Product details
- ISBN 9781350474420
- Dimensions: 156 x 234mm
- Publication Date: 12 Nov 2026
- Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Hardback
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This open access book is the first to provide an account of what it means to make theatre outdoors, with a focus on present day case studies in Britain and Ireland.
Historically, most theatre has taken place in the open. This rich past underpins its vibrant present, ranging from Greek and Roman amphitheatre performances to medieval mystery plays to street theatre and contemporary live art. Drawing on extensive interviews with numerous contemporary practitioners from Britain and Ireland, including Wildworks (I Am Kevin), Brokentalker (RISING) and the Theatre Royal Waterford (Where the Wildflowers Grow), this study explores the concepts of landscape, democracy, health, climate and community commonly associated with outdoor performance.
Centred around these key themes, Open-Air Theatre asks: What are the defining properties of the open-air medium? How do chance events affect the work? How do the places of performance which are open to the sky differ from the enclosed spaces of theatre buildings? How does performance in the open-air gather its audience together and create (or dissipate) a sense of community? Alongside providing an historical overview, it is ultimately revealed that in an age of ever-growing environmental concerns and political pressures, this overlooked theatrical tradition is more vital and urgent than ever.
The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by UKRI.
Evelyn O’Malley is Senior Lecturer in Drama at the University of Exeter, UK. Her monograph Weathering Shakespeare: Audiences and Open-Air Performance (Bloomsbury, 2020) was winner of the ASLE-UKI best monograph in environmental humanities and ecocriticism award. She led the Arts and Humanities Research Council-funded project ‘Outside the Box: Open-Air Performance as a Pandemic Response’ and was co-investigator on Atmospheric Theatre: Audiences and Open-Air Performance, led by Chloe Preedy, resulting in a special issue of Performance Research, ‘On Air’.
Cathy Turner is Professor of Drama at the University of Exeter, UK. She recently co-edited Performance at the Urban Periphery: Insights from South India (Turner, Srinivasan, Daboo and Sinha, 2022). Her monograph Dramaturgy and Architecture: Theatre, Utopia and the Built Environment (2015) was shortlisted for the David Bradby Monograph Prize (TAPRA) for outstanding achievement in research. She is a founder member of arts collective Wrights & Sites.
