"As Lisa Peck says in this fine book's first sentence, Act as a Feminist: Towards a Critical Acting Pedagogy is 'a call to arms.' This thoroughly researched, historically grounded engagement with performance pedagogies and practices in the UK takes up how traditional practices operate to disempower women, and how this can be reframed by theatre artists from feminist perspectives. Peck engages feminist theories seriously to critique some current methods and attitudes, and provides alternative ways of thinking and working; particularly useful are the rich case studies. This book is a valuable contribution to understanding how to more fully empower women in theatre practice."
Rhonda Blair, Professor, Southern Methodist University; author of The Actor, Image, and Action: Acting and Cognitive Neuroscience; co-editor of Theatre, Performance and Cognition: Languages, Bodies and Ecologies
"Tremendous care and rigour is given to thinking through a feminist stance in the context of actor training. New feminist materialism proves to be a valuable hub that allows for both critique of patriarchal, even abusive, systems of training whilst simultaneously embracing the essential physicality of training and its engagement with objects, spaces etcIt is testimony to Pecks writing skill that she can so seamlessly navigate between the different textures and rhythms of thinking and experiencing. It is a signature of the books methodology and as a critical text it nevertheless aims to demonstrate the very claims she makes for womens actor training, that it is empowering, embraining and embodying."
Libby Worth, Reader, Royal Holloway University; co-editor of Theatre, Dance and Performance Training
"At a critical time in Drama School training, where models of teaching and learning are being rightly interrogated, this book takes us through a feminist perspective to endorse feminist pedagogy as part of the vital reimagining of the importance of "how" we teach, not "what". This is a succinct and exciting study of feminist theory and its application in current training and theatre settings, through the work of women practitioners past and present, many of whom have yet to be recognised for their vital contribution to embodied learning and theatre practice. It will be a valuable asset to Drama Schools as they re-configure their syllabus and examine the need for critical pedagogy and student centred learning and a creative challenge to the status quo which has yet to appreciate the significance of women's contribution to the making of theatre and the training of theatre artists"
Shona Morris, Lead Movement Tutor, Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, UK
"Lisa Peck's Act as a Feminist: Towards a Critical Acting Pedagogy is an important and much-needed work for reasons that concern both feminism/gender studies and actor/performer practice. Written in an accessible style, it tackles in a sophisticated manner via materialist perspectives some of the hidden and silent aspects in discourses on performance and performer processes. The book's double focus on methodology and practice, especially as regards the author's proposals about 're-making mimesis' and 'critical acting pedagogy', is amply and convincingly illuminated with reference to the contributions of women to voice, movement, acting, and directing. A must-have book for students, teachers, and practitioners."
Professor Frank Camilleri, Associate Professor, University of Malta, Author of Performer Training Reconfigured: Post-Psychophysical Perspectives for the Twenty-First Century
"This book is a great contribution to actor training in two ways: it develops a methodology to assess the feminist potential of the pedagogies of established women practitioners and it offers a witnessing experience from the studios of these practitioners."
Evi Stamatiou, Senior Lecturer, University of Chichester, UK
