We all feel it: theatre is struggling.

Stages close, artists burn out, audiences drift away. But beneath the headlines lies something harder to name; a force that convinces us dysfunction is normal and survival is success. The Undertow Behind Our Stages challenges that lie. With visionary language and urgent clarity, it explores why our field keeps breaking in the same ways, how those fractures harm every role in the theatre, and what it would mean to build something stronger. This is not utopia. It is not naive hope. It is a manifesto for everyone who has felt the drag and knows it doesn’t have to be this way.