Introduction

Abstract

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book aims to adopt a wider conceptual breadth examining the following interrelated contexts: making theatre with young people, making theatre for young people, representations of youth in theatre, and representations of youth by young people in theatre. It focuses on work with, for, and about young people between the ages of 14–24. Perhaps this too will change in years to come as practices of schooling, employment, and citizenship are modified by the economy, education, security, and bio-cultural shifts that rework the length of schooling, experiences of migration, expectations of self-employment, and notions of a universal basic income. The Companion of Youthful Terrains interrogates the relationship between theatre and young people from a global perspective. Performances and theatre made by, for, and about adults tends to dominate the discourses surrounding theatre, both in the academic and popular press and in the popular consciousness.