This chapter lays the critical groundwork for the book by focusing on the single question in its title: what makes something phenomenological? In many ways, the chapter does the work of a conventional introduction to an edited volume: it sketches a brief history and genealogy of phenomenology and its usage in performance scholarship. In doing so, however, it also makes a strong and clear call for increased rigour and definition in that usage; it argues that while there exists a wide range of phenomenological tenets and approaches, we can and should be clear about a select number of interrelated criteria or conditions that make a project "phenomenological". For Grant, these include (i) an aim towards essences (or fundamental structures) of the object of study; (ii) some uptake of the process(es) of reduction; and (iii) some engagement with the concept of intentionality.