This book explores the way in which the contemporary proliferation of forms of storytelling practice in international theatre has created a distinctive set of performance practices. Texts and performers discussed include Split Britches, Billy Connolly, Anna Deavere Smith's Let Me Down Easy, Spalding Gray, David Hare's Via Dolorosa

'Tom Maguire's Performing Story on the Contemporary Stage is a cutting-edge and enlightening analysis of new theatre practices documentary, stand-up comedy, biography and autobiography, monologue plays. It is groundbreaking in the range of contemporary performance it considers but also gains depth from a long-range historical emphasis on storytelling as the primal act of theatre.' - Anthony Roche, Professor of English, Drama and Film, University College Dublin, Ireland