ABSTRACT

This edited collection explores methods for conducting critical empirical research examining the potential impacts of theatrical events on audience members.

Dani Snyder-Young and Matt Omasta present an overview of the burgeoning subfield of audience studies in theatre and performance studies, followed by an introduction to the wide range of ways scholars can study the experiences of spectators. Consisting of chapter-length case studies, the book addresses methodologies for examining spectatorship, including qualitative, quantitative, historical/historiographic, arts-based, participatory, and mixed methods approaches.

This volume will be of great interest to theatre and performance studies scholars as well as industry professionals working in marketing, audience development, and community engagement.

chapter 3|13 pages

Participant observation in practice and techniques for overcoming researcher insecurity

A case study at the Deutsches Theater

chapter 6|12 pages

Hashtag networks, “live” musicals, and the social media spectator

Digital theatre audience research methods

chapter 7|12 pages

Drafting Harlem, revising melodrama

Archival insights into audience expectation

chapter 8|12 pages

The gaze turned inward

A reflexive autoethnographic approach to theatre research

chapter 9|10 pages

The stony silence

Negotiating empathy and audience expectations in solo autoethnographic performance in audience research

chapter 10|14 pages

Touching past lives

The limits of evaluating immersive heritage performance audiences

chapter 11|12 pages

Playing ethnography

Participant engagement in role/play

chapter 12|9 pages

Public facing dramaturgy as audience research

An interview with Martine Kei Green-Rogers

chapter 14|12 pages

Key questions in evaluating audience impact

A mixed methods approach in research-based theatre

chapter 15|16 pages

(Ac)counting for change

A quantitative approach to recognizing and contextualizing shifts in spectatorial thinking

chapter 17|12 pages

Playful research