Although utopian and dystopian elements are a prominent characteristic of twenty-first-century British plays, there is still a significant research gap on these works, as the conference’s organizers, Merle Tönnies and Eckart Voigts, pointed out in their introductory remarks. Bringing together drama and theatre studies, cultural studies, and political sciences/sociology, Tönnies and Voigts agreed to convene a conference to address this topic in an interdisciplinary and comprehensive manner. It was originally intended to take place at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research (ZiF) at the University of Bielefeld (Germany) in April 2020, which would have provided a space to bring together not only different disciplines but also renowned experts with early career scholars. However, the timing and format of the conference were greatly impacted by the real-life dystopia of a global pandemic. In their welcome address, the organizers pointed out the irony of the conference poster designed in 2019 presciently including “viral pandemics” as one of the issues under discussion. Moreover, the COVID-19 pandemic not only made the change to a digital format necessary, but also rendered the issues under discussion, and thus the conference itself, even more topical. In fact, many presenters took the postponement due to the first lockdown as an opportunity to take the pandemic and its impact on the theatre industry into consideration.After opening remarks by the two convenors and Marc Schalenberg, representative of the ZiF, Elaine Aston gave the conference’s first keynote, “Dystopia/Utopia in Theatre: Feeling the Structures of Project Neoliberal Dystopia.” Aston pointed out that the 2008 banking crisis revealed not only that neoliberalism is a broken system but also that this event as well as the general failure of neoliberalism were the cause for a real-life dystopia in present Britain based on systemic formations of inequality and injustice. Using Laura Wade’s Britain Isn’t Eating, debbie tucker green’s Hang, and Caryl Churchill’s Escaped Alone as examples, Aston then illustrated the counterhegemonic potential of contemporary British plays to what she called Project Neoliberal Dystopia. She argued that, whereas neoliberalism works as an anesthetic making people immune to compassion, these plays employ affective approaches so that the structures of inequality caused by neoliberalism get under the audience’s skin.Neoliberalism was also one of the main issues discussed in the conference’s first panel. Connected to its focus on “Dystopian/Utopian Identities and Conflicts,” Anette Pankratz gave a presentation on “Civil Wars and Republics in Rory Mullarkey’s The Wolf from the Door.” Pankratz demonstrated how Mullarkey’s play about a fictional revolution can be read as a conflict between neoliberalism and the old aristocracy, whom—referring to Tom Nairn’s concept—she describes as “Ukanian” elites. Whereas the play’s ending, in which a young, working-class man of color is crowned as the new king, is often regarded as utopian, Pankratz argued that the character is turned into a token by the system in the play and therefore does not offer any real alternative to neoliberalism or Ukanian elites. Due to the comic incongruity with which the revolution unfolds within the play, it rather provides a shrug and a laugh as a coping mechanism against neoliberalism.Instead of dealing with concrete theatre plays, the second panel focused on the political and societal developments in contemporary Britain. Opening this panel, Sebastian Berg gave a paper entitled “From Neoliberal Utopia to Austerity Dystopia: A Cultural Political Economy Approach to Contemporary British History.” Berg illustrated how the views on neoliberalism of center-left academics like sociologist Wolfgang Streeck, historian Perry Anderson, and sociologist John Foster changed over the last years. While they were initially hopeful that neoliberalism might have a trickle-down effect, recently their position shifted from optimism to fatalism. While Berg shared their fears about the negative effects of neoliberalism, he pointed out the problems that might arise out of their thinking. More specifically, he identified in their most recent works a tendency toward the principle of survival of the fittest.The panel’s second presenter, Dennis Henneböhl, gave a talk on “The Past as Utopia: Nostalgia in Brexit Britain.” Analyzing examples of contemporary political rhetoric, Henneböhl illustrated how politicians during the Brexit campaign as well as the later negotiations with the EU constructed a nostalgic narrative which portrays the country’s past as a utopian world. Some of the main rhetorical strategies employed by politicians are the listing of Britain’s historical achievements as well as the evocation of the Second World War and the British Empire. Henneböhl argued that such instances of political rhetoric tie into a larger cultural narrative in contemporary British culture and society. At the end of his presentation, he suggested that cultural products such as films, TV series, novels, and theatre plays also engage with this dominant narrative as they can support and/or challenge it.The first day of the conference was then concluded by a panel dealing with genres and patterns—which started with Trish Reid’s presentation on “Dystopian Dramaturgies and the Politics of Ruin.” In her paper, Reid took as a starting point the criticism that the proliferation of dystopian tropes in contemporary British theatre creates a feeling of hopelessness and political apathy. Disagreeing with this evaluation, Reid argued that the dystopian mode can rather be seen as especially suitable for achieving progressive purposes. She illustrated this by using Interference, a trilogy of short plays produced by the National Theatre of Scotland, as an example. Reading these plays within the context of criticism on technology, she demonstrated how they engage with issues such as virtual reality replacing human interaction, technology-based reproduction, and the control of these technologies by big corporations. Ending her presentation, Reid pointed out the irony arising from the fact that these plays, which critically engage with technology, were performed at the former industrial site of City Park Glasgow.Wrapping up this panel was Siân Adiseshiah’s presentation asking the question “What Hope Utopian Theatre?” Adiseshiah pointed out that, while utopia as a genre is most often associated with prose fiction, there have nevertheless been utopian plays—although smaller in number—over the last centuries. Whereas historically they were often rather satirical, this is not the case in more contemporary examples. While in recent plays traces of More’s Utopia can still be discerned, there is rather a move away from the white male utopian ideal. Instead, plays such as Debo Adebayo’s Stars strive for an inclusion of decolonized notions of utopia. This experimental play, which can be described as a concept album for the stage, for instance draws on elements from Afrofuturism. Adiseshiah argued that such contemporary plays are not so much concerned with the representation of utopias, but rather with their co-creation.The second day opened with Nicole Pohl’s keynote, “‘In the burning house, language remains’ (Agamben 2020).”1 Following the findings of Frank Kermode, Pohl pointed out that eschatological scenarios can be found across cultures and religions all over the world, offering paradigmatic models for reconciling one’s transitory passing through life. Apocalyptic fiction, in this view, helps humans create new narratives for understanding and imagining the world, without, however, necessarily promising redemption. In the context of the Anthropocene, with its impeding climate disaster and, now, the COVID-19 outbreak, it has become clear that everything must invariably change, and that we have to create new meanings and systems. How, then, can we generate hope under these circumstances and what, ultimately, is the function of the arts in the face of such absolute transformation? Can they generate utopian desire for change—and is, finally, such utopian desire indeed necessary, or is it a mere means of mollifying and entertaining ourselves in the face of destruction? Pohl emphasized that the crisis of our times may well stem from our lack of imagination—our inability, so far, to have challenged the narratives of capitalism and to have generated new and better scenarios. What we need, first of all, is to be able to ask the right questions, and to replace the old stories with new ones—and, she remarked, it is the arts that can help us in doing so. In this context, performance, she argued, may help model different ways of acting, communicating, and experiencing our current crises, through a language infused with poetry that will give testimony to our hope, extinction, and death. In the end, as Agamben points out, the poetry and philosophy “written in a burning house is more just and true because no one will hear it, because nothing ensures that it will escape the flames.”The first two panels of the day were specifically concerned with utopian and dystopian spaces. Broadening the scope of the conference, Julia Schneider gave a presentation on “Spaces between Utopia, Dystopia and Heterotopia: The Case Study of Young Adult Dystopia.” Using Cecelia Ahern’s Flawed series as a case study, Schneider illustrated how the protagonist’s nonadherence to traditional values is mirrored by her inability to be accommodated by the traditional spaces of the dystopian world presented in the novels. She argued that it is through performativity, that is, not conforming to the dramaturgy that is expected of her, that the protagonist is able to contest dystopian spaces. Within these novels, the bodies of the protagonists themselves function as dystopian spaces that can similarly be contested through performative acts. Schneider then ended her presentation by drawing a parallel between the use of spaces in the Flawed series and Caryl Churchill’s dystopian play Far Away.The second presentation was Stefanie John’s “Butterflies in the Sink: Invasive Environments in Thomas Eccleshare’s Pastoral.” Using the oxymoronic phrase “invasive environments” to define the boundary-crossing of eco-dystopian dramatic narratives, John discussed the significance of “invasion” through the lens of Eccleshare’s play. Pastoral, by imagining a sudden, threatening propagation of nonhuman species in the city, plays with the notions of, and dissolves the boundaries between, dichotomies such as culture and nature, indoor and outdoor activities, or center and periphery. By depicting the invasive flora and fauna as “hostile agents,” the play’s intertextual layers, John argued, emphasize the manner in which our view of plants and animals is always mediated by human discourse. At the same time, it invites us to ask ourselves whether nature’s thriving in this imagined invasion should not, in fact, give us a sense of utopian hope.The conference then continued with a second panel on utopian and dystopian spaces, beginning with Peter Paul Schnierer’s presentation on “Visions of Hell in Contemporary British Theatre.” Schnierer argued that, while depictions of hellmouth and hellfire have mainly become obsolete since their prominent use by medieval playwrights, some of the plot points from these earlier plays can still be found in contemporary British theatre. He listed as examples the Faustian pact, the descent into hell in order to retrieve a lost person or object, and a battle between good and evil spirits. Contemporary plays use these tropes as well as traditional set pieces in an otherwise authentic setting and provide their audiences with a downbeat ending. Schnierer suggested that these old visions of hell might still be helpful for dealing with current crises as, according to him, it is always better to face the devils you know.After this Dantesque journey, Maria Marcsek-Fuchs, in her paper entitled “‘Let the doors be shut upon . . .’ COVID-19: Shakespeare Heritage Sites during the Pandemic,” shifted the attention toward the Bard’s legacy as perpetuated by the Globe Theatre in London and the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust in Stratford-upon-Avon. In it she questioned whether Shakespeare, as the two projects advocate, is indeed open for everyone—an openness she, however, found to be ambivalent: “utopian” through the wide range of educational programs and offers, yet “dystopian” considering the predominantly white and middle-class, Eurocentric audiences that attend the performances and programs. Thus, she argued, these institutions, in view of their extreme monetization, can be seen as both victims and agents of neoliberal capitalism—hence, of politics and economics. In light of this, she then looked into the shift from physical to digital spaces caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has allowed for a broader democratization of Shakespeare worldwide.Continuing the discussion of spaces, the final panel of the day specifically focused on the discursive and subversive spaces of dystopia. First, Matthias Göhrmann gave a paper entitled “The Spectre of Utopia/Dystopia: The Working of the Culture War Discourse in Contemporary British Climate Change Plays.” Göhrmann stressed that, while in the past climate change had already been accepted as scientific fact by most people, in recent years it has been adopted as a contentious topic within the culture war discourse—not only in the United States but also in Britain. Using Richard Bean’s Heretic as an example, he illustrated how contemporary British plays mirror the language of disaster in current debates by employing the dystopian or apocalyptic mode. Göhrmann argued that, within the play, tensions between agents of utopia and dystopia are unresolvable, thereby pushing the audience further toward dystopian views on these issues.Questions of climate change were also discussed by the panel’s second speaker, Vicky Angelaki, who presented a paper on “Dystopian Place in Contemporary British Theatre: Disruptive Spatial Re-presentations.” Revisiting Liz Tomlin’s apocalyptic climate-change play The Cassandra Commission within the light of the current situation, Angelaki called it a prescient note to the COVID-19 pandemic. One parallel she drew between these dystopian scenarios was the environmental reclamation of large cities during the absence of humans. Angelaki argued that, while in her reading of the play a commercialist dystopia gives way to a viral dystopia, the current situation should not eclipse environmental issues because the climate crisis and the pandemic are closely interrelated. As she pointed out, both can be traced back to the negative effects of neoliberalism and the exploitation of natural resources.The final day of the conference opened with a second panel on “Discursive and Subversive Spaces of Dystopia,” followed by two on “Dystopian / Utopian Subjects, Objects and Images.” In the first panel Chris Megson gave a paper on “Politics and Paradox in Contemporary Dystopia Drama.” Following Merlin Coverley’s observations, he discussed the paradoxical, ambivalent position in which utopia now finds itself in contemporary postmodern discourse that views it as contaminated either with totalitarianism or with delusional thinking. He further showed that utopia and dystopia are not binary oppositions, but rather co-dependent concepts that coexist within projects of social transformation, or within theoretical writings. Their main function is to invite us to imagine possibilities for our world. Starting from this premise, Megson then reviewed several works by contemporary playwrights—Howard Barker, Mike Bartlett, Martin Crimp, Lucy Kirkwood, Lucy Prebble, debbie tucker green, or Dennis Kelly—who have embedded, in their dramaturgies, the ambivalence of utopian thinking by way of charting the complexities and ambiguities of human behavior.In the same panel, Leila Michelle Vaziri thematized theatre and anxiety in her paper “‘I am the abyss into which people dread to fall’—Encountering Anxiety in Zinnie Harris’s How to Hold Your Breath and Alistair McDowall’s X.” She showed that fear and anxiety have become standard feelings in the era of globalization, being predominantly connected with issues such as social or environmental change, politics, or technology. This, she argued, is mirrored also in works of contemporary British drama and theatre, two examples of which she chose to analyze in her paper. Both Harris’s How to Hold Your Breath and McDowall’s X portray anxiety through the crossing of boundaries on a physical and mental level. At the same time, anxiety is manifested also on a semantic and aesthetic level, where pain and fear interfere with communication. Thus, language is ultimately destroyed—hinting at the inexpressibility of such feelings by way of language.The second panel began with Christiane Schlote’s paper “Petrodystopias and Hyperobjects Onstage, Please,” in which she looked into drama’s increasing engagement with petroculture. Taking her cue from concepts such as Douglas Holmes’s “fast capitalism” or Rob Nixon’s “slow violence,” she asked how emergencies of slow violence such as oil may be turned into stories of sociopolitical relevance. In this view, she then amply analyzed three productions of petrodrama—Ella Hickson’s Oil, Alistair Beaton’s Fracked! Or: Please Don’t Use the F-Word, and John McGrath’s The Cheviot, the Stag and the Black, Black Oil, which imagine post-oil scenarios and attempt to understand the possibilities and meanings of social and political change.Afterwards followed Ilka Zänger’s paper, “‘hiding from the world’—Dystopian Subjectivity in Martin Crimp’s Theatre Texts.” She focused on plays such as In the Republic of Happiness, Attempts on Her Life, The Rest Will Be Familiar to You from Cinema, or Getting Attention, asking how the plays connect to the classical conceptualization of dystopia, by depicting a bleak vision of a (nonexistent) society distinguished, primarily, by dysfunctional relationships. The plays are strategically constructed as simulations that remain hollow underneath. The characters, some of which are deprived of physical reference or identity, are likewise shallow and follow prescribed social and behavioral stereotypes that they use as unreflected patterns of identity on which they fall back. Individuals’ freedom becomes a burden—a “freedoom,” Zänger proposed, which mirrors the characters’ disorientation and alienation, and, ultimately, the contours of a “subjective dystopia” on a microcosmic level.In the conference’s final panel, Luciana Tamas, in a paper entitled “‘A Description of This World as if It Were a Beautiful Place’: Dys(u)topias in Forced Entertainment,” briefly surveyed the function of radical avant-garde vocabularies, which, she argued, generally come as a counterreaction to society’s lack of ability, in times of distress, to mentally generate future. She discussed the theatrical vocabulary of the British theatre group Forced Entertainment as prolonging and reinventing the legacy of the early twentieth-century avantgardes, by charting, in turn—also by way of platforms and instruments offered by cyber-space (DVDs, social media, or, recently, Zoom meetings)—a postmodernity tinted with dystopian hues. In the group’s performances, the world is re-enchanted into a space of theatrical action—and the stage, in turn, into one of philosophical reflection, but also of social and political critique.Finally, Aleks Sierz presented the paper “‘What a terrible world—sometimes I wonder if I’ll get out of it alive’: The Dystopic Imagination of Philip Ridley from Mercury Fur (2005) to Karagula (2016).” He discussed dystopian texts as places of fiction—which enable us, precisely through their fictionality, to challenge the hegemonic traditions of social realism or naturalism by speculating freely on what might be, and by breaking taboos and “imagining the unimaginable.” With this in mind, Sierz navigated through the oeuvre of Philip Ridley, who experimented with aspects of dystopia embedded in a variety of verbal and visual traditions. The apocalyptic elements enabled Ridley to explore feelings of anxiety or extreme experiences of isolation, while showing, at the same time, that narratives have the ability to provide comfort even in the face of nihilism and destruction.Despite the real-life dystopia of the COVID-19 pandemic, the conference managed to create a virtual utopian space in which one had the opportunity to pause and examine the crises that are plaguing our times—sociopolitical conflicts, environmental crises, and, now, a ravaging pandemic—and invited one to listen to their ominous pulse under the surface of things. Yet despite this sober and disquieting investigation and its results, the conference “Dystopian/Utopian Theatre in Britain after 2000 and Its Political Spaces” was largely permeated by a hopeful gaze forward.