More Show, Less Tell? How do we talk about spoken word now it is performed on a theatre stage?

Stacey, Ruth and Clarke, Sharon (2021) More Show, Less Tell? How do we talk about spoken word now it is performed on a theatre stage? In: Spoken Word in the UK. Routledge, Abingdon, Oxford, pp. 437-448. ISBN ISBN: 978-0-367-35252-3 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-367-35253-0 (pbk) ISBN: 978-0-429-33022-3 (ebk)

Abstract

During the last ten years, performance poetry / spoken word has expanded to include forms which traditionally existed in the portfolio of theatre. This spoken word/ theatre hybrid has emerged with little identifiable structure or framework, where a sustained process of research and development is not supported by mainstream theatre venues or producers. The questions we aimed to explore during our conversation were: how do we accommodate the development of these new forms in contemporary spoken word? What is the language we use with audiences that attract a new cohort without alienating the dedicated spoken word attender? How do we speak about the work, label the work, when it is built from so many materials. Isn't theatre and spoken word the same thing?

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