Books on the history of the performing arts and theatre
The history of performance is a record of people, places and forms of attention. It follows the development of stage acting, dance, musical presentation, circus, puppetry and live spectacle from ritual and popular entertainment to contemporary arts practice. It also asks how architecture, funding, censorship and technology shape what audiences can see. Performance survives in scripts, scores, photographs, reviews, costumes, set models and oral testimony, so each surviving trace carries part of the story.
Books on the history of the performing arts and theater should connect chronology with interpretation. A useful survey moves between ancient Greek festivals, medieval religious drama, commedia dell’arte, Japanese kabuki and Noh, opera, ballet, modern realism, Expressionism and twentieth-century experimental performance. The aim is not a simple march towards one supposedly superior style, but a clearer understanding of why conventions emerged, what social groups made them, and how meaning changed across languages and cultures.
No single volume can cover that breadth. Historians of dramatic literature focus on plays and playwrights; specialists in stagecraft examine acting, directing, dramaturgy, scenery, costume, lighting and theatre architecture; others trace dance notation, music, circus techniques or performance records. The strongest shelves place these approaches beside one another, allowing readers to compare the printed text with the conditions of its staging.
For Australian readers, a global history gains meaning when linked to local practice. Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Hobart offer distinct combinations of major companies, independent theatres, festivals, school productions and community ensembles. A history of performance therefore reaches beyond specialist studies into reading lists, public libraries, drama classrooms and the everyday booking habits of audiences who still choose matinees, subscription seasons, pub venues and late-night shows.
Reading theatre history as a timeline
Allardyce Nicoll’s multi-volume A History of the Theatre offers a foundation for readers who want chronology, while Brian A. Brown’s edited The Oxford Illustrated History of Theatre provides a richly illustrated global overview. For a more focused encounter with performance history, Peter Thomson’s edited Routledge Companion to Theatre and Performance History is valuable for its attention to documents, archives and changing research methods. These works differ in scale, but each helps readers understand theatre as a living institution rather than a row of famous plays.
General histories become more useful when they are paired with books on a period, company or form. A play-only collection can show how themes and characters developed, yet it may miss touring conditions, rehearsal customs, stage machinery and the labour of costume, lighting and scene shifting. A history that considers the auditorium as carefully as the script also reveals why audiences responded as they did. Look for works that reproduce plans, posters, promptbooks and reviews alongside canonical texts.
Stagecraft, dramaturgy and the changing stage
Stagecraft has its own genealogy. Acting manuals, actor training traditions and directors’ notebooks explain changes in vocal delivery, movement and ensemble work. Histories of scenography trace painted scenery, the box set, the shift towards abstraction, and later experiments with minimalism and digital projection. Set and costume histories show that visual design is never merely decorative: it directs attention, establishes place and status, and can remake a familiar story for a new audience.
Dramaturgy is especially helpful for reading performance as a process of decisions. Books on play production reveal how texts were cut for local needs, how songs and dances were inserted, and how political or religious conditions affected interpretation. Histories of stage architecture add another layer, from temporary platforms and thrust stages to the flexible Australian venues where the same building must support concerts, speeches, experimental theatre and family programming. Architecture therefore becomes evidence about institutional priorities and ticket revenue.
Performance in Australian cities
Local histories can be surprisingly international. Christopher Morash’s Writing in a World Adrift: A History of Australian Theatre follows the country’s stage from colonial institutions through federation, wartime, the subsidy era and more recent cultural shifts. Company histories reveal how stars, managers, critics and government policies shaped seasons. First Nations performance histories also place ceremony, storytelling, language and sovereignty within the record, supporting respectful research rather than treating Indigenous performance only as material for non-Indigenous companies.
A compact comparison helps narrow a broad reading list:
| Historical focus | Core question | Evidence to look for |
|---|---|---|
| Ancient and medieval theatre | How were religion, civic life and ritual organised in performance? | Play texts, inscriptions, architectural remains and festival records |
| European commercial stages | How did companies, touring and architecture create professional theatre? | Company archives, promptbooks, reviews, posters and building plans |
| Music hall, melodrama and realism | How did industrial cities shape audiences and acting styles? | Programmes, criticism, scripts, music scores and social histories |
| Modernism, dance and devised theatre | How did new movement and design challenge inherited conventions? | Notebooks, photographs, recordings, choreographic scores and production files |
| Australian performance | How did local institutions, communities and audiences make theatre? | Company records, photographs, oral histories, programmes and state archives |
In Australian cities, the live market is a useful lens on these books. Melbourne’s pub theatres and arts precincts, Sydney’s subscription model, Brisbane’s festival and touring circuit, and Adelaide’s dense program of theatre, music and dance reveal different audiences and funding pressures. Patrons may still book a season, choose a matinee or respond to word of mouth, while independent companies balance ticket sales, grants, philanthropy and commercial co-production. These conditions echo the economic and institutional questions raised by histories of theatre elsewhere.
Music, dance, circus and other theatrical forms
Performing arts history extends well beyond spoken drama. Books on ballet trace court spectacle, national companies and the dancers who rebuilt technique in the classroom and studio. Music histories examine opera as a union of text, score, voice, design and international touring networks. Histories of physical theatre and circus document acrobatics, clowning, puppetry and variety, while work on contemporary performance considers devised theatre, cabaret, street performance and participatory events.
These forms reward interdisciplinary reading. An opera history becomes richer beside a set-design study; a puppetry history gains context from material histories of objects and workshop craft. Recorded sound and filmed performance also complicate older books, showing how microphone technique, television, touring festivals and digital media altered presence and audience reach. Multilingual catalogues are especially valuable here, since histories of French opéra, German theatre, Spanish drama and performance traditions in Asia reveal networks that an English-only shelf can obscure.
Choosing reliable books and editions
Reliability depends on the edition and its apparatus. Look for bibliographies, footnotes, translated primary sources, discussion of contested dates and clear distinctions between documented fact and critical interpretation. A revised edition may incorporate newly opened archives or correct inherited errors. University presses, scholarly societies and respected theatre institutions are useful starting points, while older books can supply historical perspective even when later research has revised their conclusions.
Readers should also ask who is absent from a narrative. Theatre was made by performers, designers, technicians, playwrights, funding bodies and audiences, yet many histories privilege playwrights and directors. Search for specialist studies of women, queer practitioners, working-class companies, disability, migration and regional touring. The Krosos book library can serve as a broad catalogue across these subjects and languages, but checking each title’s edition, index and references keeps a collection intellectually useful rather than merely extensive.
In Australia, live performance also sits within state and territory work health and safety laws; rigging, pyrotechnics and crowd controls require venue-specific risk management. The Copyright Act 1968, contractual licences and APRA AMCOS music licensing affect the use of scripts, recordings and live music. Understanding these present conditions gives historical material immediate relevance for artists, teachers, producers and researchers.
Build your performance history collection
A practical collection can begin with three tiers. First, choose an illustrated world survey such as the Oxford or Nicoll histories for chronology. Next, add two or three period or national studies, including at least one Australian theatre history. Finally, select specialist books on a craft or form that interests you, such as acting, stage design, dance, music theatre, circus or puppetry. Keep editions consistent where possible, but preserve older translations and editions as historical evidence in their own right.
Build questions into the reading rather than collecting names alone. What changed in performance space? Which audiences were invited or excluded? How did funding and censorship alter a production? Where do performers’ records contradict official histories? Notes on these questions turn a shelf into a research method and make it easier to compare ancient practice, modern theatre, street spectacle and digital performance.
Explore the catalogue, select a general history and one specialist study, and set them beside a current Australian production or performance archive. Borrowing through a local library, attending a season preview or joining a reading group can then turn the collection into active inquiry. Start with the material that draws you in, follow its references outward, and let each discovery lead to the next performance history.