Ecology and Climate in Theatre and Australian Performance

Peta Tait is Emeritus Professor at La Trobe University, a playwright and a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities. Her twelve authored and edited books include the recently authored Forms of Emotion: Human to Nonhuman (2022). Denise Varney is Professor of Theatre Studies at the University of Melbourne and a 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.