The field of performance studies analyses the production and impact of on-stage performance, such as in a theatre or circus, and off-stage performance, such as cultural rituals and political protests. Performance Studies: Key Words, Concepts and Theories introduces students to 34 key topics seen as paramount to the future of performance studies in a series of short, engaging essays by an international team of distinguished scholars. Each essay contributes to the wide-ranging, adventurous and conscientious nature that makes performance studies such an innovative, valuable and exciting field.

Bryan Reynolds is Chancellor's Professor of Drama at the University of California, Irvine, USA. He has held visiting professorships at Queen Mary, University of London, University of Amsterdam, Utrecht University, University of Cologne, University College Utrecht, Goethe University-Frankfurt am Main, and the University of California, San Diego. His books include Transversal Subjects: From Montaigne to Deleuze after Derrida, Transversal Enterprises in the Drama of Shakespeare and his Contemporaries: Fugitive Explorations, Performing Transversally: Reimagining Shakespeare and the Critical Future, and Becoming Criminal: Transversal Performance and Cultural Dissidence in Early Modern England. He is also an internationally produced playwright, performer and director of theatre.