The notion of "post-dramatic theatre" was established by German theatre researcher Hans-Thies Lehmann in his 1999 book with the same title, summarizing a number of tendencies and stylistic traits occurring in avant-garde theatre since the end of the 1960s. The theatre which Lehmann calls postdramatic is not primarily focused on the drama in itself, but evolves a performative aesthetic in which the text of the drama is put in a special relation to the material situation of the performance and the stage. Thus postdramatic theatre is more striving to produce an effect amongst the spectators than to remain true to the text.

In its most radical varieties, postdramatic theatre knows no "plot" at all, but concentrates fully on the interaction between actors and audience.

Some names associated with postdramatic theatre are Heiner Müller

Heiner Müller

Heiner Müller was a German dramatist, poet, writer, essayist and theatre director. Described as "the theatre's greatest living poet" since Samuel Beckett, Müller is arguably the most important German dramatist of the 20th century after Bertolt Brecht...

 (Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

), Robert Wilson

Robert Wilson (director)

Robert Wilson is an American avant-garde stage director and playwright who has been called "[America]'s — or even the world's — foremost vanguard 'theater artist'". Over the course of his wide-ranging career, he has also worked as a choreographer, performer, painter, sculptor, video...

 (New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

), The Wooster Group

The Wooster Group

The Wooster Group is a New York City-based experimental theater company known for creating numerous original dramatic works. It gradually emerged during 1975-1980 from Richard Schechner's The Performance Group and took its name in 1980...

 (New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

), Jan Fabre

Jan Fabre

Jan Fabre is a Belgian multidisciplinary artist, playwright, stage director, choreographer and designer.He studied at the Municipal Institute of Decorative Arts and the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp...

, Jan Lauwers and the Needcompany, Frank Castorf

Frank Castorf

Frank Castorf is a German theater director and since 1992 the artistic director of the Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz...

 (Berlin), Josef Szeiler

Josef Szeiler

Josef Szeiler is an Austrian theatre director. As co-founder of the group TheaterAngelusNovus he is first of all known for his experimental approach to texts by Heiner Müller, Bertolt Brecht, Homer and Greek dramas....

/TheaterAngelusNovus (Vienna), Heiner Goebbels

Heiner Goebbels

Heiner Goebbels is a German composer, music director and professor at Justus-Liebig-University in Gießen and at the European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland....

 (Frankfurt), Forced Entertainment (Sheffield) and Teater Moment (Stockholm), Apocryphal Theatre (London).

Literature

• Hans-Thies Lehmann: Postdramatic Theatre. translated and with an introduction by Karen Jürs-Munby, Routledge, London and New York 2006, ISBN 978-0415268134.
• Marijke Hoogenboom, Alexander Karschnia: NA(AR) HET THEATER - after theatre?, Amsterdam 2007, ISBN 9789081245517