This book addresses the historical, social, colonial, and administrative contexts that determine today's U.S. actor training, as well as matters of identity politics, access, and marginalization as they emerge in classrooms and rehearsal halls. It considers persistent, questioning voices about our nation's acting training as it stands, thereby contributing to the national dialogue the diverse perspectives and proposals needed to keep American actor training dynamic and germane, both within the U.S. and abroad. Prominent academics and artists view actor training through a political, cultural or ethical lens, tackling fraught topics about power as it plays out in acting curricula and classrooms. The essays in this volume offer a survey of trends in thinking on actor training and investigate the way American theatre expresses our national identity through the globalization of arts education policy and in the politics of our curriculum decisions.

Acknowledgments Introduction, Ellen Margolis and Lissa Tyler Renaud, Part I 1: Stanislavsky and Politics: Active Analysis and the American Legacy of Soviet Oppression, Sharon Marie Carnicke 2: Actor Training Meets Historical Thinking, Jonathan Chambers 3: The Politics of Western Pedagogy in the Theatre of India, Chandradasan 4: Degrees of Choice, Leigh Woods 5: Training Artists or Consumers? Commentary on American Actor Training, Lissa Tyler Renaud 6: Changing Demographics: Where is Diversity in Theatre Programs in Higher Education and National Associations?, Donna B. Aronson 7: The Wild, Wild East: Report on the Politics of American Actor Training Overseas, Lissa Tyler Renaud Part II 8: Beyond Race and Gender: Reframing Diversity in Actor Training Programs, David Eulus Wiles 9: "Typed" for What?, Mary Cutler 10: "They accused me of bein' a homosexual": Playing Kerry Cook in The Exonerated, Derek S. Mud 11: Identity Politics and the Training of Latino Actors, Micha Espinosa and Antonio Ocampo-Guzman 12: Keeping It Real Without Selling Out: Toward Confronting and Triumphing Over Racially Specific Barriers in American Acting Training, Venus Opal Reese 13: Disability and Access: A Manifesto for Actor Training, Victoria Ann Lewis 14: Arrested or Paralyzed? Reflections on the Erotic Life of an Acting Teacher, Ellen Margolis Notes on Contributors Index