Glasgow Theatre Seminar: book launch and conversation for Carl Lavery's An Idea For A Theatre Ecology
Theatre Studies at University of Glasgow is delighted to welcome you to the publication launch of Professor Carl Lavery's An Idea for a Theatre Ecology: Methods, theories, histories and practices
School of Culture and Creative Arts
Date: Thursday 23 April 2026
Time: 16:00 - 17:30
Venue: James Arnott Theatre, Gilmorehill Building
Category: Public lectures, Academic events
Theatre Studies at Glasgow welcomes you the latest instalment of the Glasgow Theatre Seminar series: a conversation event marking the publication of Professor Carl Lavery's An Idea for a Theatre Ecology.
About the book:
An Idea for a Theatre Ecology is the first book in the discipline of Theatre and Performance Studies to provide a rigorous and coherent theory of the ecology that is immanent to the theatrical medium. Focusing on Antonin Artaud's theatre of cruelty, the book argues that theatre has no need to provide ecological messages nor to transform itself into a platform for the narration of ecological stories. Instead, more is to be gained, environmentally and politically, by concentrating on the power of images, gestures and voices to create corporeal affects and sensations that implicate the spectators in a terrestrial event.
Carl Lavery is Professor of Theatre and Performance at the University of Glasgow. Often centred on the relationship between politics and aesthetics, his work spans the fields of ecology and environment, contemporary French theatre and performance and performance writing. His publications include Rethinking the Theatre of the Absurd: Ecology, Environment and Greening of Modern Stage (2015) with Clare Finburgh-Delijani, Action Plans: Selected Performance Pieces by Action Hero (2015), The Politics of Jean Genet's Late Theatre: Spaces of Revolution (2010) and the edited collections Performance and Ecology: What Can Theatre Do? (2018), Contemporary French Theatre and Performance (2011) with Clare Finburgh-Delijani and Good Luck Everybody: Lone Twin - Journeys, Performances, Conversations (2011) with David Williams.