Performance Research Books publishes generously illustrated and finely designed books that present documentation and analysis of contemporary performance practice – through the work of individual artists, companies and ensembles. Each publication combines texts, scores and critical reflection on a distinctive body of work, together with scholarly and theoretical analysis of the practice, the voices of practitioners, the views of the makers and the evidence of the work.
Performance Research Books commissions work that stems from a scholarly engagement with artist-led research and practice. Each publication seeks a lively conversation between theory and practice, and the work is revealed and illuminated through dialogue and discourse exploring a variety of formats: interviews, photo-essays, artworks, performance texts, scenographic designs,scores, notes and critical analysis.
Performance Research Books developed as an independent venture of Performance Research, a specialist journal founded in 1996 and published eight times annually (from 2017) that aims to promote a dynamic interchange between scholarship and practice in the expanding field of performance. Interdisciplinary in vision and international in scope, its emphasis is on contemporary performance arts within changing cultures. Performance Research Books follows and expands the policy of the journal, but opens into publishing monographs, book works and singular works on distinctive practice and theory.
Performance Research Books exists as an imprint of ARC, a division of the Centre for Performance Research (CPR), which is a multifaceted theatre organization located in Wales that works nationally and internationally. CPR produces innovative performance work. It arranges workshops, conferences, lectures and masterclasses (for the professional and the amateur); curates and produces festivals, expositions and exchanges with theatre companies from around the world; and publishes and distributes theatre books.
Inside Performance Practice
The books of the Inside Performance Practice series will focus upon the work, process and aesthetic strategies of specific companies, ensembles and individual artists.
Current Catalogue:
Edited by Laura Cull Ó Maoilearca and Luke Pell
ISBN 978-1-906499-19-8, published in 2024
RRP: £35.00, CPR Price: £30.00
In Praise of Sideways: Storytelling Journeys of the Ruth Kanner Theatre Group
Edited by Adi Chawin and Richard Gough
ISBN 978-1-906499-14-3, published in 2023
RRP: £39.50, CPR Price: £35.00
Changing Places: Drama Box and the Politics of Space
Edited by Richard Gough and Charlene Rajendran
ISBN 978-1-906499-11-2, published in 2022
RRP: £35.00, CPR Price: £30.00
Okada Toshiki & Japanese Theatre
Edited by Peter Eckersell, Barbara Geilhorn, Andreas Regelsberger and Cody Poulton
ISBN 978-1-906499-12-9, published in 2021
RRP: £33.50, CPR Price: £28.00
Edited by Helen Gilbert, Dalisa Pigram and Rachael Swain
ISBN 978-1-906499-09-9, published in 2021
RRP: £33.50, CPR Price: £28.00
Machine Made Silence. The Art of Kris Verdonck
Edited by Peter Eckersall and Kristof van Baarle
ISBN 978-1-906499-07-5, published in 2020
RRP: £33.50, CPR Price: £28.00
Edited by Jean Graham-Jones
ISBN 978-1-906499-05-1, published in 2019
RRP: £33.50, CPR Price: £28.00
“We’re People Who Do Shows”: Back to Back Theatre – Performance, Politics, Visibility
Edited by Helena Grehan and Peter Eckersall
ISBN 978-1-906499-03-7, published in 2013
RRP: £33.50, CPR Price: £28.00
Good Luck Everybody: Lone Twin – Journeys, Performances, Conversations
Edited by Carl Lavery and David Williams
ISBN 978-1-906499-02-0, Published in 2011
RRP: £33.50, CPR Price: £28.00
Thinking Through Performance
Engaging with and advancing new thinking across performance forms and a variety of theatre practices and companies. Thinking Through Performance will enable, through translation, emerging and ground-breaking critical theory about performance, otherwise inaccessible to an English speaking readership.
Current Catalogue:
Edited by Laura Cull Ó Maoilearca and Florence Fitzgerald-Allsopp
ISBN 978-1-906499-16-7, published in 2024
RRP: £39.95 CPR Price: £35.00
A Lexicon of the Central-Eastern European Interwar Theatre Avant-garde
General Editor: Dariusz Kosiński
ISBN 978-1-906499-16-7, published in 2024
CPR Price: £25.00
Blind Spot: Staring down the void
Edited by Ric Allsopp and Karen Kipphoff
ISBN 978-1-906499-08-2, published in 2020
RRP: £65.00, CPR Price: £45.00
Performing Poland: Rethinking histories and theatres
By Dariusz Kosiński
Trans. Paul Vickers
ISBN 978-1-906499-06-8, published in 2019
RRP: £33.50, CPR Price: £28.00
Worlds Bodies Matters: Theatre of the late twentieth century
By Valentina Valentini
Trans. Thomas Haskell Simpson
ISBN 978-1-906499-04-4, published in 2014
RRP: £24.99, CPR Price: £20.00
Engaging Performance Materials
This third series will present performance texts, scripts and scenarios as working documents, intended for practical use in the studio, as material for workshops and for staging and presentation, in addition to being of historical and scholarly use.
Current Catalogue:
Absolute Rhythm: Works for minor radio
By Paul Carter
ISBN 978-1-906499-10-5, published in 2014
RRP: £28.00, CPR Price: £24.00
Other Titles (outside series)
By Peter Lichtenfels
ISBN 978-1-906499-17-4, published in 2024
RRP: £30.00, CPR Price: £25.00
UK Performance Design 2019-2023
Edited by Kathrine Sandys & Lucy Thornett
ISBN 978-1-906499-15-0, published in 2023
RRP: £10.00, CPR Price: £10.00
National exhibition of performance design 2019–2023
Edited by Kathrine Sandys & Lucy Thornett
ISBN 978-1-906499-13-6, published in 2023
RRP: £30.00, CPR Price: £25.00