This book asks what if any public role drama might play under Project Austerity - an
intensification phase of contemporary liberal political economy. It investigates the erosion of
public life in liberal democracies and critiques the attention economy of deficit culture by
which austerity erodes life-in-common in favour of narcissistic performances of life-in-public.
It argues for a social order committed to human flourishing and deliberative democracy as a
counterweight to the political economy of austerity. It demonstrates using examples from
England Ireland Italy and the USA that drama and the academy pursue shared humane concerns
the one a critical art form the other a social enabler of critical thought and progressive
ideas. A need for dialogue with emergent forms of collective consciousness new democratic
practices and institutions shapes a manifesto for critical performance which invites
universities and cultural workers to join other social actors in imagining and enabling ethical
lives-in-common.
