Routledge Advances in Theatre & Performance Studies
About the Book Series
This series is our home for cutting-edge, upper-level scholarly studies and edited collections. Considering theatre and performance alongside topics such as religion, politics, gender, race, ecology, and the avant-garde, titles are characterized by dynamic interventions into established subjects and innovative studies on emerging topics.
Chekhov, The Anxious Playwright: His Four Great Plays in Their Cultural Context
1st Edition
By Jim Curtis
April 29, 2026
This book provides an in-depth analysis of Anton Chekhov’s four great plays within their cultural context: The Seagull, Uncle Vanya, The Three Sisters, and The Cherry Orchard. The author explores how Chekhov’s historical situation as a non-aristocratic writer gave him an intense awareness of his ...
Black Queer Dance: Gay Men and the Politics of Passing for Almost Straight
1st Edition
By Mark Broomfield
April 21, 2026
This book is a groundbreaking exploration of black masculinity and sexual passing in American contemporary dance. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in New York City, the book features keen observations and in-depth interviews with acclaimed dancer-choreographers Desmond Richardson and Dwight Rhoden ...
Diagrammatical Performances: Making Theatre with More-Than-Human Others
1st Edition
By Helen Billinghurst, Phil Smith
April 21, 2026
Diagrammatical Performances’ traces some of the traditions and contemporary developments in the uses of diagrams – actual and metaphorical – in the making of performance that nurtures a relationship between humans and more-than-humans. Addressing students, researchers, and teachers of radical ...
Artificial Savages in a Transcultural Landscape: Performance Art, Political Intention, and the Aesthetic Projects of Guillermo Gómez-Peña, Coco Fusco, Violeta Luna, Roberto Sifuentes, and La Pocha Nostra
1st Edition
By William Stark
April 20, 2026
This monograph explores the work of scholars and performance artists from the United States (U.S.) and México to expose the dire realities of white nationalist agendas in a global community. In this volume, William Stark, PhD, considers the U.S.-México borderlands in terms of sociocultural and...
Gina Pane: Actions Through Time: An Anthology
1st Edition
By Sophie Delpeux, Alice Maude-Roxby
April 17, 2026
Gina Pane (1939–1990) is acknowledged as one of the first artists to use her body as the medium for her practice through live works or Actions she began in the late 1960s. She became well known for this highly charged body of work, particularly her 1970s live Actions that were meticulously ...
Making Muslimness: Race, Religion, and Performance in Contemporary Manchester
1st Edition
By Asif Majid
March 09, 2026
Making Muslimness explores how British Muslims navigate the United Kingdom's sociopolitical and religious tensions through performance in everyday life. Drawing on nearly two years of interdisciplinary research in Manchester during the late 2010s and early 2020s, this book examines diverse ...
Stop Memorizing Your Lines: Be Undeniable and Ready for “Action!”
1st Edition
By Loren E. Chadima
March 23, 2026
In Stop Memorizing Your Lines, acclaimed Director and Acting coach Loren E. Chadima introduces an innovative methodology tailored precisely for the rapid demands of contemporary acting work. Unlike traditional methods that assume weeks of rehearsal time, Chadima's system equips actors to deliver ...
Zombies, Werewolves, Robots, and Extraterrestrials: Actor Training and the Performance of Non-Human Characters
1st Edition
By Gerald Large
March 13, 2026
Zombies, Werewolves, Robots, and Extraterrestrials provides a broad survey of acting theory and training technique through the lens of the performance of non-human characters found in horror and science fiction film, television, and theatre. Specifically, the book examines the performance ...
Echoes of Violence on the Early Modern English Stage and Beyond
1st Edition
Edited
By Samantha Dressel, Matthew Carter
March 02, 2026
This book offers a compelling examination of how violence reverberates through Renaissance drama and early modern society. This edited collection explores the multifaceted nature of violence in early modern England, revealing how violent acts create ripple effects that extend far beyond their ...
Contemporary North American History Plays: Jaclyn Backhaus and Lauren Gunderson’s Feminist Reworkings
1st Edition
By Beth Roberts
February 27, 2026
Contemporary North American History Plays examines how feminist theatre makers employ metadramatic techniques to revolutionize historical storytelling on the American stage. This groundbreaking study investigates the intersection of feminist theory and historical reimagining in contemporary ...
Performing Waste: To Re-member Pasts and Fabulate Futures
1st Edition
Edited
By Dorota Sajewska, Małgorzata Sugiera
February 24, 2026
Performing Waste offers groundbreaking insights into the vibrant interdisciplinary field of waste studies through the lens of performance and artistic practice. This pioneering collection examines how waste and wasting are performed across diverse media and genres, from Afrofuturist musical works ...
Reverberations of Culture: Racialized Performance in Early Twentieth-Century Musical Variety by Just a Buncha Clowns
1st Edition
By Shane Breaux
February 25, 2026
This book examines musical variety clowns and the broad array of racial and ethnic impersonations they performed on four distinct touring circuits and apparatuses: the African American Theatre Owners Booking Association (TOBA), the Chinese American so-called Chop Suey Circuit, the Mexican and ...