Theatre and Performance Studies

Theatre and Performance Studies examines how live performance operates as a form of cultural practice, asking not only what happens on stage but how bodies, space, language, and audiences together produce meaning in real time. Scholars in this area draw on history, philosophy, sociology, and education to analyze everything from classical drama to immersive installations to community-based applied theatre, treating performance as a lens for understanding identity, power, and social change. A central concern is the concept of performativity — the idea that repeated acts and representations actively shape the realities they seem merely to describe. Active debates include how globalization is transforming performance traditions across different cultural contexts, and whether immersive and participatory formats genuinely redistribute agency between makers and audiences or simply restage familiar power dynamics in new forms.

Works

146,058

Total citations

310,917

Keywords

TheatrePerformance ArtDrama EducationCultural PracticeAudience ExperienceApplied Theatre