Avra Sidiropoulou​o and Frank M. Raddatz​ to Hold Discussion on Sidiropoulou's New Book During the SEGAL BOOK TALK Series

The Segal Book Talk series continues December 15 at noon, with a conversation with Avra Sidiropoulouo (Greece) and Frank M. Raddatza?? (Germany) about Sidiropouloua??'s new book: Staging 21st Century Tragedies. Theatre, Politics and Global Crisis. The conversation will be moderated by Frank Hentschker, Director, MESTC, The Graduate Center CUNY

Avra Sidiropoulou is Associate Professor of Theatre at the Open University of Cyprus and Artistic Director of Athens-based Persona Theatre Company. She is the author of Directions for Directing. Theatre and Method (Routledge 2018) and Authoring Performance: The Director in Contemporary Theatre (Palgrave Macmillan 2011). She has directed, conducted practical workshops and delivered invited lectures internationally and was a Japan Foundation fellow at the University of Tokyo. She is the co-editor of Adapting Greek Tragedy. Contemporary Contexts for Ancient Texts (CUP 2021) and editor of Staging 21st Century Tragedies: Theatre, Politics and Global Crisis (Routledge, 2022). Avra was nominated for the League of Professional Theatre Women 2020 Gilder/Coigney International Theatre Award.

Frank M. Raddatz, born in 1956 in Hanover, is a German publicist and dramaturge at various theaters. He wrote his doctoral dissertation on Heiner Müller and published numerous works on aesthetics and drama theory. From 2007 to 2014, he was an editor at »Theater der Zeit«; since then, he has been working for »Lettre International«. He taught at several universities. Currently at the Humboldt University, Berlin. Frank M. Raddatz lives in Berlin, where he founded in 2019 with the Arctic researcher Antje Boetius and the President of the Humbodt - University Sabine Kunst the Theatre of the Antropocene. The Theatre of the Anthropocene is conceived around the fundamental conflict "Man and Nature in the Anthropocene" and, by means of the stage and urban interventions, promotes intensive cooperation and networking between artists, scientists, designers and civil society. The concept is based on Humboldt's idea that only an intact bond between man and nature, tied together by knowledge and experience, empathy and emotion, can be the basis of a sustainable civilisation.

Staging 21st Century Tragedies. Theatre, Politics and Global Crisis examines ways in which the political, ecological and social tragedies of our century are being negotiated on international stages.

The globally reemerging practice of politically engaged art-a "Theatre of Crisis"-represents our century's equivalent to the genre of classical tragedy.

Using an interdisciplinary perspective, the book discusses participatory, immersive and documentary theatre practices that emerged in the public sphere-creating the theatre of "modern tragedy". The coexistence of scholarly essays with provocative manifestos, interviews, original works, theatre texts and diaries by theatre artists is meant to provide a multifocal, rich lens for performance analysis and a better understanding of the creative process. This new international collection, to be published by Routledge in 2022, consists of essays, interviews, plays and manifestos by leading academics, artists, writers and curators including Anestis Azas, Taiwo Afolabi, Silvia Bigliazzi, Peter Campbell, Freddy Decreus, Ana Contreras Elvira, Lupe Gehrenbeck, Hanane Hajj Ali, Karen Malpede , Carol Martin, Yana Meerzon, Aldo Milohnic, Ana Fernandez Caparrós, Avra Sidiropoulou, Ogah Mark Onwe, Stephen Ogheneruro Okpadah, Frank Raddatz, Miguel Rojo and Javier Hernando, Tadashi Uchino, Su Xiaogang, Daniel Wetzel, Constantina Ziropoulou.

CLICK HERE for a free download of a chapter from Staging 21st century Tragedies. Theatre, Politics and Global Crisis by Avra Sidiropoulou, published by and courtesy by Routledge 2022