[2] Read's work stands as a critique of modernist theatrical orthodoxy critically contesting Peter Brook's idealism of the ‘empty space' awaiting its theatre, a tabula rasa for professionals to enter and exit at will.

[7] He took his PhD at the University of Washington, Seattle between 1979 and 1981, and was awarded his doctorate in 1989,[8] following a decade working at the Rotherhithe Theatre Workshop in the Docklands area of South East London.

[22] Read reprised the work biennially for successive LIFT festivals over the next decade, concluding notably with the day-long symposium ‘Voice Ruin Play' (2001) that brought together for the first time Romeo Castellucci and Societas Raffaello Sanzio with key figures in the UK theatre community.

[citation needed] Together they were responsible for curating and chairing more than 500 public talks over four years, with key figures in the cultural field,[24] including philosophers Jacques Derrida, Jean Baudrillard, Judith Butler, Alphonso Lingis,[citation needed] race theorists Homi Bhabha, bell hooks, Paul Gilroy, musicians Laurie Anderson, Mark E Smith, Patti Smith, novelists Bret Easton Ellis, Nadine Gordimer, SE Hinton, Laurie Moore, Tahar Ben Jelloun, film directors Alejandro Jodorowsky, Raul Ruiz, Wong Kar-wai, artists Mary Kelly, Vija Celmins, John Currin, Orlan, cultural theorists Beatriz Colomina, John Berger, Sander Gilman, and space makers Doreen Massey, Richard Sennett and Edward Soja.

[37] Read's collaborations with the theatre companies Het Werkteater,[38] Societas Raffaello Sanzio [citation needed] Forced Entertainment,[39] Goat Island,[citation needed] Battersea Arts Centre, Forster & Heighes, the curatorial producers Artangel,[40] and the artist-activists Platform, have been long-term relations that took the form of advocacy, infrastructural support, advisory roles, talks-curation and engagement between theatre makers, the academy and the public realm.

L as part of ‘The Frequently Asked' curated by Tim Etchells and Adrian Heathfield at Tanzquartier Vienna in 2007,[41] designed sound work for Massimo Bartolini's ‘The Human Voices', a site specific work in a disused 1939 ENAL pool in Vercelli, Italy, as part of PSi ‘Affective Archives', 2010,[42] created lecture performances such as ‘The Poor Law' to mark the centenary of Daniel Paul Schreber's death, at Castle Sonnenstein on the River Elbe 2011,[citation needed] read his unreliable memoir The White Estuary: Man with the Reason of History Missing over three six-hour sessions as part of PSi 18 Leeds (2012), participated in Tuija Kokkonen's all-night performance ‘Chronopolitics with Dogs and Trees' at Stanford University (2013),[43] occupied Tate Modern with his performance teach-in ‘The English Garden Effect' as part of the climate crisis Deadline Festival 2015, exchanged public correspondence with the philosopher Cecilia Sjoholm for the TOPublic Festival (2016) [citation needed], and turned the institution of the lecture inside out for Justyna Scheuring's performance ‘The Past Is Ahead of Us' at King's College London in 2016.

[53] The Artist/Activist group Platform,[54] and filmmakers Desperate Optimists,[citation needed] have both responded to Read's conception of ‘civility' and the problematic question of the ‘civic centre' with work in a variety of media including peripatetic performance and film.

[63] Read's more recent work on theatrical ‘immunity', reversing the communitarian presumption of performance, might be considered a logical inversion of the tenets of Theatre & Everyday Life rather than a negation of them.

[65] Read's gently cynical tone, especially in his widespread reviewing of the work of leading figures in the disciplinary field, such as Richard Schechner and Peggy Phelan,[66] Tracy Davies and Susan Bennett,[67] Ric Knowles,[68] and monumental productions such as The Sultan's Elephant by Royal de Luxe,[69] has teased and challenged those with cultural capital, seeking the funny bone of a discipline that has made so much currency from others' labours.