This chapter examines the locations – performance venues, physical spaces, virtual outlets – in which stand-up comedy in the USA takes place. It opens with a discussion of the different types of venues in which stand-up has existed historically -theatres, nightclubs, bars, clubs, music venues, arenas, etc. – before moving on to explore contemporary comedy clubs in New York City. Throughout the chapter, particular emphasis is given to the organisation of the venues and shows, the performance conventions they incorporate, and how their spatial and aesthetic properties as venues shape the work of the comics who play them. The chapter is based on the author’s extensive ethnographic research carried out on the New York comedy scene among up-and-coming local comics at both the comedy club and in the so-called alternative comedy scene.

If one measures O’Casey’s career as a dramatist from 1920, when the Abbey Theatre rejected his first two plays, until his death in 1964, that career was predominantly developed as an expatriate. From The Silver Tassie onwards, his plays were written in England, where a quarter of them were also staged for the first time. The first O’Casey production in England was Juno and the Paycock, which appeared at London’s Royalty Theatre between 16 November 1925 and 6 March 1926, and then transferred to the Fortune Theatre (for 198 performances in total). This chapter traces London productions of O’Casey’s work, examining the way in which particular works by O’Casey proved amenable to audiences in the English capital.

By highlighting the importance of venues and meetings for the work of the IPCC, this chapter offers a novel angle from which to study the institution. Thinking of the IPCC as a ’travelling village’ and a ’system of meetings’, we discuss the various functions of venues and meetings in organising and maintaining the IPCC’s assessment process. We argue that because of the global and networked nature of its activities and institutional arrangements, participating in the IPCC means making the world one’s workplace. The chapter also shows how established IPCC meeting practices have been tested by the COVID-19 pandemic and we shed light on some of the implications of the shift from in-person to virtual meetings.