Theatre/Tourism

Abstract

This essay looks at the relationship between theatre and tourism in the global marketplace. Through case studies of theatre and theatricalization in New York City and Las Vegas, "Theatre/Tourism" explores how cultural practices have been harnessed as a powerful marketing strategy in the branding of cities, and how this has impacted the nature and reach of theatrical production. For this reason, corporate entertainment interests have increasingly understood the value of the tourist spectator and have developed theatre products to underpin a complex tourism "ecology." From a study of theatre and globalization in this context, new questions and emphases emerge not only for the economics of theatrical production and the composition of theatre audiences, but also for how scholars think about the historicization of contemporary theatre practices. One outcome of this work is to insist on the place of commercial theatre in critical/historical accounts of late twentieth and early twenty-first century drama and performance.