In 2006 Odin Teatret performed its multicultural version of Ur-Hamlet, derived from its early thirteenth-century origins in the Gesta Danorum of Saxo Grammaticus, in the castle courtyard of Kronborg – the Elsinore setting for Shakespeare's version four centuries later. But the performance here followed years of preparation, and involved a multiplicity of theatre styles and performing traditions. The production had its beginnings at sessions of the International School of Theatre Anthropology (ISTA) in Seville in 2004 and Wroclaw in 2005, and preparations continued in Holstebro, Copenhagen, and Bali from 2004 to 2006. Erik Exe Christoffersen followed the final rehearsals in Ravenna, and here gives an account of the Kronborg performance. Erik Exe Christoffersen is Associate Professor at the Institut for Æstetiske Fag, Department for Dramaturgy, Aarhus University, Denmark. His most recent publications include The Actor's Way (Routledge, 1993) and Teaterhandlinger (Theatre Actions, 2007). He is Editor of the Danish theatre journal Peripeti:Tidskrift for Dramaturgiske Studier.

During the early years of the nineteenth century children laboured in factories, down mines, up chimneys, at sea – and in the theatre. In this article, David Haldane Lawrence discusses the portrayal of child labour in the drama of the 1830s and 1840s, concentrating on five plays: The Factory Girl, The Factory Boy, The Dumb Man (or Boy) of Manchester, The Climbing Boy, and The Cabin Boy, whose child heroes extricate themselves from appalling conditions to confront their villainous oppressors, and through coincidental circumstances are elevated to a higher social position. But the realities of child labour are not fully portrayed on the stage, and the working boys of the period remain idealized figures. Here, a comparison is made between this idealization and the actual working conditions of child labourers. The theatricality inherent in the stage representation of child labour is further enhanced by the fact that the leading ‘boy roles’ were usually played by women, and the performances of the cross-dressed specialists in ‘boy roles’ is also discussed, as is the influence on ‘factory boy’ drama of socially relevant fiction, particularly Frances Trollope's novel about child labour, The Life and Adventures of Michael Armstrong the Factory Boy, published in 1840.

In the course of his career, James Macdonald has directed a vast array of plays and operas in London, New York, Vienna, and Berlin, but he is perhaps best known for the premiere productions of Sarah Kane's Blasted, Cleansed, and 4.48 Psychosis at the Royal Court Theatre, where he was an Associate Director from 1992 to 2006. His most recent work includes Peter Handke's The Hour We Knew Nothing of Each Other at the National Theatre and the Broadway revival of Caryl Churchill's Top Girls. Macdonald met with R. Darren Gobert in London on 23 January 2006 to discuss the challenges of working with spare, difficult plays such as Kane's, Churchill's A Number, and Martin Crimp's Fewer Emergencies. R. Darren Gobert wishes to thank Annabel Rutherford for transcribing the conversation and, for their funding, the Faculty of Arts Committee on Research, Grants, and Scholarships at York University.

In this article Andrew Filmer examines performers' experiences in the areas of backstage space known as the wings. Opening with architectural and experiential definitions of the wings, he describes the dangers performers encounter in these spaces, and the various compensatory tactics they employ in response. While the backstage spaces of theatres have traditionally been of little academic interest, Filmer argues that performers' perceptions of the wings are vital in informing their own understandings of what it is to be a professional performer. Andrew Filmer was awarded his PhD by the University of Sydney in 2007 and is currently a lecturer in Drama, Theatre and Performance at Aberystwyth University.

For its size, Singapore hosts an exceptional amount of theatrical activity, emanating both from within the city state and from its role as sponsor of regional international workshops and productions. Its English-speaking dramatists are in the forefront of staging original plays about the foibles of Singaporean society and serving as mediators among South-east Asian theatre practitioners. While troupes depend on government funding and must obtain government permits to perform, most have opted to take an alternative position to the government's narrative of the Singapore success story. This has created an uneasy relationship that undermines the strength of the theatre's social-political critique and encourages self-censorship. In the following essay, Catherine Diamond examines the psychologically cramped conditions within which current Singaporean dramatists operate through a comparison of monodramas. Catherine Diamond is a professor of theatre at Soochow University in Taiwan, and a frequent contributor to NTQ. She is currently directing a flamenco dance-drama adaptation of The House of Bernarda Alba.

The Atlantic Theater Company has been one of Off-Broadway's most successful theatre companies over the past twenty years, having won twelve Tony Awards, eight Lucille Lortel Awards, thirteen Obie Awards, and three Outer Critics Circle Awards. The company, originally founded in 1983 by the playwright David Mamet and the actor William H. Macy, has mounted over one hundred plays, many by new writers. Included among its successes are Martin McDonagh's The Lieutenant of Inishmore and The Beauty Queen of Leenane, Woody Allen's A Second Hand Memory and Writer's Block, the revival of David Mamet's American Buffalo, Celebration and The Room by Harold Pinter, Mojo and Night Heron by Jez Butterworth, and the new musical adaptation of Frank Wedekind's play Spring Awakening, which won the 2007 Tony for best new musical. But producing plays is only part of Atlantic's mission: it also runs the Atlantic Acting School, which operates both as a private conservatoire and an undergraduate training studio in conjunction with New York University. Its curriculum focuses on Practical Aesthetics, the acting technique developed by Mamet and Macy. Mary McCann, in conversation here with NTQ Contributing Editor Ian Watson, is a founding member of the Atlantic Theater Company and Director of the Atlantic Acting School, where she also teaches. She continues to act, having appeared in many of the company's productions, on Broadway, on television, and in several independent films. The conversation took place over two meetings at the Atlantic Acting School in New York City, on 25 April and 5 June 2007.