Acknowledgments
We are very grateful that the International Federation for Theatre Research (IFTR) established the system of research working groups in the 1990s. This initiative offers scholars the possibility to carry out common research and exchange ideas with colleagues on a specialised topic during a longer period, independently of the rhythm of the changing themes of the annual conferences.
This book is written by members of the Theatrical Event working group of the IFTR. This working group, established in 1997, started as a fusion of two working groups existing at the time: the International Committee of Reception and Audience Research (ICRAR) and the working group Theatrical Systems.
As theoretical preparation for this fusion of the two working groups, in 1996 Willmar Sauter organised an international colloquium on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of his Stockholm Drama and Theatre department with the title “The Theatrical Event as Scholarly Paradigm”. He coined the term “event-ness” as a label to recognize this change in paradigm1 and it became the driving force behind the focus of the Theatrical Event Working Group for many years.
We are grateful to all the members of the Theatrical Event working group for, their productive critical attitude, their collegiality, and their enthusiasm in embracing this new approach. New scholars participating in the group experienced this research path as self-evident. Besides, Willmar Sauter, Peter Eversmann, Anneli Saro, Henri Schoenmakers and Vicki Ann Cremona in particular, provided continuity and structure to the activities of the working group. Apart from holding sessions within the framework of the IFTR conferences, the group also meets almost annually in the university town of one of the members to carefully discuss work in progress.
This book is the fourth publication of the Theatrical Event working group in the series Themes in Theatre, Collective Approaches to Theatre Performance. Besides contributing to the books in this series, most members of the working group are busy with other publications as well, and with their teaching and management tasks within their departments. That makes it an even greater pleasure that all, in one way or another, manage to provide continuity in working on a theatrical event topic.
Publication in the Themes in Theatre series is based on double-blind peer reviews. The editors and authors are very grateful to the peer reviewers, who were not at all blind in noting the weak and strong points in the articles and gave very specific comments and helpful advice for the final editing. We appreciate that very much.
English is the Lingua Franca of scholarship, also in theatre studies. For many scholars participating in an international working group, not being a native speaker causes quite some stress. Even when a native speaker is found for corrections of an article, when this person is not a theatre scholar, weird proposals can be the result. The word “performance” can then be changed into “show”, “director” into “manager” etc. Our working group is extremely happy that since the first publication of this working group, Vicki Ann Cremona is taking care of a consistent and correct use of the English language; in the case of the present publication, she was assisted by Bess Rowen. We cannot emphasize enough how essential this role is for the internationalisation of scholarship.
It goes without saying that our thanks go out to all the contributors of this publication – their patience with our interventions and the time-consuming production process is much appreciated. Finally, we would like to thank our publisher Brill and its staff, in particular Christa Stevens, the Literature and Cultural Studies editor, for their attention and dedication to our work.
The Editors