Ecology and Climate in Theatre and Australian Performance

Peta Tait is Emeritus Professor at La Trobe University, a playwright and Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities. Her twelve authored and edited books include the authored Forms of Emotion: Human to Nonhuman in Drama, Theatre and Contemporary Performance (2022). Denise Varney is Professor of Theatre Studies at the University of Melbourne and Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities. Her most recent book is Patrick White's Theatre: Australian Modernism on Stage 1960–2018 (2021). Lara Stevens is Lecturer in English at Charles Sturt University. She is co-author with Eddie Paterson of Performing Climates (2025), co-editor with Peta Tait and Denise Varney of Feminist Ecologies: Changing Environments in the Anthropocene (2018), and author of Anti-War Theatre after Brecht (2016).

• Introduction; 1. From ecology to ecocriticism; 2. Drought escalates; 3. Endangered lands; 4. Flood damage; 5. Contaminating atmospheres; 6. Water restrictions; 7. Melting ice, rising seas; 8. Facing mass extinction; 9. Staging hot weather and fire; 10. Forms of future disaster; 11. Dramaturgies of dissent; References; Index.