This edited collection gathers together leading voices in theatre and performance studies to debate the politics of participation and find points of connection across a range of performative forms - including community theatre, live art, applied theatre, one-to-one performance and marathon running. Arranged in three sections, 'Recognising Participation', 'Labours of Participation', and 'Authoring Participation', the book raises productive questions about how and why audiences are encouraged to participate in creating the artistic work. This intersection, the authors suggest, blurs the boundaries between producer and consumer, promising modes of engagement that are at once political, social and aesthetic. Applying theoretical ideas to concrete discussions of practice, this is an ideal resource for undergraduate and postgraduate students of applied theatre, political and socially-engaged theatre, participatory theatre making and performance studies.

Anna Harpin is Associate Professor of Theatre and Performance at the University of Warwick, UK, and is also a theatre maker with her company Idiot Child. Helen Nicholson is Professor of Theatre and Performance at Royal Holloway, University of London, UK, where she specialises in applied and participatory theatre and contemporary performance.