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Lighting Up the Lizard Brain: The New Necessity of Theater

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Abstract

The paper seeks to identify criteria that digital communication would have to satisfy in order to serve the functions for which theater is necessary in human cultures.

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Notes

  1. Woodruff (2008, pp 26–28). The present paper should be read as an extension of that book.

  2. Woodruff (2008, pp 18–19, 38–48).

  3. "You Wouldn't Know Her, She Lives in London. You Wouldn't Know Him, He Lives In Texas." (In Texas, they used the first clause as the title for our publicity, and in London, they used the second.) Beth Burns is the playwright (though other team members contributed to the writing process). The play was produced by Austin's "The Hidden Room Theatre" in partnership with co-producers "Look Left Look Right" and "Roundhouse" in London. The Technology Designer for the production was Robert Matney. For reviews and discussion, go to http://rmatney.posterous.com/tag/digitalinteractivetheatre.

  4. See Woodruff (2005, p. 83).

  5. "It is necessary for every man and child, free or slave, female or male—the whole city—never to cease casting spells on the whole city, itself on itself" (Plato, Laws 665c).

  6. It is well known that humans share the ability to sense a dangerous presence with other animals that lack the parts of the brain associated with reasoning. See, for example, Kennedy et al. (2009).

  7. Woodruff (2008, p. 45).

References

  • Kennedy DP, Gläscher J, Tyszka JM, Adolphs R (2009) Personal space regulation by the human amygdala. Nat Neurosci 12(10):1226–1227

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  • Woodruff P (2005) First democracy. Oxford University Press, New York

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  • Woodruff P (2008) The necessity of theater. Oxford University Press, New York

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Correspondence to Paul Woodruff.

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Woodruff, P. Lighting Up the Lizard Brain: The New Necessity of Theater. Topoi 30, 151–155 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11245-011-9101-z

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