Modern Popular Theatre

This book offers a concise history of popular theatre since the early twentieth century. Using key popular culture theories and critical perspectives, it analyses popular theatres across different cultural and political contexts. It introduces and critically examines a range of international artists and theatre-makers who have worked with popular forms, including Vsevolod Meyerhold, Blue Blouse, Bertolt Brecht, Erwin Piscator, the San Francisco Mime Troupe and the Bread and Puppet Theatre.

Jason Price addresses the uses of cabaret, puppetry and circus outside their native popular contexts, examining the role they play in avant-garde and experimental theatre practices. In doing so, this book encourages readers to look beyond popular theatre as a simple form of entertainment and to consider its potential as a form of political activism, a community-builder, and as a valuable tool for artistic expression.

Jason Price is Lecturer in Contemporary Theatre and Performance at the University of Sussex, UK. His research interests lie in the area of theatre for social change; in particular, his work is often concerned with performance and social class, theatre as community and public engagement, and the wider politics of performance.