Studying European Theatre Audiences

The STEP City Study

Joshua Edelman, Attila Szabó, Hedi-Liis Toome , Marline Lisette Wilders

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English

Routledge
23 April 2025

The Arts: General & Reference; Performance art; Theatre Studies; Research methods: general; Social & cultural anthropology; Psychological methodology

Series: Audience Research

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.

Edited by: Joshua Edelman, Attila Szabó, Hedi-Liis Toome, Marline Lisette Wilders, Antine Zijlstra
Imprint: Routledge
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 234mm, Width: 156mm,
ISBN: 9781032071336
ISBN 10: 1032071338
Series: Audience Research
Pages: 256
Publication Date: 23 April 2025
Audience: Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

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

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).