Small Stages: Cabinets, Dioramas, and Other Tiny Performances

Small Stages: Cabinets, Dioramas, and other Tiny Performances is a consideration of small stages as unique and generative sites for creating and presenting performance. The book examines the ways in which small stages are diminutive sites of performance that derive meaningfulness from the size of the performance area.

Organized around four distinct types of small stages such as cabinets of curiosity, dioramas, little free book exchanges, and tiny desk performances, this book explores how meaning can be created in these unusual performance areas. Each chapter considers the embodied functions, performative and affective qualities, and pedagogical implications of these small stages. The final chapter of the book presents the practice of creating digital archives as a small stage and performance. The appendix offers two sample assignments for use or adaptation in a range of courses in performance, theatre, education, humanities and cultural studies.

Ideal for students and scholars of performance studies and theatre, as well as researchers in wider associated fields, such as media studies, communication studies and visual arts.

Aubrey Huber is Associate Professor in the Department of Communication, University of South Florida, USA. She is the author of Communicating Social Justice in Teacher Education (Routledge, 2022) and the co-author of Creating Performances for Teaching and Learning (2017) with Chris McRae.

Chris McRae is Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of South Florida, USA. He is the author of Listening for Learning (2021), Performative Listening (2015), and co-author of Creating Performances for Teaching and Learning (2017) with Aubrey Huber.