Peter Brook

"I can take any empty space and call it a bare stage. A man walks across this empty space whilst someone else is watching him, and this is all that is needed for an act of theatre to be engaged."

Born                      Peter Stephen Paul Brook
                                 21 March 1925 (age 89)
                                 Chiswick, London
Occupation  Director
Awards                 Tony Award for Best Direction of a Play
                                 1966 Marat/Sade
                                 1971 A Mids

In England, Peter Brook and Charles Marowitz undertook The Theatre of Cruelty Season (1964) at the Royal Shakespeare Company, aiming to explore ways in which Artaud's ideas could be used to find new forms of expression and retrain the performer. The result was a showing of 'works in progress' made up of improvisations and sketches, one of which was the premier of Artaud's The Spurt of Blood.

– Lee Jamieson, Antonin Artaud: From Theory to Practice, Greenwich Exchange, 2007

His major influence, however, was Joan Littlewood. Brook described her as "the most galvanising director in mid-20th century Britain".

Brook's work is also inspired by the theories of experimental theatre of Jerzy Grotowski, Bertolt Brecht, Chris Covics and Vsevolod Meyerhold and by the works of G. I. Gurdjieff,Edward Gordon Craig, and Matila Ghyka.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Brook

The Empty Space is a book by director Peter Brook examining four modes or points of view on theatre: Deadly, Holy, Rough and Immediate. 
In it Peter Brooks explores the nature and purpose of the theatre, examine aspects of contemporary theatre production and philosophy that prevent the theatre from fulfilling its purpose most effectively, and discuss ways in which theatre might (must?) change in order for that purpose to be fully realized. Central to the his thematic point is the contention that the fundamental reason theatre exists is to awaken in an audience an understanding of the human condition they were previously unable, or unwilling, to apprehend.
http://www.bookrags.com/studyguide-the-empty-space/#gsc.tab=0


For Artaud, theatre is fire; for Brecht, theatre is clear vision; for Stanislavski, theatre is humanity. Why must we choose between them? 

-Brook, Peter. Part I, `A SENSE OF DIRECTION,' `Provocations,' The Shifting Point 1946-1987, p. 66, Harper and Row, New York (1987)

My thoughts:
Looking into Brook I found that his idea of theatre is not dissimilar to mine, believing that any space can be turned into a performance area. I find this an interesting idea because it opens up options for what is so called conventional theatre and allows us, as actors, to explore and play with the differing spaces (which is what we study in site specific). 

I also like his idea that we don't have to choose between the three main practitioners that we study because I often feel like we're told to focus on only one at a time. I enjoy all the types of theatre we've learnt about and would like to experiment with them, possibly combining ideas together. Therefore I find I relate more so to Brook than the others specifically, as he doesn't want to pigeon hole the types of theatre to which ever is "best", leaving it more open to personal preference or experimentation.

By combining the different methods he can show the diversity of theatre which therefore links to his idea that it does not need to be convetional.