This book explores precarity in the contexts of theatre practice, theatre and health projects, the community work of regional theatres, arts-led social care initiatives, people's theatres and youth arts programmes. This book was originally published as a special issue of RiDE: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance.

Introduction - Theatre and the social factory 1. Performing to understand: cultural wealth, precarity, and shelter-dwelling youth 2. 'Think differently, get creative': producing precarity in India's corporate theater culture industry 3. Birmingham Rep, youth and community, and the products and possibilities of precarity 4. Subverting ableist discourses as an exercise in precarity: a Zimbabwean case study 5. Hard labour and punitive welfare: the unemployed body at work in participatory performance 6. Notes on a theatre commons: Common Wealth's The Deal Versus the People (2015) 7. Finding a concrete utopia in the dystopia of a 'sub-city' 8. Rethinking fragile landscapes during the Greek crisis: precarious aesthetics and methodologies in Athenian dance performances 9. Relocating precarity and resiliency within Montreal: the Artists' Bloc of the Immigrant Workers' Centre 10. Teatro Valle Occupato: protesting, occupying and making art in contemporary Italy 11. Compassion is dissent 12. In the Limelight: enthusiasm, commitment and need 13. The resilience web 14. Precariousness and groundedness in arts in mental health 15. 'Days in the Bay': a short performance devised by the Tiger's Bay Men's Group and inspired by the changing streetscape of North Belfast 16. On 'A Piece for Two (Lovers)' - an unrehearsed performance piece 17. A people's theatre for Brighton - an interview with Naomi Alexander