Theatre is often said to offer unique insights into the nature of reality, but this obscures the reality of theatre itself. In Real Theatre, Paul Rae takes a joined-up approach to the realities of theatre to explain why performances take the forms they do, and what effects they have. Drawing on examples ranging from Phantom of the Opera and Danny Boyle's Frankenstein, to the performances of the Wooster Group and arthouse director Tsai Ming-liang, he shows how apparently discrete theatrical events emergefrom dynamic and often unpredictable social, technical and institutional assemblages. These events then enter a process of cultural circulation that, as Rae explains, takes many forms: fleeting conversations, the mercurial careers of theatrical characters and the composite personae of actors, and high-profile products like Hollywood movie Birdman. The result is a real theatre that speaks of and to the idiosyncratic and cumulative experience of every theatre participant- From forgetting lines to watching Phantom of the Opera, this book uses a range of musicals, plays and experimental performances to show what theatre is made of and how we experience it. Its broad scope will appeal to theatre-goers, while its performance analyses, informed by assemblage theory, will be invaluable for students and theatre scholars.