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Wasteful Theatre reimagines live performance through the lens of economy, value, excess, and waste, asking what it means to lavish resources—material, sensory, and symbolic—on audiences beyond utilitarian calculation. It examines how waste operates within the theatrical relationship between audience, performer, genre, and space, focusing on excessive deployments of value.
Drawing on scholarship in theatre studies, economics, philosophy, and performance practice, the book develops the Wasteful Theatre Equation, distinguishing waste as surplus that amplifies experience rather than squandered loss. Case studies span immersive environments, haunted attractions, escape rooms, site-specific productions, and traditional proscenium theatre, demonstrating how space, participation, sensation, and fear operate as sites of wasteful excess.
Key chapters pose practical questions for makers, reframing contracts of performance, proximity, and risk as tools for creating singular experiences. Across examples from Robert Wilson to Punchdrunk, Grand-Guignol to theme parks, the book positions waste as both disruptive and generative, showing how performance transforms by amplifying horizons of possibility.
Ultimately, it argues that wasteful excess enchants, reorienting theatre toward presence, wonder, and transformative exchange.
Dr. Lisa Hall is a theatre director, playwright, and professor at Utah Valley University,USA, where she teaches courses in theatre history, dramatic literature, and performance practice. Her creative and scholarly work explores intersections of performance, value, and material culture, with a particular focus on the aesthetics of waste and excess in live exchange. Regionally, she has directed productions ranging from canonical works such as The Crucible and Blood Wedding to contemporary and devised projects, often emphasizing sensory engagement and cross-disciplinary collaboration. As a playwright, she develops new works and musicals in partnership with composer Alec Powell. Her research has appeared in edited collections and conference presentations, and her ongoing projects span both academic and creative writing, including a forthcoming mystery novel. Across all pursuits, Hall’s work seeks to amplify marginalized voices and craft transformative, visceral experiences that reimagine the role of theatre in contemporary life.
List of Figures
Foreword
Dr. Jennifer Popple
Preface
Introduction: Economy, Value, Excess, and Waste
1 The Wasteful Theatre Equation
2 Sites of Waste: The Senses
3 Sites of Waste: Participation
4 Sites of Waste: Space
5 Waste in Practice: Horror
6 Waste in Practice: Key Questions
Conclusion: Amplification and Enchantment
Bibliography