ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses changing imperatives in arts and cultural programming in protest cultures. It focuses on the performing arts, especially theatre, musicals, pantomime, comedy and puppetry, and makes mention of some literary and visual arts like poetry that take place in some of the selected case study companies. The chapter outlines the historical development of the sector, staring from the mid-to-late 1960s onwards. It analyzes the ways in which producers maintain the social political function, including their responses to the interaction occurring among divergent imperatives and to the pressures exerted by systemic forces. The chapter presents producers’ perceptions of work and made sense. During the countercultural era, theatre in protest cultures committed to an overtly political analysis of society. The chapter examines how the arts and cultural actors under examination are engaging with perceived ills characteristic of modern capitalist societies.
