Queering Actor Training and Supporting Gender Dissidence

Abstract

This article reviews Conrad Alexandrowicz’s Acting Queer: Gender Dissidence and the Subversion of Realism, a monograph that sets out to explore the experiences of gender-nonconforming performers in contemporary actor training. Peters outlines the strengths and limitations of Alexandrowicz’s wide-ranging work, particularly with regard to the level of specificity (or lack thereof) it offers regarding alternatives to current practices. While celebrating the work as an introduction to a wide range of thinking on gender in performance and in society more broadly, Peters is critical of certain sections as potentially harmful to the very gender-dissident performers the work is attempting to empower. Overall, Peters concludes that Acting Queer can serve as an introduction to queer and gender theory for practitioners and pedagogues and might serves as a springboard for further thinking regarding the training of performing artists in North America.