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Introduction: Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism’s Special Section on Cognitive Studies, Theatre, and Performance

For over a decade theatre and performance scholars and practitioners have been exploring how current research in the cognitive and neurosciences can illuminate understanding and advance our various disciplines. Cognitive sciences began surfacing in theatre and performance studies in the late 1990s. By 2001, papers were being presented at American Society for Theatre Research (ASTR) seminars and articles were appearing in theatre journals and scholarly collections (e.g., Blair’s “The Method and the Computational Theory of Mind” in David Krasner’s Method Acting Reconsidered—an essay she now finds problematic).1 By 2004 there were working groups at both ASTR and the Performance Studies Focus Group preconference of the Association for Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE). The first survey book on the subject, Performance and Cognition: Theatre Studies and the Cognitive Turn, edited by Bruce McConachie and F. Elizabeth Hart, appeared in 2006.2 David Saltz edited a special issue of Theatre Journal on “Performance and Cognition” in late 2007.3 In 2008 the first full-length monographs were published: McConachie’s Engaging Audiences: A Cognitive Approach to Spectating in the Theatre and Blair’s The Actor, Image, and Action: Acting and Cognitive Neuroscience.4 Palgrave initiated a new series entitled Cognitive Studies in Literature and Performance, under the editorial leadership of McConachie and Blakey Vermeule. A representative sample of recent books includes Amy Cook’s Shakespearean Neuroplay: Reinvigorating the Study of Dramatic Texts and Performance through Cognitive Science (2010) and Lutterbie’s Toward a General