Theatre in Market Economies Theatre and Performance Theory Series

Theatre in Market Economies explores the complex relationship between theatre and the market economy since the 1990s. Bringing together research from the arts and social sciences, the book proposes that theatre has increasingly taken up the mission of the 'mixed economy' by seeking to combine economic efficiency with social security while promoting liberal democracy. McKinnie situates this analysis within a wider context, in which the welfare state's tools have been used to regulate, ever more closely, the lives of citizens rather than the operations of markets. In the process, the book invites us to think in new ways about longstanding economic and political problems in and through the theatre: the nature of industry, productivity, citizenship, security and economic confidence. Theatre in Market Economies depicts a theatre that is not only a familiar cultural institution but is, in unexpected and often ambiguous ways, an exemplary political-economic one as well.

Introduction: Show Business; 1. Industry; 2. Productivity; 3. Citizenship; 4. Security; 5. Confidence; Conclusion.

Michael McKinnie is Professor of Theatre at Queen Mary University of London. He is the author of City Stages: Theatre and Urban Space in a Global City, which was awarded the Ann Saddlemyer Award by the Canadian Association for Theatre Research, and the editor of Space and the Geographies of Theatre. His research is interdisciplinary, focusing primarily on the intersection between theatre, political economy, and urban development.