Theater is a dangerous genre, one whose potential power as a vehicle for social and political change has been attested by scholars and practitioners from Richard Schechner to Saadullah Wannous. In the wake of the massive demonstrations, upheavals, and revolutions now referred to as the Arab Spring, Arab playwrights, actors, and directors are making dynamic and creative attempts to harness theater’s power for their own ends. This paper will trace the recent history of drama in Yemen and Oman, examining the evolving use of theater as a means and a locus of protest over the last five years in each country. Neighbors on the southern and south-eastern tip of the Arabian peninsula, Yemen and Oman share certain cultural similarities, yet remain historically, politically, and economically divergent. This paper will thus examine the ways in which those similarities and differences have nurtured and/or stunted recent developments in the performing arts. From each country, the paper will focus on three recent provocative performances that have reached the stage, illustrating the types of change they call for, and the means by which such calls are expressed. This paper will argue, inter alia, that Yemeni theater practitioners were remarkably outspoken in their protests against various forms of patriarchal and political authority in 2009 and 2010. However, when Yemen was rocked by massive socio-political protests in 2011, a temporary shift occurred, whereby such outspoken voices began to emanate more frequently from genres such as song and film. Oman, which as the Economist notes has been called “the world’s most charming police state,” serves as a useful comparison in this case, since 2011 there saw much smaller and fewer demonstrations, and since the Sultanate sponsors and oversees its numerous theater groups in ways that Yemen does not. The paper will also consider such issues as self- and official censorship in each country, the nature of sources of funding for dramatic productions, and comparative levels of state investment in performance spaces and infrastructure, in order to further its argument about the complex relationship of provocative performances to macro- and micro-structures of power and authority in Yemen and Oman.