Willmar Sauter

Who reacts when, how and upon what: From audience surveys to the theatrical event

The aim of this essay is to present some traditions within the field of theatre audience research and its development since the 1960s. The focus on behaviouristic surveys of audiences that had found favour previously has turned into a detailed investigation of the actual spectator and his or her interaction in the theatrical event. Todays reception research deals with the spectators intellectual and emotional experience of performances. It contains macro‐aspects concerning questions such as who is experiencing what during a theatrical event, and micro‐aspects which elaborate on the psychology of theatrical interaction and ways of approaching it.

Introduction: Festival Culture in Global Perspective

According to the Australia Council, the 152 arts festivals held in that country during the season of 1993–4 had a combined operating expenditure of Australian

Antigone’s Diary – A Model for Democratic Decision Making in Suburban Stockholm

58.3 million and were attended by 2.2 million visitors. At the same time, these festivals provided 32,000 paid engagements for Australian artists. Considering this massive expansion of festivals in terms of artistic arena, national marketplace and international industry, the scholarly interest in this phenomenon has taken new directions. To study the productions seemed not to be enough, nor was it satisfactory to survey audience attendance or to investigate economic turnouts. Obviously festivals did something more than promote theatrical performances.

Unknown Woman by Anna Odell : The Event, the Trial, the Work - Reflections on the Mediality of Performance

”Antigone has disappeared, but we found her diary. Join us in the search of her traces.” Sophocles’ drama has been transferred to a suburb of Stockholm. Students in a local highschool have recreate ...

A National Theatre Decentralized : Sweden's Three-and-a-half National Theatres

This article is concerned with an extraordinary artwork created by a young Swedish art student, Anna Odell. Odells re-enactment of an earlier suicide attempt on a bridge in Stockholm, filmed for a ...

Reflections on Miss Julie : The New Scandinavian Experimental Theatre's Miss Julie in Copenhagen, 1992

A look at a Swedish theatre map shows that there are, indeed, three-and-a-half National Theatres. The oldest one is the Royal Theatre, i.e. the Opera, founded in 1773 by King Gustavus III. The same king also established the Royal Dramatic Theatre (Dramaten) in 1788, although this seems to have happened more by accident. One-and-a-half centuries later, in 1934, the Swedish state started a new National Theatre, called the Swedish National Touring Theatre (Riksteatern) to provide theatrical performances all over Sweden. The latest addition to National Theatres is the National Mission for Children’s Theatre, which is a special subsidy directed towards one company at a time for a period of three years. Since 1997, four national leading theatres have been commissioned to extend their engagement with children’s theatre. It could be seen as ‘almost’ a national institution, even though it is distributed with a kind of democratic flexibility. On and off, there has also been a Norwegian Sami National Theatre, to which Sweden has contributed with performers, audiences and funds.

The Theatrical Event : Dynamics of Performance and Perception

A Danish theatre group with a Swedish director, calling themselves the New Scandinavian Experimental Theatre, presented a provocative staging of Strindbergs Miss Julie in Copenhagen in April 1992. It was received with enthusiasm by the group of Strindberg scholars at the International Strindberg Conference being held in Copenhagen at that time. What was it about this production which was so appealing? The following three articles attempt to demonstrate different ways of approaching this production in retrospect — that is to say almost one year later. The first is mainly concerned with the actress playing Julie, the second is concerned with the directors concept and how this was realized on stage, whilst the third is interested in placing this production in the context of the Scandinavian Strindberg tradition.