Edward Gordon Craig

Edward Gordon Craig (1872-1966) is known as one of the 20thcentury’s most influential theatre theorists and makers; he was also a trained actor. The broad scope of ‘theatre maker’, albeit not a term Craig would have used himself, aptly captures how his ideas on the fusion of ‘technical stagecrafts’ (conventionally seen as set construction, stage management, lighting and sound) and ‘creative stagecrafts’ (acting, music, literature, and dance) inform approaches to directing and anticipate collaborative models of authorship. While this relates to the role of a director, the notion of a theatre maker is also inclusive of the collaborative roles and practices of a contemporary scenographer or dramaturg, actor or choreographer. Accordingly, Craig’s practicalexperiments and theoretical arguments positioned the material and spatial elements of theatre as complementary and integral, rather than in service to performers or as superficial decoration. Influenced by the staging principles of Ancient Greek drama, Craig argued that theatre had become too focused on literary texts and needed to rediscover an art of staging that embraced the experiential qualities of light and sound. The ideas that inform contemporary approaches to theatre making are partly in debt to Craig through his argument for a renewed harmony between the individual stagecrafts.