The book begins with a look at the projects of two activist theatre companies: the Theatre Parminou of Quebec's intervention play on domestic violence and the San Francisco Mime Troupe's deconstruction of the tobacco industry's manipulation of teenagers. The next two essays analyze a "theatre for survival", where interventions and productions dealing with AIDS and peer violence are performed for and by New York inner-city youth, and a radio sitcom/soap opera devised to raise AIDS awareness in the Copper Belt region of Zambia. Other essays highlight a therapist producing theatre with his patients and an acting coach involved in training family therapists. Through examples drawn from university teaching and field work ranging from "invisible theatre" in a California shopping mall to an intervention piece on childhood malnutrition in the former Zaire, the final essays take an in-depth look at the issues and methods driving a theatre which seeks to contaminate in order to produce a healthy change.