Blog
Histories, guides and background from the Antenna Theater archive
Antenna Theater Journal
Four decades of audio-driven, walk-through and site-specific theater, told through the productions, the places and the ideas behind them. New pieces are added here as they are published.
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What Is a Theatre Installation? When the Room Becomes the Play
What is a theatre installation? A plain definition, Kabakov’s total installation, Punchdrunk and Schlingensief, and a 1988 Bay Area walk-through case.
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What Is a Sound Installation? Sound Placed in Space, From Times Square to the Wave Organ
What is a sound installation? A clear definition, where the term came from, Neuhaus, Fontana, Cardiff and the Wave Organ, and San Francisco’s sound history.
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What Is a Sound Collage? From Train Records to Theatre Soundtracks
What is a sound collage? A clear definition, a history from Ruttmann and Schaeffer to the San Francisco Tape Music Center, and how theatre used the technique.
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Somewhere in the Pacific: Snake Theater’s Sunset Play on Fort Cronkhite Beach (1978)
Somewhere in the Pacific, Snake Theater’s 1978 sunset play at Fort Cronkhite: the sailor, Carole and the Sharkman, MacArthur masks and words in the sand.
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ECOtime: Antenna Theater’s One-Minute Radio Shorts on the Natural Year
ECOtime, Chris Hardman’s one-minute radio shorts for Antenna Theater: the four surviving scripts, Green 960 AM, Living on Earth and what is still unknown.
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24th Hour Cafe: Snake Theater’s Masked Truck-Stop Melodrama (1978)
24th Hour Cafe, Snake Theater’s 1978 truck-stop play: the masked waitress and drivers, cardboard diners, subtitles, the Leavenworth Street run and the tapes.
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What Is Street Theatre? A Short History, From Agitprop to Sausalito
What is street theatre? A plain definition, its history from Soviet agitprop and the 1965 Mime Troupe arrest to festivals, and a Sausalito street career.
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What Is Object Theatre? Everyday Things as Performers
What is object theatre? How everyday objects became performers, how it differs from puppetry, the French kitchen table that named it, and Paul Zaloom.
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What Is Devised Theatre? How Companies Make Plays Without a Script
What is devised theatre? A plain definition, how a devised show is made, the companies that shaped it, and a Bay Area case where the audience helped write.
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What Is a Happening in Art? Kaprow, Fluxus and the Bay Area
What is a happening in art? Allan Kaprow’s 1959 happenings, Cage at Black Mountain, how Fluxus differed, and the Bay Area happenings of the 1960s.
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The New Season: Antenna Theater’s Radio Plays for Television (1984-1986)
The New Season, Antenna Theater’s radio plays for television: Radio-Active Theater on KPFA in 1984, Maxine, Bad Reception and the TV with the sound turned off.
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Moving Sculptures: Antenna Theater’s Plywood Neighbours in Marin (1982)
Moving Sculptures, Antenna Theater’s 1982 plan to move plywood look-alikes of real residents through five Marin towns: the figures, the models, the method.