‘Argue with Us!’: Audience Co-creation through Post-Performance Discussions

Abstract

In this article Caroline Heim explores an avenue for the audience's contribution to the theatrical event that has emerged as increasingly important over the past decade: postperformance discussions. With the exception of theatres that actively encourage argument such as the Staatstheater Stuttgart, most extant audience discussions in Western mainstream theatres privilege the voice of the theatre expert. Caroline Heim presents case studies of post-performance discussions held after performances of Anne of the Thousand Days and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? which trialled a new model of audience co-creation. An audience text which informs the theatrical event was created, and a new role, that of audience critic, established in the process. Caroline Heim is a lecturer in Performance Studies at Queensland University of Technology. Her PhD examined the changing role of theatre audiences in recent years.

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“…Contrary to alternative approaches (such as neuroaesthetic cognitive science, or quantitative box office analysis), which all come with their own distinct considerations, my work follows other New part in post-show research will necessarily douse the powerful flames of aesthetic responsewhereas, as numerous studies have shown, this process can often actually succeed in stoking them (see e.g. Scollen, 2007;Heim, 2012; Lindelof and Hansen 2015).…”