The Empty Space

by Peter Brook / (originally published in 1968; since updated)

New York, Atheneum, ISBN: 0689705581


I was taking an Advanced Acting class in college, and a student was giving a book report.
These are usually rather ho-hum affairs, and I was preparing to become properly glassy-eyed
when he suddenly lept up on a table (a very Gene Kelly-ish thing to do in the middle
of a book report) and began to talk about Peter Brook's The Empty Space.

I was enthralled. I'll never forget that moment when theater started taking shape for me.
The year was 1974. The class was at California State University - Chico. The professor was
Dr. Larry Wismer and the student was Tom Kinnee, son of CSU-C opera professor, Dr. James Kinnee.

I went out immediately to buy the book, and it helped guide me through a graduate degree in theatre.

It's gone through several updated versions since then;
Brook himself says that the text will become outdated as you read it.
But if you love theater, get it anyway.
Then go jump on a table and "shape the empty space."


141 pages


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