[Candrama] Reminder: Tonight! Dr. Helen Freshwater Keynote address

[Jenny Salisbury]

The Centre for Drama, Theatre and Performance Studies and the Centre for Spectatorship and Audience Research Present:
Dr. Helen Freshwater
Keynote Address
November 16, 2016 @ 5:30pm
Robert Gill Theatre, 214 College Street (Toronto), 3rd Floor


Apologies for cross-posting. Last minute reminder that the incredible Dr. Helen Freshwater is giving a public lecture tonight at The Robert Gill Theatre in Toronto tonight, followed by a reception. Members of Candrama are most welcome!


Abstract:

Twenty-first Century Theatre and
'the people formerly known as the audience'

This paper will return to Theatre & Audience (2009) to reflect on the performances and publications which inspired its development. It will also consider what has changed for theatre audiences and in theatre studies since its publication. In 2009 I asked why theatre scholars seem disinclined to ask audiences what they make of the theatre they view, and whether we really know very much at all about what theatre does for - and to - those who witness, watch, and participate in it. This paper will reflect on why this question now seems dated as it focuses on audience responses to Billy Elliot the Musical (2005), War Horse (2007) and Matilda the Musical (2010). Drawing the recent work of Camilla Vasquez (2014), Caroline Heim (2015) and Kirsty Sedgman (2016) amongst others, this paper will examine what these productions make of their audiences - and what their audiences make of them.


Dr. Helen Freshwater is a Reader in Theatre and Performance at the University of Newcastle. Her publications include Theatre & Audience andTheatre Censorship in Britain: Silencing, Censure and Suppression (both Palgrave Macmillan, 2009). Her next monograph, provisionally titled Performing Childhood, focuses on major twenty-first century British theatre productions and 'megamusicals' that have been performed across the world. It presents analyses of the popular appeal of the child performer and the way that they - and the forms of childhood they embody - are styled for cultural export and consumption.


Jenny Salisbury

PhD candidate | Centre for Drama, Theatre and Performance Studies
The University of Toronto
jenny.salisbury at mail.utoronto.ca
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