With the publication of this issue my period as editor of TRI comes to an end. I was fortunate in being able to inherit from my predecessor, Brian Singleton, a flourishing academic journal that had attained a reputation for academic excellence combined with a broad international perspective. I am often asked to define TRI in comparison to other affined periodicals. This is a difficult but nonetheless important question, not only for the editorial board but also for potential authors. If we look at the policy statement (on the inside back cover) then we find a very broad remit: ‘articles on theatre practices in their social, cultural, and historical contexts’ but also, and perhaps more particularly, a desire to reflect ‘the evolving diversity of critical idioms prevalent in the scholarship of differing world contexts’. The last three words are perhaps the most important in respect to the journal's specific focus. TRI is dedicated to reflecting theatre and performance internationally; it gives special preference to articles outside the usual Euro-American mainstream. In this sense the journal aims to reflect the diversity of the membership of the International Federation for Theatre Research/Fédération internationale pour la recherche théâtrale. It is not, however, a mouthpiece of the organization or any of its constituent bodies. Editorial independence is essential for the functioning of any peer-reviewed journal lest it be seen as catering to interest groups or persons whose political prowess may far exceed their scholarly standing.

The importance of regional theatre in the grand scheme of theatre history has long been neglected; this even holds true for an area of research which has aroused more historical interest than any other – Nazi Germany. Addressing this desideratum the article investigates the history of a typical provincial theatre – the Städtische Bühnen in the Westphalian city of Münster – with a special emphasis on the repertoire. The author examines how far the regime was able to implement its demand for a specifically political theatre and relates his findings to other German playhouses. The article argues that the failure of the Nazi administration to turn the Münster playhouse into a propaganda stage does not mean that regional theatres did not fulfil their role for the regime. They did so in other, less obvious ways.

In the period between 2000 and 2004, the Norwegian Research Council funded a research project on ‘cultural-aesthetic practice and welfare’. This project includes two independent studies about theatre and young people. In her dissertation Rikke Gürgens investigates the theatre experience of exceptional and extraordinary people who produce their own theatre. Bjørn Rasmussen conducted an action research project, which established a ‘reflection room’ for teenagers at risk in high schools by means of drama and theatre practice. In both studies, the notion of art as an important part of everyday life became important. The theatre experience had strong implications both socially and aesthetically. In this article we discuss the link and the difference between the aesthetic and the social dimension from the perspectives of John Dewey and Hans-Georg Gadamer. In different ways we believe these philosophers provide a bridge between an autonomous view of art and a present cultural aesthetic that emphasizes the social perspective to a greater degree.

This essay attempts to theorize the decades-long practice of German and other dramaturgs, a practice that is rarely acknowledged by theatre research. It maintains that the dramaturgical interpretation of the specific play in the process of preparing it for stage realization is subject to ‘applied dramaturgy’. Dramaturgy in this sense is predominantly ‘circumstantial’ rather than play-oriented, accounting mainly for the contextual performance conditions, either extra-textual, extra-theatrical or both. Through concrete and partly personal examples drawn largely from the field of production dramaturgy, the article suggests that extrinsic parameters such as the management of the theatre; the definition of the theatrical institution; its implied spectators; the reality conventions within which it operates; its human artistic, technical, spatial and financial resources; its marketing methods; and so on might be no less important to academic play and performance analysis than they are for practical theatre purposes.

Dramaturgical analysis brings together theoretical issues of hermeneutics, text analysis and performance theory with practical, creative work in the theatre. It is a complex, heterogeneous activity connecting research and practice and is designed to reflect on, as well as to develop and enhance, creative work in the theatre. The aim of dramaturgical analysis, as it is examined here, is to open up new dimensions for productions of classical texts, by trying to illuminate these texts from new and innovative perspectives and laying the basis for integrative scenic images that can later be developed for the actual stage interpretation of this text. This article addresses some of the issues concerning dramaturgical analysis by examining the process that led up to a production of Sophocles' Oedipus Tyrannos where the author worked with the Swedish director Leif Stinnerbom, the artistic director of the small and highly respected Västanå Theatre located in the Swedish province of Värmland. The Oedipus Tyrannos production analysed here was performed at the Odense municipal theatre in Denmark in 1999, where Stinnerbom was invited as a guest director.

This practice-based paper looks at the nature of dramaturgical development in the theatre, and at the role of the dramaturg. It has two objectives: to examine the meaning of key terms such as ‘play text’, ‘dramaturgy’ and ‘development’, and to look at how, and according to what values, dramaturgical interventions into particular play texts are best structured. The differences between production, generative dramaturgy and adaptive dramaturgy are detailed, and the analysis of play texts using simple categories such as plot, character and language is briefly explored. The conclusions clarify some of the predicates of dramaturgical development as they impact on the theatre-making process today and identify some of the fundamental problems and challenges thereby associated with the role of the dramaturg.

This essay is a report on the Dramaturgy and Cultural Intervention Project (Dramaturgies), a forum for the investigation of issues in professional dramaturgical practice in Australia. It reviews the textual orientation of historical theatre practice in Australia before describing a series of events aiming to promote a wider and more culturally interactive understanding of dramaturgy. New forms of dramaturgy arising in response to the post-dramatic turn in theatre are discussed as a basis for exploring an expanded dramaturgical practice. Proposals for a politics of dramaturgy that revive theatre as a forum for social critique conclude the essay. While specific to one set of theatre interventions, it is intended that the proposals discussed herein have wider applications.

This article offers a dramaturg's perspective on the day-to-day rehearsal activities of the director Peter Sellars as he prepared his highly controversial production of Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice at Chicago's Goodman Theatre in 1994. Because Sellars had conceptualized his production well before his arrival in Chicago, and because he was inaccessible prior to the first rehearsal, the usual pre-production collaboration could not take place. On one level the article is about the dramaturg being thrust into the thick of an unusual process and finding his role(s) along the way: as enquiring interlocutor asking questions to clarify the proceedings for self and for the audience, another as documenter. Sellars readily agreed that any other person's perceptions of his process are different from his own. My purpose here is to offer a dramaturg's-eye view of the working methods of one of contemporary theatre's most iconoclastic and innovative directors, along with some critical reflections on the process.