"Description: Though the theatre and fans go hand in hand--you can't have one without the other--the phenomenon of theatre fandom has been woefully underexplored. While performance studies scholars have more recently embraced examinations of this phenomenon, the broader field of theatre studies has to date paid little attention to the ways that fans influence and are influenced by famous stage productions. Similarly, while the field of fan studies has paid great attention to audiences of films, TV series, and even sports, virtually no attention has been paid to theatre fans, whose history extends back centuries. Kirsty Sedgman, Francesca Coppa, and Matt Hills' groundbreaking collection will fill in those gaps in the scholarship, finally bringing theatre and fan studies into a long overdue conversation. By bringing together a wide range of leading international fan and performance studies scholars, Theatre Fandom will track key case-studies of theatre fans across different eras, performance forms, and cultures. The aim is to demonstrate the need to take seriously theatrical phenomena like pleasure, engagement, allure, enjoyment, and love. As the first to investigate the phenomenon of theatre fandom this book will become a key text within the distinct fields of performance (theatre/music/dance) and audience/fan studies scholarship, but at the same time will also show the cultural industries how harnessing fan energy can encourage wider and deeper participation"--