Tactical Performance ─ The Theory and Practice of Serious Play

Tactical Performance tells illuminating stories of underdogs speaking mirth to power through creative activist performance in the streets of cities around the world. It also provides the first ever full-length practical and theoretical guide to this work.

L.M.Bogad, a prolific practitioner and scholar of this genre, shares the most effective non-violent tactics and theatrics employed by groups such as the Yes Men and La Pocha Nostra, which have captured the public imagination in recent years.

Tactical Performance explores carnivalesque protest in unique depth, looking at the possibilities for direct action and theatrical confrontation with some of the most powerful institutions in the world. It presents an inspiring combination of theory and practice, illustrating the basic principles of creative activism in an absorbing, accessible manner.

It is essential reading for anyone interested in creative pranksterism and the global justice movement.

L.M. Bogad is Associate Professor of political performance at the University of California at Davis. He is the author ofElectoral Guerrilla Theatre: Radical ridicule and social movements, the playsHaymarket, Tahrir, COINTELSHOW: A patriot act, and Economusic: Keeping score. He is the founding director of the Center for Tactical Performance.