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.
Gorgon in the Blue Room: Diamanda Galás and the Divine Monster of Grief
1st Edition
By Luca Zanchi
December 21, 2026
Gorgon in the Blue Room explores how Diamanda Galás transforms terror into a ritual act of sonic reprisal. This groundbreaking study examines Galás’ creative process through the lens of mimetic apotropaism—the practice of embodying horror to deflect it. Drawing on extensive conversations with Galás...
Performing Pain: An Actor’s Guide to Creating Dynamic Depictions of Injury, Illness and Other Impediments
1st Edition
By Jo Ann Mendelson
December 07, 2026
Performing Pain deconstructs the complex art of portraying injury, illness, intoxication and death into manageable, teachable components. This hands-on guide explores essential performance elements—breath control, movement vocabulary, vocal technique, and psychological authenticity—providing actors...
Stand Up: The Craft of Comedy
1st Edition
By John Gronbeck-Tedesco, Rachel E. Blackburn
November 04, 2026
Stand Up is a practical and engaging guide to mastering the art of stand-up comedy. This book equips readers with the tools to craft and deliver jokes that resonate with audiences. It introduces eight essential strategies—anxiety triggers, exaggeration, self-defeat, tone, persona, crossing contexts...
Irish Shakespeares: Gender, Sexuality, and Performance in the Twenty-First Century
1st Edition
By Emer McHugh
October 30, 2026
Irish Shakespeares explores performances, adaptations, and appropriations of Shakespeare in Irish theatrical contexts, and how they articulate concerns and conversations about gender and sexual politics. This book is the first full-length study to investigate Irish uses and appropriations in ...
The Obscene Humour and Political Satire in Shadow Theatre: Cases from China, Egypt, Turkey, Greece, Slovenia, and the Ottoman Tradition
1st Edition
Edited
By Peri Efe
October 26, 2026
This book delves into the fascinating interplay of bawdy humour and political satire, two core elements of shadow theatre across diverse cultural and historical contexts. Through eight meticulously researched articles, the book explores the evolution and significance of bawdy humour and political ...
Black Activists Write Wheatley and Washington: Terrell, Du Bois, and the Drama of the 1932 Bicentennial
1st Edition
By Lurana Donnels O’Malley
October 16, 2026
This book examines how early twentieth-century Black theatre artists depicted national mythologies of the United States. White-authored pageants and plays written for the 1932 Bicentennial celebration of George Washington’s birthday relegated Black Americans to the periphery through racist ...
Embracing Disruption: Clowning, Improvisation, and the Unscripted in Early Shakespearean Performance
1st Edition
By Stephen Wisker
October 16, 2026
This volume celebrates the centrality of clowning in Shakespeare’s conception of theatre and explores how he purposefully invited the clown’s anarchic energy into the heart of his dramaturgy. Clowning was a potent but divisive force in the theater of Shakespeare’s time, challenging the emerging ...
From Object to Performance: The Beginnings of Israeli Performance Art
1st Edition
By Dror Harari
October 16, 2026
From Object to Performance identifies, analyses, and critically contemplates the advent of a “performance mentality” and the gradual maturation of a “performative turn” in Israeli art. Manifested in the transition from object-oriented art to performance-based art, this cultural moment reflected ...
Performance and Performativity of Dalit Students Politics in India: The Justice for Rohith Movement
1st Edition
By Malavika Priyadarshini Rao
October 16, 2026
This book examines the significance of body, space, sound/voice/music and objects of resistance in everyday performance of Dalit student protests, focusing on the protests which erupted after Rohith Vemula, a Dalit PhD student, died,by suicide in Hyderabad Central University on 17 January 2016 in ...
The Art of Sensorial Language
1st Edition
By Barbara Pia Jenič
October 16, 2026
The Art of Sensorial Language examines audience interactivity and multisensory experiences that can be understood internationally and cross‑culturally. It considers interactivity not as a technological mode of interaction but as a direct and immediate communication between the audience and the ...
Reimagining Dance on Screen: A Practical Guide to Dance-Filmmaking
1st Edition
By Mitchell Rose
October 09, 2026
Reimagining Dance on Screen is a hands-on guide for dancers, choreographers, filmmakers, and independent artists who want to create compelling dance-films. Written from a dancer’s perspective, it approaches dance on camera as a cinematic art form—not simply choreography documented on video. This ...
Beckett on Film: The Actors and Directors’ Cut
1st Edition
By Annette Balaam
September 29, 2026
Beckett on Film is a twenty-first century collection of original and extended interviews with internationally renowned actors and directors who created the Beckett on Film (2001) project. Speaking directly to the reader each artist explores the processes involved in recreating Samuel Beckett’s ...