Clive Barker

Clive Barker (June 29, 1931 – March 17, 2005) was a theater performer, acting coach and a co-editor of New Theatre Quarterly. Theater Professional Clive Barker was born in Middlesbrough, his father was a steel worker. He trained to be a stage manager at the Bristol Old Vic School and joined Joan Littlewood's theater group afterward. Important roles were in Brendan Behan’s The Hostage (1958) and Oh! What a Lovely War (1963). His debut as a director was Shelagh Delaney’s The Lion in Love (1960). At the end of this career, he had become an "innovative spirit at the heart of theatre studies", according to the obituary in The Guardian. He bridged the gap between the professional theater and theater studies at British universities; many previous theater scholars (among them Allardyce Nicoll) had called for well-versed academics who had practical experience as theater artists. Barker's actor training book, Theatre Games (1977), was based on the model of the scholar/clown and grew to be very influential among theater practitioners and teachers in many countries. The manual includes advice, instructions for games, and theories of performance; it enjoyed frequent citation for decades. The book's success led to Barker teaching acting courses "at the highest levels" internationally. The book's method was attractive to those working in conventional and alternative theater. Barker himself was devoted to unconventional forms of theater. His last professional service was, on the day he died, instructing a group of children with cerebral palsy. Academic career Barker's career in university teaching, academic publishing, and theater research stretched over decades. In 1967 he joined the Drama Department at Birmingham University, moving on to Warwick University’s Theatre Studies Department in 1976. He retired in 1993. For 25 years, he was a co-editor of Theatre Quarterly (after 1985: New Theatre Quarterly); the journal is devoted to all epochs and styles of theatrical performance and Barker often published essays in it. The journal aimed to "provide a lively international forum where theatrical scholarship and practice can meet, and where prevailing dramatic assumptions can be subjected to vigorous critical questioning."