Studying European Theatre Audiences

The STEP City Study

Joshua Edelman, Attila Szabó, Hedi-Liis Toome, Marline Lisette Wilders, Antine Zijlstra (Herausgeber)

Buch | Hardcover

256 Seiten

2025
Routledge (Verlag)
978-1-032-07133-6 (ISBN)

Noch nicht erschienen (ca. April 2025)
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This book reports on one of the largest co-ordinated efforts to survey the theatrical audience experience: the City Study of the Project on European Theatre Systems, which conducted over 7000 surveys and dozens of interviews and focus groups with audience members from four mid-sized cities across Europe.

This study aimed to capture the details of how audiences perceive and value theatre, and resulted in a data set which, while imperfect, has no precedent in scale and comparability for theatre studies. Based on this very large data set, the authors were able to create a portrait of varied segments of European theatrical audiences, its experiences, and how it values theatre, that is more detailed and incisive than any previously available. The question is not just who comes to theatre, but why, and how those experiences are valuable to them. This book’s key contribution, however, is methodological that offers a detailed and unsparing examination of the City Study’s working methods: their underlying theory, their strengths and weaknesses, and which survey and interview techniques were more successful in bringing out useful information.

This makes this book essential reading for those interested in studying theatre’s place in society, but also for artists, policy makers, and arts professionals who want to make and share work with an understanding of their audience’s engagement with it.

Joshua Edelman is reader in drama and contemporary performance at Manchester Metropolitan University. Attila Szabó is a theatre researcher and assistant professor based in Budapest, Hungary. Hedi-Liis Toome is a lecturer of theatre studies at the University of Tartu. Marline Lisette Wilders is assistant professor Arts in Society at the University of Groningen. Antine Zijlstra works as Program maker Research and Innovation and researcher at the Academy of Education at the NHL Stenden University of Applied Sciences (Netherlands).

Acknowledgement

Introduction
Chapter 1: The project and its goals
Interlude 1: Portraits of four cities
Chapter 2: The theatrical event: An art sociological framework
Chapter 3: Positioning the STEP City research in the context of audience and reception research
Chapter 4: The supply of theatre
Interlude 2: What on earth is Kleinkunst
Chapter 5: The City Survey: Quantitative audience and reception research methods
Chapter 6: The City survey: Data management and comparative data analysis
Chapter 7: The centre and the periphery: A case study from Debrecen
Chapter 8: Qualitative research on theatre audiences: The second phase of the STEP City Study
Interlude 3: Insights from theatre talks in Tyneside
Conclusion
Appendices
Bibliography

Interlude 1

Interlude 2

Interlude 3

Index

Erscheint lt. Verlag	14.4.2025
Reihe/Serie	Audience Research
Zusatzinfo	22 Tables, black and white; 30 Halftones, black and white; 30 Illustrations, black and white
Verlagsort	London
Sprache	englisch
Maße	156 x 234 mm
Themenwelt	Kunst / Musik / Theater ► Theater / Ballett
	Sozialwissenschaften ► Ethnologie
	Sozialwissenschaften ► Soziologie
ISBN-10	1-032-07133-8 / 1032071338
ISBN-13	978-1-032-07133-6 / 9781032071336
Zustand	Neuware