, Sita, and Rama’s brothers are gods incarnate, on earth for this month to enact their great drama. Worshipping these gods is part of the performance. Other figures – divine, demonic, human and animal – perform their roles in the story of Rama. When Sita is seized by Ravana, Rama leads an army of monkeys and bears — including Hanuman, the devoted monkey warrior — across the sea from India to Lanka where they slay Ravana  and rescue Sita. Attending each performance, and overseeing the whole event from atop his royal elephant is the Maharaja of Banaras. Each day crowds ranging from 2,000 to 75,000 come to worship, celebrate, and enjoy theatre. Richard Schechner has studied the Ramlila of Ramnagar since 1976. He is the author of many articles about Ramlila and has taken more than 8,000 photographs and many hours of film, the world’s largest archive of this performance.