Dr Karen Jürs-Munby received her MA in American Studies from the University of Kansas (1986) and PhD in Comparative Literature from the University of Minnesota (2000). She is a Senior Lecturer in Theatre Studies at Lancaster University. She translated and wrote a critical introduction for Hans-Thies Lehmann’s Postdramatic Theatre (2006). Other publications include Postdramatic Theatre and the Political (2013), coedited with Jerome Carroll and Steve Giles, and the special issue Jelinek in the Arena (Austrian Studies 22, 2014), coedited with Allyson Fiddler. She is currently completing a monograph on the innovative postdramatic stagings of Elfriede Jelinek’s theatre texts by major German directors. Jelinek in Practice: German Directors’ Theatre, Politics and Aesthetics will be published by Bloomsbury Methuen Drama.

Beri Juraic is a PhD Candidate in Theatre Studies at the Lancaster Institute for the Contemporary Arts, Lancaster University. He was a Visiting Scholar at the Kansai University in Osaka, Japan in the autumn of 2022 and holds an MA in Japanese Studies (Distinction) from SOAS, University of London. His research interests concern post-war and contemporary Japanese theatre and performance, migration and theatre, postdramatic theatre, multilingual theatre and rehearsal methods. He has published in Asian Theatre Journal and Critical Stages/Scènes Critiques. Previously, he worked as a theatre producer on over sixty productions and a festival programmer in the UK and abroad.

Dr Richard Talbot is a performer and Senior Lecturer in Performance at the University of Salford, Manchester, where he currently researches comedy as it relates to memory, ageing and language. He leads the only degree in Comedy Writing and Performance in the UK. He has performed and published articles on international theatre companies, and he produces participatory theatre in public spaces and social care settings for local authorities and social agencies. He has created award-winning immersive theatre events for heritage sites and museums, most recently for an exhibition and performances in Japan combining puppetry, clowning and digital performance, funded by the Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation. He has published articles and websites on Performance Art and Comedy (Comedy Studies 2023) and has written on Digital Performance. He was on the Jury at the International Festival of Liberal Theatre in Jordan in June 2023.