The Value of Amateur, Subsidised and Commercial Theatre for Tyneside's Audiences

这个项目的目的是从亲身体验的观众的角度，完整而系统地描绘纽卡斯尔市和周围泰恩赛德地区的戏剧生活。它的目标是涵盖该地区在为期六个月的学习期间发生的每一场戏剧-专业的、业余的和商业的。该项目将收集数据，包括谁在观看哪种类型的剧院，观众观看的动机是什么，他们在那里有什么经历，以及这些经历和价值观对业余剧院、商业剧院和补贴剧院有哪些不同之处。该项目使用经过检验的定量和定性相结合的方法，包括调查、访谈、焦点小组和社交媒体分析来解决这些问题。虽然一些戏剧学者已经写过关于非凡的表演和观众体验的文章，但收集更典型的戏剧例子的完整数据要困难得多，这些例子虽然传统上没有吸引那么多的学术兴趣，但作为一种艺术形式和一个行业，它们是维持戏剧生存的日常面包。这个项目包括了各种各样的戏剧形式，并关注观众的体验，有助于更细致、更有用地理解戏剧在当代英国社会中所扮演的角色。研究结果将对希望更好地为观众服务的戏剧制作人有所帮助，但它们也将有助于倡导增加对艺术的财政支持，特别是表明消退的专业剧院的功能是业余或商业同行无法取代的。该项目将与纽卡斯尔的一个关键合作中心空空间和前英国东北艺术理事会执行董事马克·罗宾逊(Mark Robinson)合作，以确保我们的调查结果以一种可接触、清晰和有用的方式向泰恩赛德剧院社区、政策制定者和公众提供。该项目借鉴了欧洲剧院系统项目(STEP)的方法，该项目是一个由来自七个欧洲国家的戏剧社会学家组成的团体。STEP开发了收集剧院和观众体验数据的方法和指标，并在一些较小的欧洲城市进行了改进和测试。到目前为止，已经收集了关于荷兰格罗宁根、丹麦奥胡斯、瑞士伯尔尼、斯洛文尼亚马里博尔、爱沙尼亚塔尔图和匈牙利德布勒森的全面数据。首席调查员和首席研究助理都有使用STEP及其方法的经验，这些方法主要基于法国社会学家皮埃尔·布尔迪厄和荷兰戏剧学者汉斯·范·马宁的工作。自2005年以来，STEP一直在设计、测试和完善其理论和方法。通用的技术和措施将有助于比较泰恩赛德内部不同类型的剧院，以及泰恩赛德和它的大陆表亲之间的比较。这样的比较将澄清英国戏剧文化的独特之处--不仅是在美学方面，而且在它为观众和周围更大的社会所服务的功能方面。

This project aims draw a complete and systematic picture of the theatrical life of the city of Newcastle and the surrounding Tyneside region from the perspectives of the audience members who experience it. It will aim to encompass every piece of theatre that takes place in the area during the six-month period of study-professional, amateur and commercial. The project will collect data on who is attending which sort of theatre, what motivates spectators to attend, what experiences they have while there, and in what ways these experiences and values are different for amateur, commercial and subsidized theatre. The project uses a tested combination of quantitative and qualitative methods, including surveys, interviews, focus groups, and social media analysis to address these questions. While a number of theatre scholars have written about extraordinary performances and audience experiences, it is far more challenging to collect complete data on the more typical examples of theatergoing which, while not traditionally attracting as much scholarly interest, are the daily bread keeping the theatre afloat as an art form and an industry.By including a wide variety of theatrical forms and focusing on audience's experiences, this project will help contribute to a much more nuanced and useful understanding of the role that theatre can play in contemporary British society. The findings will be useful to theatre makers who wish to better serve their audiences, but they will also assist in advocacy for increased financial support for the arts and, in particular, to show how the function of subsided, professional theatre is not one that can be replaced by its amateur or commercial counterparts . The project will work with the Empty Space, a key collaborative hub in Newcastle, and former Arts Council England North East executive director Mark Robinson of the think tank Mission Models Money to ensure that the results of our investigation are made available in an accessible, clear and useful way to the Tyneside theatre community, policymakers and the general public.This project draws its methods from the Project on European Theatre Systems (STEP), a group of theatre sociologists from seven European countries. STEP has developed methods and metrics to collect this data on theatre and audience experience, and has refined and tested them in a number of smaller European cities. Thus far, comprehensive data has been gathered on Groningen, the Netherlands; Aarhus, Denmark; Berne, Switzerland; Maribor, Slovenia; Tartu, Estonia; and Debrecen, Hungary. Both the Principal Investigator and the lead Research Assistant have experience working with STEP and its methods, which are based primarily on the work of French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu and Dutch theatre scholar Hans van Maanen. STEP has been devising, testing, and refining its theory and methods since 2005. Common techniques and measures will facilitate comparisons both between different sorts of theatre within Tyneside, and between Tyneside and its continental cousins. Such a comparison will clarify what is distinctive about British theatre culture-not just in terms of its aesthetics, but in terms of the function it serves for its audience and the larger society around it.