Theatre Sector Research Articles

Interdisciplinarity and Stages in a Process of Engagement with Theatre Practice and Disability

Navigating recent shifts in diversity agenda in the theatre industry and ensuring continued moves towards the accurate representation, equal participation, and valued contribution of disabled people on and off stage requires interdisciplinary perspectives. Many involved in day-to-day theatre work lack knowledge commonplace to disability scholars. They also lack understanding of lived disability experience and perspectives crucial for understanding attitudes, structures, and environments experienced in theatre settings. This article considers the most necessary aspects of disability studies knowledge to share in building, and moving forward from, disability consciousness in the theatre sector and training. It introduces stages in a process of engagement with theatre practice and disability for actors and directors, and a reflective tool for personal positioning in a process of engagement with theatre practice and disability. The article examines how interdisciplinary perspectives support individuals’ processes of exploring new territory, building familiarity across disabled and nondisabled communities, and sharing responsibility for industry-wide change. This article was published open access under a CC BY-NC-ND licence: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ .

Implicit cultural policies in Zimbabwe: insights from Stephen Joel Chifunyise’s plays and theatre

Sometimes cultural policies are dismissed and criticized by some artists and cultural practitioners as banal and other times they are deemed pivotal in the democratization of culture, cultural democracy and the advancement of a democratic society. This ambivalent perception of arts and cultural policies results in many missed opportunities in the production and distribution of cultural and creative expressions like plays and theatre. This paper sets out to answer the question about how cultural policies shape the advancement of cultural and creative expressions in post-independence Zimbabwe. Stephen Joel Chifunyise’s plays and theatre as case examples provide insightful snippets of the role and power of cultural policies in the advancement of the cultural and creative sector and the broader society. This is achieved through a review of academic publications, policy documents and cultural policy texts. The theoretical lens partially deployed here is interpretive policy analysis, which reads the meaning of cultural policies through authored and constructed policy texts such as plays, theatre productions, theatre infrastructure, theatre festivals, publishing houses, book fairs, policy documents and public pronouncements. In addition to the interpretive policy analysis, I also deploy the concept of explicit and implicit cultural policies to comprehensively look at the role of direct cultural policies and indirect cultural policies in the theatre sector in Zimbabwe. The second lens is used to analyse the impact of Zimbabwean implicit and explicit cultural policies on the theatre sector through Chifunyise’s plays and theatre. In critically answering the central question, this paper argues that Zimbabwe has several implicit cultural policies whose effect on the theatre is felt more through constructed cultural policy texts than authored cultural policy texts, and thus, all cultural expressions are inevitably shaped by one cultural policy or the other.

Degrowth pedagogies: a manifesto for Earth-centred theatre training

I am proposing a manifesto for degrowth pedagogies. Designed for Higher Education institutions and theatre pedagogues, I argue the need to develop a system of theatre training based on degrowth theory. Developed from French intellectual thought in the early 1970s, degrowth diagnoses the climate, ecological, socio-political and spiritual crises, as symptoms of capitalism’s growth imperative, with its impulse for ever-increasing productivity in spite of the direct and ever-increasing detriment to people and planet. The theatre sector exists in a position of subservience to this growth-centric, socio-economic model – under pressure to adopt growthist practices in theatrical production, such as high-carbon international touring; ideological conformism to attract ‘greenwashing’ corporate funding; among other phenomena. Yet, to avoid contributing to climate, ecological and societal breakdown, the theatre sector will need to understand and adopt degrowth practices. Theatre pedagogy is an ideal site to affect change. Theatre training institutions must undergo a transition towards new ways of serving their students, as well as local and global communities, while inviting new generations of theatre-makers to create differently; to consider how the aesthetics, forms and material realities of their practice can embody ‘slow’ and degrowth theatre.

Budowanie wizerunku instytucji kultury na przykładzie Teatru Żydowskiego w Warszawie

The research objective of this article is to present the way in which the Jewish Theater in Warsaw has been building its image. To achieve this goal, the case study method was used. The article takes a closer look at the history of the theatre itself, its founder, the legendary actress Ida Kamińska, the troubles with the seat, but most importantly it presents the image transformations that the theatre has been implementing systematically during the time it has been managed by Gołda Tencer. The article was based on the analysis of collected data, Internet searches and author’s observations. The research shows that thanks to the gradual introduction of the rebranding process, the Jewish Theater has gained new audiences, strengthened its image and managed to build a strong brand in the theatre sector.

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on local government cultural institutions – the productivity of theatres


 
 
 The new reality has led us to investigate the changes in productivity in public cultural institutions. The research describes the pandemic period in the theatre sector. We are investigating whether productivity changes occurred and which indicator affected them. We hypothesize that the productivity index in 2020 was most dependent on the technological change. We use the Malmiqusit index to show changes in productivity between 2011–2020. Our results seem to fully reflect the pandemic reality when the technological factor was of crucial importance. However, we would like to point out that technological growth alone does not bring satisfactory results in terms of productivity growth. Properly coordinated actions are also necessary for the broadly understood activities of the theatre. Depending on the organization, the impact of digital technologies may differ. The use of technology alone is not sufficient to achieve an increase in the productivity of the organization.
 
 

The role of higher education in sustainable creative careers: Exploring UK theatre graduates and theatre careers

This paper reflects on the systematic interconnections between creative workers and higher education institutions (HEIs). Despite the latter representing key intermediaries in creative industries’ development and creative workers’ career trajectories, the relationship between the two has rarely been framed in a relational and systemic framework. To do so, we chose the UK theatre sector as the case study and adopted a mixed methodology: UK Higher Education Statistical Agency quantitative data, which informed us on the employment state of workers 6 months after graduation, were combined with 21 semi-structured interviews with actors and actresses to understand the complexity of their relationship with HEIs. HEIs emerge as the initial door to paid jobs and professional networks for graduates and as employers for those in the later stages of their careers: the lack of formal ways to access jobs and the precarious working conditions for performers make hence HEIs a crucial force in shaping workers’ careers. Furthermore, HE remains throughout the career of theatre workers an important part of their portfolio, providing reliable income and more stable working patterns when needed. The paper concludes with the findings’ policy implications and the future role of HEIs in creative and cultural ecosystems.

Marketing and PR communications in the context of promoting theatre institution

The purpose of the work is to create a marketing and PR development strategy for the Coryphaei Theatre. Research methodology. To solve the research task, general scientific methods have been used: analysis, generalisation, description, and comparative-comparative (study of the theoretical foundations of the research). Besides, the authors have applied specifically scientific methods: structural, systemic, method of included observation, survey (questionnaire), and situational analysis (writing the practical part of the study). The scientific novelty consists in the presentation of practical recommendations for the construction and implementation of a marketing and PR communications strategy for the «Coryphaei Theatre» to attract new viewers and popularise the theatre's activities in society. Cultural and leisure activities are perceived as the process of creating conditions for the individual's motivational choice of subject activity, which is determined by his / her needs and interests. With the development of market relations, cultural and leisure activities closely approached marketing technologies, which are based on the problem of finding and meeting the needs of individual citizens or public groups. The issue of improving the system of promoting theatrical services in the form of marketing and PR communications, which allows focusing the available limited resources of organisations on the main strategic directions of conquering target market segments under conditions of increased competition, is gaining special relevance. At the same time, the task of promoting a theatrical product comes to the fore, which is currently one of the most promising types of business activity for theatre institutions that want to stay on the socio-cultural market. Conclusions. We have analysed the market of theatrical services provided by the «Coryphaei Theatre» and the conditions of the competitive environment in the Kropyvnytskyi city, considered pricing in the theatre sector, developed a system for implementing marketing and PR in the work of the theatre, and developed recommendations for the theatre’s advertising and PR policy. Key words:theatre, marketing, communication, PR, socio-cultural sphere, leisure, performances.

An American Investor in the Theatre Industry of Budapest

In the interwar period, an American theatre and film entrepreneur had a determinantimpact on the private theatre sector of Budapest. Ben Blumenthal (1883–1967) ran the Vígszínház(Comedy Theatre) in 1920–1926 and owned its building in 1920–1949. In addition, Blumenthalfinanced the operation of the Fővárosi Operettszínház (Budapest Operetta Theatre) in 1922–1926.Although from a global perspective, Blumenthal does not belong to the group of legendaryUS theatre or movie producers, in the context of Hungarian theatre culture, he was the mostinfluential mediator in Hungarian–American cultural relations. The study aims to piece together theundiscovered elements of Blumenthal’s personal and professional biography and to discuss how hisactivities were evaluated from the American and the Hungarian perspectives.Special emphasis will be given to the US and Hungarian entertainment press: Blumenthal’sinterviews on his Hungarian theatres, articles on Blumenthal’s position in the transnationalproducers’ hierarchy, and representation of the Vígszínház in the US entertainment press. The aim isto assess the significance of Blumenthal’s Budapest business activities within his entire career.

Trailers as mediatized performances: Investigating the use of promotional videos among Italian contemporary theatre artists

In the theatre sector, many companies, festivals and theatres have integrated promotional videos into their communication strategies. This recent development is undoubtedly due to the rise of social media and the increasing accessibility of video technologies, but also to the need for theatre companies to publicize their work in a media that combines creative autonomy with economic efficiency. Despite this widespread use, trailers in the performing arts have received little attention in academic literature. This article offers the first, exploratory study on the use of promotional videos in the field of contemporary theatre in Italy and on the connections between the current creation of digital promotional clips and the heritage of the Italian video-theatre. Through in-depth interviews with sixteen of the leading Italian companies, this research aims to bring out the role theatre trailers play for performance artists.

“12,000 euros is not a lot to pay for a dream”: The Structured “Heteronomization” of Assessment in a Theatre Grants Committee

How do transformations in public action, and more precisely the dissemination of the precepts of New Public Management, change the role of the state in maintaining the autonomy of artistic activities? Based on an internal study of debates in a funding-allocation committee for the theatre sector in France, this article analyses links between regulatory frameworks of artistic evaluation and the social profiles of the evaluators. Observing these meetings—perceived as assessment situations— helps to break open the black box of state activity by demonstrating how a category of public funding is allocated in practice. Public intervention is shown to be a vehicle for the heteronomization of theatre activity, the effectiveness of which hinges on the link between a framework for interaction that is defined by the authorities—and objectivised in regulation—which promotes heteronomous criteria, and the assessors who make use of it, who are socialized into an economic and political vision of culture.

Theatre as Service … My Experience During the Global Pandemic in Canada

Perhaps the global pandemic (COVID-19) and the death of George Floyd have brought an immense, drastic, and unprecedented turn in human history. Many disciplines are now being intentional about asking critical and ethical questions around race, identity, social justice representation, and systemic change. The same is true for theatre and performance. While events in 2020 stretched and burdened racialized bodies, they also provided opportunities for many racialized bodies to be recognized perhaps because of their knowledge, experiences, identities, and the power and privileges they hold or do not hold. As an African in the Canadian theatre sector and scholarship, I acted in different capacities to address systemic injustice in Canada’s theatre scene during the pandemic. For instance, I co-facilitated some sessions with colleagues from Indigenous, Black, and People of Colour (IBPoC) community for the purpose of creating space for dialogue on issues of concern to this community. In this article, I reflect on how the pandemic produced an initiative that has the potential to address leadership challenges within the performing arts sector.

Productivity of Public Theatres in the Times of COVID-19: The Example of Polish Theatres

Purpose: Our article aims to analyze the changes in the productivity of cultural institutions during the Covid -2019 pandemic. We studied how much productivity has changed and saw which indicator was targeting the influx. The number of visitors in the theatre in a given year is taken as productivity. The research period is the years 2016-2020. We hypothesize that the productivity index in 2020 depended on most on the technology change. Design/Methodology/Approach: The proper study was focused on Polish Public Theatres. The verification of the assumptions was conducted through the Malmquist index -Total Factor Productivity. Findings: As a result of the research, it was found that the hypothesis was positively verified. The value of the Malmiqusita index shows significant changes in productivity between 2020-2019 and 2019-2016. In particular, the considerable increase of the technological progress index is worth noting. In 2020-2019, the annual change regarding this index was as high as 1208.8%, while the technical efficiency decreased to 13.9% and TFP was 168.2% - the highest level over the whole period considered. Practical implications: We noticed that for individual theaters, the productivity results were different. It means that not all of the theatres studied coped with the new conditions. Depending on the organization, the effects of using digital technologies may be different. This proves that each unit should be analyzed individually. Originality/value: These results seem to fully reflect the pandemic reality in which the technological factor was of crucial importance, an innovative research to describe the pandemic in the theatre sector.

Breaking Ground

This text is an interview by Chris Dupuis with Benj Gallander, Greg Holmgren, Robert Sherwood, Ben Stadelmann, and Carol Pauker, the founders of the SummerWorks Festival. The team first assembled after being unable to secure slots at the Toronto Fringe Festival, with the idea of starting an alternative summer theatre event that would offer space to artists unable to get into the Fringe. They discuss the first conversations around launching the event through its early years, including the challenges of starting from scratch and running the project collectively and the various triumphs and failures they experienced. They outline changes in the selection process, the move from a first come, first served, model to a lottery system similar to the Fringe, and the gradual introduction of curation through the Parallel Lab initiative. Finally, they discuss how the festival shaped them personally and the event’s lasting impacts on the Toronto theatre sector. The text also includes references the late eighties Toronto theatre scene, including Tomson Highway, Hillar Littoja, and Buddies in Bad Times.

Continuity, change and transitions of artistic professions in the Italian theatre industry

The article reflects upon artistic work in the theatre sector, to understand how this peculiar profession has historically developed in Italy. Relying on different theoret-ical contributions and diverse empirical sources, the article delineates the institu-tionalisation process of the Italian theatre sector through different phases and transitions. Another topic addressed in this article are the past and current occupa-tional and working conditions of Italian theatre artists. Career pathways are thus discussed with respect to training, access to the profession, national collective agreements and actual forms of subordinate work and self-employment.

Too big to fail: rethinking the foundations of Australia’s performing arts policies

ABSTRACT This research examines three political moments in the Australian theatre sector as turning points in contemporary understanding of the sector’s financial foundations. Socio-cultural and economic conditions leading to the establishment of The Australian Elizabethan Theatre Trust in 1954, the instigation of the Industries Assistance Commission Inquiry in 1976, and the commissioning of the Major Performing Arts Inquiry in 1999, and their impact on the theatre sector, are reviewed in this paper. These political moments took place against changing economic policies in Australia. By reviewing the economic transition from Keynesian 'welfare' to economic rationalism, the interventionalist nature of these policy moments and their effect on the artistic vibrancy of the sector is understood. This paper reveals a tension between the sector’s Keynesian foundations, which underpinned the Trust's intentions to establish a financially sustainable sector, and the now dominant economic rationalist model which restricts the performing arts’ capacity to flourish. Through analysing secondary documents and scholarly discussion, this research reconsiders the legacy of the Trust as a key policy landmark. It proposes that The Trust succeeded in delivering artistic outcomes, but failed in its financial objective to establish a sustainable sector. The role of the Trust is often misconstrued in scholarly and professional discussions about the necessity of arts funding, and by reconceptualising these political moments as interventions of policy, a new perspective of the foundation of Australian arts funding can be appreciated.

Alternative Worlds: the emergence of Theatre for Young Audiences from the conflict in Northern Ireland.

This essay traces the development of an identifiable sector of Theatre for Young Audiences in Northern Ireland during the ethno-religious violent conflict known as The Troubles from 1968 to 1998. During that period, children were regarded as a largely homogeneous group within legislative and policy frameworks that were concerned primarily with the impact of that conflict on children. This period saw the emergence of a theatre specifically for children, without any over-arching sense of a sector. Following the signing of the Belfast Agreement of 1998, the broader turn to a rights-based culture amplified the impact of the United Nations’ Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) within government policy and the growth of a culture that promoted, more broadly, the child as an autonomous human being. In parallel to this turn, a recognizable children’s theatre sector developed to create spaces locally for children to attend performances, and performances which engage with the aesthetics of Theatre for Young Audiences internationally through collaboration and partnerships.

The Concert Performance as the Way of Vocal Training of the Student-Actor

The purpose of this article is to highlight the value of a concert performance as an important modus of vocal training of the student-actor.Research methodology. General scientific methods are used in this article: cognitive, analytical, psychological and comparative methods; special attention is paid to the music and psychological methods.Results. Mastering student-actors art of singing is based on the general level of their endowments in the music and artistic sector. The public performance as one of the types of vocal training contains rather high requirements to the performer, especially in the psychological aspect. At the same time the successful scenic performance provides considerable rise, first of all, in the art performing professional area. Forming the correct singing mindset, the preservation of a state «vocal and creative tranquility» have a crucial role in the setting of scenic nervousness, during the concert performance. Against the backdrop of a scenic stage the singer has to show the abilities concerning overcoming enormous nervousness. The basic in the solution for this problem is the following: systematic training and improvement of the vocal and artistic equipment of the student; a detailed preliminary work on the subject matter of the vocal work; the concentration on a music artistic image; good training of singing of the vocal work; first-hand practical experience of concert performances acquired by the student. During the concert performance the vocal skills acquired by the student and music artistry of the performance of works are shown, on the one hand; on the other hand — the experience of public music and artistic activities is acquired. Thus, the concert performance as a component of vocal training of students-actors, first, is an essential key for the successful mastering of vocal and performing skills, secondly, it provides a practical experience of a public vocal performance to future experts of theatre sector that considerably expands the possibilities of professional realization for the students.Novelty. The paper is the first attempt for the issue of using a concert performance as a way of vocal training of the student-actor; the most productive ways of overcoming onstage nervousness of the vocalist at the singing concert practice of the actor are highlighted.The practical significance. The article contains the information which is useful to Ukrainian vocal teachers concerning the development of vocal and scenic skills of students-actors in higher educational institutions.

The Reconfiguration of the Theatre Space and the Relationship between Public and Private in the Case of Apartment Theatre

<p>This article tackles the means of theatre space reconfiguration in the apartment theater (<em>lorgean theater</em>), simultaneously analyzing the relation between public and private specific to this form of art. Structured around both a theoretical analysis and a qualitative empirical investigation, this paper emphasizes the traits of the theatre space as component of an artistic product received by the audience, and its value in the process of artistic production, within the theatre sector. The case study of <em>lorgean theater, </em>including a participant observation and an individual interview, enables the understanding of these two aspects of the spatial configuration, emphasizing its hybrid nature in terms of spatial configuration and the public-private relation as well as the act of reappropriation of the domestic space through an alternative practice of theatre consumption.</p>

Aggregate Demand Model for Theatre in Lithuania

The aim of this article is to analyse aggregate demand for theatre which is the demand for the whole theatre sector described by the box office performance. In reference to foreign authors’ models a demand model for theatre in Lithuania was created which allows to analyse the relations between theatre demand and social or economical structure. The econometric models with time series model expression were used. Proposed methods could be applied to the analysis of the other sectors of cultural and creative industries.

A "Value Ecology" Approach to the Performing Arts

In recent years, ecological thinking has been applied to a range of social, cultural and aesthetic systems, including performing arts as a living system of policy makers, producers, organisations, artists and audiences. Ecological thinking is systems-based thinking which allows us to see the performing arts as a complex and protean ecosystem; to explain how elements in this system act and interact; and to evaluate its effects on Australia’s social fabric over time. According to Gallasch, ecological thinking is “what we desperately need for the arts.” It enables us to “defeat the fragmentary and utilitarian view of the arts that dominates, to make connections, to establish overviews of the arts that can be shared and debated” (Gallasch NP). John Baylis took up these issues in "Mapping Queensland Theatre" (2009), an Arts Queensland-funded survey designed to map practices in Brisbane and in Queensland more broadly, and to provide a platform to support future policy-making. In this paper, we propose a new approach to mapping Brisbane’s and Queensland’s theatre that extends Baylis’ ‘value chain’ into a ‘value ecology’ that provides a more textured picture of players, patterns, relationships and activity levels in local performing arts.