Abstract
The subject of theatre audience engagement has preoccupied scholars and practitioners in theatre studies and research-informed theatre. Yet at the same time, there is a profound absence of data about audience members. The Canadian play and research project, Home/Less/Mess, offers insight into the attitudes and emotions of over 300 audience members as they attend a very alternative theatre production in their small city. A collaboration between homeless writer/actors, academics, and community workers, Home/Less/Mess highlights conflicts concerning methodological approaches as well as different expectations of art and research. The group is held together by the shared goals of engaging audiences emotionally, intellectually, and politically. The audience survey is viewed as the tool which will reveal the effectiveness of those goals. The Home/Less/Mess survey benefited from a high response rate and the use of qualitative open-ended questions. The survey results reveal that many audience members, at least in the short term, were touched and educated by the homeless actors and their play.
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© 2016 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Articles
- Spectatorship in the Theatre, the Cinema and Photography
- People, Places & Things: Addiction, Identity and Performance
- Safe Distance, Dark Tourism, and Ambivalent Spatial Relation in Gillian Plowman’s Yours Abundantly, From Zimbabwe, and Christine Evans’s Trojan Barbie
- Hell and Redemption in Greig Coetzee’s Johnny Boskak is Feeling Funny
- The Messy Business of Art, Research, and Collaboration: Audience Engagement in Home/Less/Mess
- “A community of storytellers and translators”: Ubu and the Truth Commission
- Dismantling Recognition: Reading Isolation in The Goat
- Caryl Churchill’s 21st Century Poetics: Theatre Form and Feminism from Far Away to Ding Dong the Wicked
- “Opera Singing Interrupted”: Simon Stephens’s Carmen Disruption
- Reviews
- Yvette Hutchison. South African Performance and Archives of Memory. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2013, xii + 238pp., £65 (hardback).
- Claudia Georgi. Liveness on Stage: Intermedial Challenges in Contemporary British Theatre and Performance. CDE Studies. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton, 2014, vii + 274 pp., $140.00 (hardback), $140.00 (PDF ebook).
- Faedra Chatard Carpenter. Coloring Whiteness: Acts of Critique in Black Performance. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2014, ix + 299 pp., $80.00 (hardcover), $34.95 (paperback and PDF ebook). Thomas F. DeFrantz and Anita Gonzalez, eds. Black Performance Theory. Durham: Duke University Press, 2014, ix + 279 pp., $89.95 (hardcover), $24.95 (paperback).
- Piotr Woycicki. Post-Cinematic Theatre and Performance. Palgrave Studies in Performance and Technology. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014, x + 268 pp., £55.00.
- Patrick Duggan and Victor Ukaegbu, eds. Reverberations Across Small-Scale British Theatre: Politics, Aesthetics and Form. Bristol: Intellect, 2013, 250 pp., £35.00 (hardback).
- Ramón H. Rivera-Servera and Harvey Young, eds. Performance in the Borderlands. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014, xii + 283 pp., £ 18,99.
- Marlis Schweitzer and Joanne Zerdy, eds. Performing Objects & Theatrical Things. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014, xv +264 pp. £ 55.00 (hardback).
- Joanne Tompkins. Theatre’s Heterotopias: Performance and the Cultural Politics of Space. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014, xi + 231 pp., €85,59 (hardback), €66,99 (PDF ebook).
- Rustom Bharucha. Terror and Performance. London: Routledge, 2014, xvii + 236 pp., $ 130.00 (hardback), $ 49.95 (paperback).
- Franziska Bergmann. Die Möglichkeit, dass alles auch ganz anders sein könnte: Geschlechterverfremdungen in zeitgenössischen Theatertexten. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2015, 347 pp., € 48.00.
- Norma Bowles and Daniel-Raymond Nadon, eds. Staging Social Justice: Collaborating to Create Activist Theatre. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 2013, xiv + 274 pp., $95.00 (paperback). Peter Lichtenfels, and John Rouse, eds. Performance, Politics and Activism. Baskingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013, xxiv + 299 pp., $35.00 (hardcover).
- Margaret Inchley. Voice and New Writing, 1997 – 2000: Articulating the Demos. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015, vii + 204 pp., £55.00 (hardback), £55.25 (PDF ebook).
- David Ian Rabey. The Theatre and Films of Jez Butterworth. London: Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2015, 225 pp., £17.99 (paperback).
- David Dean, Yana Meerzon, and Kathryn Prince, eds. History, Memory, Performance. Studies in International Performance. Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2015, xii + 312 pp., £55.00 (hardback). Bryoni Trezise. Performing Feeling in Cultures of Memory. Palgrave Macmillan Memory Studies. Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2015, x + 216 pp., £55.00 (hardback).
- Tom Maguire. Performing Story on the Contemporary Stage. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015. vii +216pp., £55.00 (hardback), £55.00 (PDF ebook).
- Christopher Collins and Mary P. Caulfield, eds. Ireland, Memory and Performing the Historical Imagination. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014, xiv + 244 pp., £58.00 (hardback), £45.99 (PDF ebook).
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Articles
- Spectatorship in the Theatre, the Cinema and Photography
- People, Places & Things: Addiction, Identity and Performance
- Safe Distance, Dark Tourism, and Ambivalent Spatial Relation in Gillian Plowman’s Yours Abundantly, From Zimbabwe, and Christine Evans’s Trojan Barbie
- Hell and Redemption in Greig Coetzee’s Johnny Boskak is Feeling Funny
- The Messy Business of Art, Research, and Collaboration: Audience Engagement in Home/Less/Mess
- “A community of storytellers and translators”: Ubu and the Truth Commission
- Dismantling Recognition: Reading Isolation in The Goat
- Caryl Churchill’s 21st Century Poetics: Theatre Form and Feminism from Far Away to Ding Dong the Wicked
- “Opera Singing Interrupted”: Simon Stephens’s Carmen Disruption
- Reviews
- Yvette Hutchison. South African Performance and Archives of Memory. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2013, xii + 238pp., £65 (hardback).
- Claudia Georgi. Liveness on Stage: Intermedial Challenges in Contemporary British Theatre and Performance. CDE Studies. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton, 2014, vii + 274 pp., $140.00 (hardback), $140.00 (PDF ebook).
- Faedra Chatard Carpenter. Coloring Whiteness: Acts of Critique in Black Performance. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2014, ix + 299 pp., $80.00 (hardcover), $34.95 (paperback and PDF ebook). Thomas F. DeFrantz and Anita Gonzalez, eds. Black Performance Theory. Durham: Duke University Press, 2014, ix + 279 pp., $89.95 (hardcover), $24.95 (paperback).
- Piotr Woycicki. Post-Cinematic Theatre and Performance. Palgrave Studies in Performance and Technology. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014, x + 268 pp., £55.00.
- Patrick Duggan and Victor Ukaegbu, eds. Reverberations Across Small-Scale British Theatre: Politics, Aesthetics and Form. Bristol: Intellect, 2013, 250 pp., £35.00 (hardback).
- Ramón H. Rivera-Servera and Harvey Young, eds. Performance in the Borderlands. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014, xii + 283 pp., £ 18,99.
- Marlis Schweitzer and Joanne Zerdy, eds. Performing Objects & Theatrical Things. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014, xv +264 pp. £ 55.00 (hardback).
- Joanne Tompkins. Theatre’s Heterotopias: Performance and the Cultural Politics of Space. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014, xi + 231 pp., €85,59 (hardback), €66,99 (PDF ebook).
- Rustom Bharucha. Terror and Performance. London: Routledge, 2014, xvii + 236 pp., $ 130.00 (hardback), $ 49.95 (paperback).
- Franziska Bergmann. Die Möglichkeit, dass alles auch ganz anders sein könnte: Geschlechterverfremdungen in zeitgenössischen Theatertexten. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2015, 347 pp., € 48.00.
- Norma Bowles and Daniel-Raymond Nadon, eds. Staging Social Justice: Collaborating to Create Activist Theatre. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 2013, xiv + 274 pp., $95.00 (paperback). Peter Lichtenfels, and John Rouse, eds. Performance, Politics and Activism. Baskingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013, xxiv + 299 pp., $35.00 (hardcover).
- Margaret Inchley. Voice and New Writing, 1997 – 2000: Articulating the Demos. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015, vii + 204 pp., £55.00 (hardback), £55.25 (PDF ebook).
- David Ian Rabey. The Theatre and Films of Jez Butterworth. London: Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2015, 225 pp., £17.99 (paperback).
- David Dean, Yana Meerzon, and Kathryn Prince, eds. History, Memory, Performance. Studies in International Performance. Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2015, xii + 312 pp., £55.00 (hardback). Bryoni Trezise. Performing Feeling in Cultures of Memory. Palgrave Macmillan Memory Studies. Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2015, x + 216 pp., £55.00 (hardback).
- Tom Maguire. Performing Story on the Contemporary Stage. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015. vii +216pp., £55.00 (hardback), £55.00 (PDF ebook).
- Christopher Collins and Mary P. Caulfield, eds. Ireland, Memory and Performing the Historical Imagination. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014, xiv + 244 pp., £58.00 (hardback), £45.99 (PDF ebook).