The Builders Association: Performance and Media in Contemporary Theater (The MIT Press)

455 Pages·2015·23.335 MB·English

by  Shannon Jackson, Marianne Weems

8391.indb 1 6/25/15 11:32 AM
8391.indb 2 6/25/15 11:32 AM
THE BUILDERS ASSOCIATION
Performance and Media in Contemporary Theater
Shannon Jackson and Marianne Weems
THE MIT PRESS Cambridge, Massachusetts London, England
8391.indb 3 6/25/15 11:32 AM
© 2015 Massachusetts Institute of Technology

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical
means (including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval) without permission in
writing from the publisher.

This book was set in Bookman and DIN by the MIT Press. Printed and bound in China.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Jackson, Shannon, 1967–
The Builders Association : performance and media in contemporary theater / Shannon Jackson and Marianne
Weems.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-262-02929-2 (hardcover : alk. paper)
1. Builders Association (Theater company). 2. Experimental theater—New York (State)—New York—History—20th
century. 3. Motion pictures in the theater. 4. Video recordings in the theater. I. Weems, Marianne. II. Title.
PN2277.N52B855 2015
792.09747′1—dc23
2015001169
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
8391.indb 4 6/25/15 11:32 AM
To Jackie Jackson, To the company:
my mother and without you, no book.
visionary producer. —MW
—SJ
8391.indb 5 6/25/15 11:32 AM
8391.indb 6 6/25/15 11:32 AM
CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ix
PROLOGUE: YES, BUT IS IT THEATER? xi
INTRODUCTION: “NEW” MEDIA FOR “OLD” THEATER 1
1 MASTER BUILDER: THE AESTHETICS OF BUILDING 23
2 FAUST: THEATER AS POSTPRODUCTION 69
3 JET LAG: STILL MOVING 115
4 XTRAVAGANZA: OLD MEDIA AND NEW THEATER 157
5 ALLADEEN: GLOBAL SERVERS 195
6 SUPER VISION: SURVEILLING THE AUDIENCE 243
7 CONTINUOUS CITY: DISTANCE YEARNING 291
8 HOUSE/DIVIDED: THE POLITICS OF UNBUILDING 341
EPILOGUE: MEDIATURGY 383
NOTES 397
ILLUSTRATION CREDITS 417
INDEX 425
8391.indb 7 6/25/15 11:32 AM
8391.indb 8 6/25/15 11:32 AM
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book is a document and testament to the ongoing creativity of a group of artists. The act of
writing it coincided with continued acts of theatrical creation. Shannon Jackson wrote in the midst
of teaching and administration at the University of California, Berkeley. Marianne Weems worked on
the project while teaching at Carnegie Mellon and directing more productions. We ended up adding a
new chapter on HOUSE/DIVIDED to what was originally imagined to be a shorter project. Along the
way, we had to make hard choices about what productions would not receive a full accounting—THE
WHITE ALBUM, AVANTI, INVISIBLE CITIES, SONTAG: REBORN—despite our attachment to them. And
we now end this book despite our awareness that there will be future productions, one (ELEMENTS
OF OZ) right around the corner.
As a document and testament, it is also a group collaboration with many artists and with many
builders who have sustained the two of us. We are both grateful to academic institutions—the
University of California, Berkeley and Carnegie Mellon University—that provided us with funding for
the preparation of this book and its many illustrations. The seeds of our collaboration were planted
when Larry Rinder and Ann Hatch introduced us many years ago, and those seeds began to grow with
a 2007 artist residency supported by the Arts Research Center and the Department of Theater, Dance,
and Performance Studies at UC–Berkeley soon after. We are grateful to interlocutors at universities
and in theaters who have invited us to share early versions of this material, especially Princeton
University, Northwestern University, the University of Brussels, and the Association for Theater in
Higher Education.
We are indebted to the creativity and commitment of so many artists who have worked with the
Builders over time—and to those collaborators who contributed new reflections for this book. In
8391.indb 9 6/25/15 11:32 AM