Theatres of Compost: Performance and Ecology for the Anthropocene

Theatres of Compost places ecology at the center of performance scholarship and criticism, and it positions performance as a key cultural process for bringing about a more just and sustainable future.

Examining a unique archive of agricultural performances--plays, theatre collectives, and activist rituals that engage questions of how humans use the land and produce food--this book lays out a framework for how theatre and performance contribute to a cultural shift toward ecological awareness. Theatre of compost is performance that directly engages ideologies of exploitation, mass production, and accumulation. Instead of discarding the forms, themes, methodologies, and histories that have perpetuated ecological destruction, the case studies in this book show that what has come before can be composted: broken down and reconstituted as the fertile foundation for a more livable life in the Anthropocene. Theatres of Compost will appeal to the new but quickly growing subfield of performance and ecology. As the climate and ecological crises worsen, more scholars and students in theatre and performance will be searching for ways to make their work meaningful and relevant.

This book will be a helpful resource for graduate-level courses in performance studies, performance and ecology, and the environmental humanities.

Dr. Abby Schroering, (she/her) earned a doctorate in Theatre and Performance from Columbia University in the City of New York. Her writing can be found in Modern Drama, ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment, American Theatre Magazine, Public Books, and elsewhere.