Includes bibliographical references and index.

The text is a lie: textual history and why it matters -- Start here: the three questions -- The cutter's toolkit part one: materials -- The cutter's toolkit part two: strategies and considerations -- Cut to the quick: character-specific cuts -- Don't cut that! The mechanics of cuts -- Cut to the moment: production-specific cuts -- Scissors, paste, and negotiations: communicating cuts -- Appendix 1: Legal concerns ; Appendix 2: Cut activities ; Appendix 3: Further reading.

"Cutting Plays for Performance offers a practical guide for cutting a wide variety of classical and modern plays. This essential text offers insight into the various reasons for cutting, methods to serve different purposes (time, audience, story), and suggests ways of communicating cuts to a production team. Dealing with every aspect of the editing process, it covers structural issues, such as plot beats, rhetorical concepts, and legal considerations, why and when to cut, how to cut with a particular goal in mind such as time constraints, audience and storytelling, and ways of communicating cuts to a production team. A set of practical worksheets to assist with the planning and execution of cuts, as well as step-by-step examples of the process from beginning to end in particular plays help to round out the full range of skills and techniques that are required when approaching this key theatre-making task. This is the first systematic guide for those who need to cut play texts. Directors, dramaturgs, and teachers at every level from students to seasoned professionals will find this an indispensable tool throughout their careers"-- Provided by publisher.