Critical Mass: Theatre Spectatorship and Value Attribution
- Submitting institution
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Manchester Metropolitan University
- Unit of assessment
- 32 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
- Output identifier
- 107700
- Type
- N - Research report for external body
- DOI
-
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- Commissioning body
- Arts and Humanities Research Council
- Month
- July
- Year
- 2014
- URL
-
http://britishtheatreconference.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Critical-Mass-10.7.pdf
- Supplementary information
-
-
- Request cross-referral to
- -
- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
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5
- Research group(s)
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B - Art & Performance
- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- This report analyses a major AHRC funded research project in which the British Theatre Consortium (BTC), a co-operative of academics and playwrights, worked with audiences from four theatre companies, the RSC, the Young Vic in London, the Plymouth Drum and the Library Theatre, Manchester. It provides original and substantial evidence of the complex relationships between theatre as a social activity, and the formation of ‘taste’. In addition, the call in the study for a longitudinal interview-based approach to studies of relationships between producers, funders and audiences has been put into practice in subsequent research commissions, for example, in the National Theatre’s 2017 call for academic evaluation of the impact of their outreach programmes. Of particular significance was the innovative methodology adopted and further developed for TSVA from my creative workshop strategy trialled in my earlier audience research project Spirit of Theatre. In TSVA, I took the lead in interview protocols and interviewer training, as well as conducting interviews. I also devised and conducted the creative/investigative workshops run at each theatre, drawing on my experience of creative writing teaching, and professional community theatre practice. The audience research data was analysed as a team. I wrote two chapters on interviews and workshops, contributed an equal share of ‘case studies’ on plays, which were included throughout the Report, and drafted sections of opening and final chapters; the BTC team then collectively edited the Report. During the writing-up of the report we conducted well-attended meetings with theatres, academics and contributing audience members to consider and further refine our findings. The project has and continues to have significant impact within the wider arts community, in the press and academia, for example, we were invited to present the results of our research at the BTC Cutting Edge conference in April 2015.
- Author contribution statement
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- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
- -