Richard Schechner

Professor Emeritus; Editor, The Drama Review

Richard Schechner

Richard Schechner, one of the founders of Performance Studies, is a performance theorist, theater director, author, editor of TDR and the Enactments book series, University Professor, and Professor of Performance Studies. Schechner combines his work in performance theory with innovative approaches to the broad spectrum of performance including theatre, play, ritual, dance, music, popular entertainments, sports, politics, performance in everyday life, etc. in order to understand performative behavior not just as an object of study, but also as an active artistic-intellectual practice.  He founded The Performance Group and East Coast Artists.  His theatre productions include Dionysus in 69, Commune, The Tooth of Crime, Mother Courage and Her Children, Seneca's Oedipus, Faust/gastronome, Three Sisters, Hamlet, The Oresteia, YokastaS, Swimming to Spalding, and Imagining O. His books include Public Domain, Environmental Theater, Performance Theory, The Future of Ritual, Between Theater and Anthropology, Performance Studies: An Introduction, and Performed Imaginaries. As of 2018, his books have been translated into 18 languages. His theatre work has been seen in Asia, Africa, Europe, and North America. He has directed performance workshops and lectured on every continent except Antarctica.  He has been awarded numerous fellowships including Guggenheim, NEH, ACLS, and fellowships at Dartmouth, Cornell, Yale, Princeton, and the Central School of Speech and Drama, London.

Education

Tulane University

PhD 1962

New Orleans, Louisiana

 

University of Iowa

Master of Arts 1958

Iowa City, Iowa

 

Cornell University

Bachelor of Arts 1956

Ithaca, New York

AREAS OF RESEARCH

• Performance theory

• Experimental performance

• Asian performance

• Intercultural performance

• Ritual, play, and performance

• Theories of directing

• Broad spectrum of performance

• Globalization and performance

• Performance in everyday life

• Popular entertainments

Books

• Performance Studies: An Introduction in English, Spanish, Polish, and Finnish with other translations in press

• Il Nuovo Terzo Mundo dei Performance Studies, Italian

• Performed Imaginaries

• Ritüelin Gelecegi, Turkish

• Performance e Antropologia. Portuguese

• Essays of Richard Schechner. Chinese

• Performancia: teórie, praktiky, rituály. Slavic

• Performance: Introducere si teorie, Romanian Performance: Expérimentation et théorie du théâtre aux USA, French

• Over Under and Around: Essays on Performance and Culture, India

• Performance Theory, revised and expanded

• Interculturele Puzzels, Dutch

• Performance Theory, Parsi

• Environmental Theatre, Chinese

• Performance: Teoria & Practicas Interculturales, Spanish     

• Przyszlosc Rytualu, Polish

• Magnitudini della Performance, Italian

• Performance Studies: Where Theatre Meets Anthropology, Japanese

• Between Theatre and Anthropology, Korean

• Environmental Theater, expanded edition

• The Future of Ritual

• Ka Postmodernom Pozoristu, Serbo-Croatian

• Theater-Anthropologie, German

• A Performance, Hungarian

• Performance Theory

• El Teatro Ambientalista, Spanish

• The Engleburt Stories, with Samuel MacIntosh-Schechner

• Between Theater and Anthropology

• La Teoria della Performance, Italian

• Performative Circumstances from the Avantgarde to Ramlila, India

• The End of Humanism

• Makbeth, after Shakespeare

• Essays on Performance Theory

• Theatres, Spaces, and Environments, with Brooks McNamara and Jerry Rojo

• Environmental Theater

• Public Domain. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill

Professional Distinctions - Awards & Distinctions

• Oslo National Academy of the Arts

• University of Messina, Italy, PhD Program in Performance Studies, University of Messina, Italy named in honor Schechner

• Thalia Prize, International Association of Theatre Critics (IATC)

• Odznake Honorowa: Zasluzony Dla Kultury Polskiej, Poland

• Lifetime Career Achievement Award, American Theatre in Higher Education

• Lifetime Achievement Award, Performance Studies International 

• Honorary Doctorate, Hong Kong Academy of Performing Arts

• Honorary Doctorate, Alexander Zelwerowicz Theatre Academy, Warsaw

• Honorary Doctorate, University of Rome