Christie Carson is a CETL Liaison Officer.
She has been charged with creating concrete relationships with four specific CETLs that address the ways in which students can engage with creative practice. These CETLs deal directly with the complex question of how students can learn creative and practical skills alongside their academic study. She has also been asked to develop a working method of collaboration that might be extended to other CETLs that are working in areas that are more loosely connected to the English community.
Christie Carson's main area of research interest is the application of digital technology to teaching and research in the field of dramatic performance history. She has created a number of groundbreaking projects in this area working with Cambridge University Press, the Performing Arts Data Service, the English Subject Centre, the British Library and the Royal Shakespeare Company. Her interests focus on the way in which contemporary performance history can be both documented and studied in new ways using digital technology. Dr Carson is also very interested in incorporating the work of creative practitioners both in the documentation and the teaching processes.
New theatrical spectrum
Online technology has made it possible for audience relationships to be reinvented and reputations to be redrawn across the theatrical spectrum. But is this what has actually taken place in the online world or are traditional priorities and prejudices slowly being re-established?
Digital technology and the internet allow for a democratisation of the producer/audience member relationship, and increasingly, it is possible to think of a two-way form of communication which extends beyond polite applause within the theatre building.
The Three Projects
The smallest of theatre companies can now have an international presence but is the theatre world taking proper advantage of the opportunities that are available?
The Stagework project involves the National Theatre, the Bristol Old Vic Theatre and the Birmingham Repertory Theater
the Exploring Shakespeare project produced by the Royal Shakespeare Company
the 'Adopt an Actor' Scheme run by Shakespeare's Glove Theatre.
The Author will consider the extent to which a new kind of audience involvement is created and the implications of these new levels of access.
Above all, she will look at the ways in which these theatres are redefining their relationships with their audiences through digital technology and redefining their public images.
She will also consider how effective the approach taken might be in developing a new generation of theatre goers and in creating an engaged debate about the role of the theatre in the twenty-first century
3 Factors to consider
Before we go through the text I wanna show you some factors to consider during the reading.
Funding factor: There is a marked difference between the approach taken to audience involvement by Shakespeare's Globe Theatre without government sponsorship and the approach taken by the subsidised theatres.
While Shakespeare's Glove Theatre has taken a spontaneous and inventive approach to involving additional audiences through their Education Department, the National Theatre, the Bristol Old Vic Theatre and the Birmingham Repertory Theater and the Royal Sahkespeare Company have approached the new technology in a much more traditional way.
Method factor
The funded institutional theatres are working ever more closely with the governmental structures for education, packaging an experience of theatrical creation which fits into a highly prescribed format. As a result, while an exciting which fits into a highly prescribed theatre practitioners is being created through the two projects described, the results are descriptive of past activity rather than engaging new audiences in current and developing activity.
Ethic factor
What is the role of the theatre in our society in the twenty-first century? To reinvigorate the theatre as a centre of public debate is not the goal of the theatres in this century?
Esploring Shakespeare: http://www.rsc.org.uk/learning/hamletandmacbeth/
Sahkespeare's Globe Education: http://www.shakespeares-globe.org/navigation/frameset.htm
The 'Adop an Actor' programme: http://www.shakespeares-globe.org/navigation/frameset.htm
Conclusion
The three projects described illustrate very interesting patterns in funding and in the development of educational materials, as well as the attitudes of the theatre companies involved towards the development of new audiences.
The subsidised theatres have been drawn into the government's drive towards standardisation of educational provision through funding initiatives raises some awkward questions about the role of these theatres in our society.
The Stagework project and the Exploring Shakespear project present educational materials that document in detail the creative process of individual productions. This material is freely available to the public as well as a student audience.
While this is a worthy approach there is no denying the fact that since these projects present unprecedented access to the work of these companies they have the potential to develop a vision of that work in the popular imagination.
Both the national Theatre an d the RSC have introduced a range of live events that draw a general audience into a variety of activities and debates; however, these events continue to centre on the gathering of individuals at their respective theatres.
For example, the National Theatre's summer programme of riverside events entitled 'Watch This Space' includes an enormous array of free outdoor performaaces, while exceptionally inclusive, relies on the audience member's ability to come to London. Similarly the RSC has hosted a number of events that have been designed to involve the public, including an enormous celebration of Shakespeare's birthday; however, these events assume a presence in Stratford-upon-Avon.
Adopt an Actor
Only the Globe Theatre's 'Adopt an Actor" programme speaks direct to that audience in an open-ended way in real time.
The work of the subsidised theatres has already been presented in other forms in other places. The full capabilities of the Internet to involve an audience who are geographically spread across the UK in the ongoing work of these theatres have not been expoited.
The subsideised theatres are being asked to present a model of exemplary British theatre craft rather than providing a centre of social and cultural engagement.
The relationships created through the Globe Theatre programme present a more fundamental change to theatrical audience interaction by developing a two-way form of communication directly with students.
The Globe's online work shows how straightforward it can be to engage an audience in the creative process an also in a direct discussion about the contemporary relevance of this theatre's work. The subsideised theatres continue to pursue their historicao position as preservers of cultural quality. Tax funding is being used more to instil conservative approaches to theatre than to engage a wide and varied local audience.
Author’s Suggestion
She suggested a method of multiple communications which is taken by Live 8 as a very successful example
The new approach of the “Adopt an Actor” project has forced considerable changes on the other funded theatres in terms of repertoire, ticket pricing and audience involvement in a project that is larger than the individual performance.
project Stagework Exploring Shakespeare “Adopt an Actor”
Institutes the National Theatre, the Bristol Old Vic Theatre and the Birmingham Repertory Theater the Royal Shakespeare Company Shakespeare's Glove Theatre
Funding Subsidized
Government’s drive towards standardisation of educational provision but how about the role of these theatres in our society Non-subsidized
attitudes present educational materials that document in detail the creative process of individual productions.
unprecedented access to the work; the potential to develop a vision of that work in the popular imagination
to center on the gathering of individuals at their respective theatre
Example: Summer programme of riverside events speaks direct to that audience in an open-ended way in real time.
Involvement of a geographical wide range of audience
