Michael Pinchbeck, interview with Intellect

Over the summer, Michael Pinchbeck recorded an interview with Intellect about a new series he is co-editing with Frances Babbage.

Launched in 2000, Intellect’s Playtext series champions new writing and new forms of theatre that question, subvert, trouble or defy the traditional notion of the playtext. Its approach is formally wide-ranging, encompassing contemporary playscripts, theatre texts and scores, practicebased creativity, and performance documentation in diverse forms. The series aims to enlarge cultural horizons with translations of playtexts new to English-speaking audiences and innovative comparative collections. While publication projects in all these areas are welcomed, of particular interest are proposals that sit at the crossovers of the following compass of categories: inter-disciplinary, inter-cultural, intertextual and inter-sectional. Embracing these ‘hyphenates’, the series promotes dynamic engagement with complex societal and global issues, simultaneously interrogating and refreshing expectations about modes of creation, textual form and notions of the playtext. Dialogic and collaborative by design, volumes in this series typically situate performance texts alongside contextual essays examining processes of creation, presentation and reception, as well as critical analyses from diverse political, social, cultural and theoretical perspectives. The Playtext series includes and celebrates all kinds of writing for and about performance, seeking to define and debate what a playtext might mean to theatre scholars and makers in the 21 st century.