Between acting and authorship: authorial acting at the Theatre Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (DAMU)

Abstract

The paper focuses on a specific approach to creating collaborative authorial performances at the Department of Authorial Creativity and Pedagogy at the Theatre Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts in the course called Acting in Authorial Forms. Jan Hančil situates the course within the context of specific pedagogical framework of the Department, its foundation in Ivan Vyskočil’s concept of dialogical acting, filiations to Bertolt Brecht concepts of acting and examines the ways of teaching acting in collaboratively devised forms. The approach described examines the production and thematic potential of students’ own short texts, including improvized situations within a scenic collage on the given or agreed-on general theme. This approach is examined on the basis of case studies of two different types of creative projects: from students’ works to stage collage and from drama to stage “short story.” The benefits and difficulties of both approaches are discussed as well as their potential for teaching acting and dramaturgy of authorial theatre.