Performance, Experience, Transformation: What do Spectators Value in Theatre?

Chris Megson; Janelle Reinelt

doi:10.1515/jcde-2016-0017

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Performance, Experience, Transformation: What do Spectators Value in Theatre?

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Published/Copyright: May 12, 2016

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From the journal Journal of Contemporary Drama in English Volume 4 Issue 1

Abstract

This article explores the findings of “Theatre Spectatorship and Value Attribution” (TSVA), a research project conducted by the British Theatre Consortium (BTC, a small think-tank of playwrights and theatre academics) in 2013–14. The project team developed partnerships with three theatres – the Young Vic, RSC, and Theatre Royal (Drum) in Plymouth – to investigate how spectators attribute value to the performances they see. Based on empirical research gathered through surveys but enhanced by additional data from interviews and creative workshops, TSVA revealed both the necessity and limitations of empirically based research methodologies. Quantitative research methods are helpful in the collation and mapping of demographic data on theatre audiences (age, gender, educational background, etc.); however, when research seeks to address processual activities rooted in phenomenological experience, qualitative method-ologies are especially useful. TSVA found strong evidence that spectators assign value to theatre as a result of the complex associations that emerge between the performance, their personal networks, and the larger public context; moreover, these values are liable to change over time. This article explores the methods, findings and implications of the TVSA project with reference to two production case studies at the Young Vic – Samuel Beckett’s Happy Days (staged in 2014) and David Greig’s The Events (2013).

Keywords: spectatorship; audience; cultural value; qualitative methodology

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Bionotes

Chris Megson is Senior Lecturer in Drama and Theatre at Royal Holloway, University of London. He has published widely on post-war British theatre, documentary / verbatim performance, and contemporary playwriting. His publications include Get Real: Documentary Theatre Past and Present (co-edited with Alison Forsyth; Palgrave Macmillan, 2009) and Decades of Modern British Playwriting: the 1970s (Methuen Drama, 2012). He is a member of the British Theatre Consortium.

Janelle Reinelt is Professor Emeritus of Theatre and Performance at University of Warwick. Her recent books include The Political Theatre of David Edgar: Negotiation and Retrieval, with Gerald Hewitt (Cambridge University Press, 2011), and The Grammar of Politics and Performance, co-edited with Shirin Rai (Routledge, 2014). In 2010, she received the Distinguished Scholar Award for life-time achievement from the American Society for Theatre Research (ASTR), and in 2014 she was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Helsinki. She is a founding member of the British Theatre Consortium.

Published Online: 2016-5-12

Published in Print: 2016-5-1

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Articles in the same Issue

https://doi.org/10.1515/jcde-2016-0017

Keywords for this article

spectatorship; audience; cultural value; qualitative methodology