This book is a revelation, enabling the reader to go up-stream and see the sources of shows from the first inklings in the minds of their makers. By mixing trenchant argument and analysis with insightful first-person interviews with key theatre folk, it builds to a compelling case for the need for R&D and a rallying cry for it to be funded. * Steve Waters, Professor of Scriptwriting, University of East Anglia, UK *

Tom Cantrell is a Professor of Theatre and Head of the School of Arts and Creative Technologies at the University of York, UK. He has published widely on acting processes, including Acting in Documentary Theatre (Palgrave 2013), Acting in British Television (Palgrave 2017) and Exploring Television Acting (Bloomsbury 2018), co-written with Christopher Hogg.

Katherine Graham is a Senior Lecturer in Theatre at the University of York, UK, where her research focuses on the agency of materials in performance. She has also worked extensively as a lighting designer for theatre and dance and has published work about light in Theatre and Performance Design Journal, Studies in Theatre and Performance, and Contemporary Theatre Review. She is co-editor, with Kelli Zezulka and Scott Palmer, of Contemporary Performance Lighting: Experience, Creativity, Meaning (Bloomsbury 2023).

Mark Love-Smith is a Senior Lecturer in Theatre at the University of York, UK. He has research interests in devised and physical theatre, community theatre, and the interplay of writing, directing and devising. His latest publication is the Routledge Performance Practitioners book on Frantic Assembly, co-written with Professor Mark Evans.

Karen Quigley is a Senior Lecturer in Theatre at the University of York, UK. Her first monograph, Performing the Unstageable: Success, Imagination, Failure was published by Bloomsbury in 2020. She has also published research on a range of subjects including site-specific performance, solo spectatorship, embodied voice, British television comedy and theatre-fiction.