Theatre and Performance Studies

Theatre and Performance Studies examines how live performance works as a cultural practice — how meaning is made in the encounter between performers and audiences, how bodies and spaces shape what a performance can say, and how theatrical forms have developed across historical and social contexts. Beyond the stage, the field extends to performance art, applied theatre in educational and community settings, and immersive formats that dissolve the boundary between spectator and event, asking what it means to participate rather than simply watch. Researchers draw on philosophy, sociology, anthropology, and literary theory to understand performance not as a discrete art object but as an unstable, time-bound act — what theorists call "performativity" — that both reflects and actively constructs social reality. Current work presses on questions such as how globalization reshapes theatrical traditions without erasing them, and whether immersive and participatory formats genuinely redistribute agency or reproduce familiar power dynamics in more seductive form.

Works

150,322

Total citations

312,375

Keywords

TheatrePerformance ArtDrama EducationCultural PracticeAudience ExperienceApplied Theatre