`This inspirational book, that cares passionately about the child's gaze, should be welcomed and cherished.' Tony Graham, Artistic Director, Unicorn Theatre --

This volume offers rare insights into the connection between young audiences and the performing arts. Based on studies of adolescent and post-adolescent audiences, ages 14 to 25, the book examines to what extent they are part of our society’s cultural conversation. It studies how these young people read and understand theatrical performance. It looks at what the educational components in their theatre literacy are, and what they make of the whole social event of theatre. It studies their views on the relationship between what they themselves decide and what others decide for them. The book uses qualitative and quantitative data collected in a six-year study carried out in the three largest Australian States, thirteen major performing arts companies, including the Sydney Opera House, three state theatre companies and three funding organisations. The book’s perspectives are derived from world-wide literature and company practices and its significance and ramifications are international. The book is written to be engaging and accessible to theatre professionals and lay readers interested in theatre, as well as scholars and researchers. “This extraordinary book thoroughly explains why young people (ages 14-25+) do and do not attend theatre into adulthood by delineating how three inter-linked factors (literacy, confidence, and etiquette) influence their decisions. Given that theatre happens inside spectators’ minds, the authors balance the theatre equation by focusing upon young spectators and thereby dispel numerous beliefs held by theatre artists and educators. Each clearly written chapter engages readers with astute insights and compelling examples of pertinent responses from young people, teachers, and theatre professionals. To stem the tide of decreasing theatre attendance, this highly useful book offers pragmatic strategies for artistic, educational, and marketing directors, as well as national theatre organizations and arts councils around the world. I have no doubt that its brilliantly conceived research, conducted across multiple contexts in Australia, will make a significant and original contribution to the profession of theatre on an international scale.” Jeanne Klein, University of Kansas, USA “Young Audiences, Theatre and the Cultural Conversation is a compelling and comprehensive study on attitudes and habits of youth theatre audiences by leading international scholars in the field. This benchmark study offers unique insights by and for theatre makers and administrators, theatre educators and researchers, schools, parents, teachers, students, audience members of all ages. A key strength within the book centers on the emphasis of the participant voices, particularly the voices of the youth. Youth voices, along with those of teachers and theatre artists, position the extensive field research front and center.” George Belliveau, The University of British Columbia, Canada

A collection of plays by such authors as Moliere, August Strindberg, Langston Hughes, Susan Zeder, Wendy Kesselman, and Laurence Yep.

One of the UK's most distinctive areas of arts practice is theatre for young audiences. This edited collection gathers together new and original work on the topics, practices and critical perspectives which characterize theatre for the young. It features chapters on theatre and ownership, active spectatorship and audience interaction. Others focus on specific audiences such as children and young people with profound disabilities or nonverbal audiences. A chapter looks at creative methods such as using "child's play" to create plays for children; another considers how to develop our understanding about children's perception of theatre created for them through interviewing them and studying their drawings. Other chapters discuss how to connect teenagers with Shakespeare's work; how theatre can engage with children in a globalized multicultural society; the current status of Theatre in Education in the UK; and the work staged by the National Theatre for young audiences. This wide range of topics will appeal to academics, students and theatre practitioners working within the growing field of theatre for the young. For educators interested in the benefits of school-related theatre visits and the young audiences' engagement with performances created specifically for them, this book is a rich source of information. The contributors include Gill Brigg, David Broster, Dominic Hingorani, Jeanne Klein Geoffrey Readman, James Reynolds, Matthew Reason, Peter Wynne-Willson, Jan Wozniak and Oily Cart's Tim Webb.

What would you do if you could live forever? Eleven-year-old Winnie Foster yearns for a life of adventure beyond her white picket fence, but not until she becomes unexpectedly entwined with the Tuck family does she get more than she could have imagined. When Winnie learns of the magic behind the Tuck’s immortality, she must fight to protect their secret from those who would do anything for a chance at eternal life. As her adventure unfolds, Winnie faces an extraordinary choice: return to her life, or continue with the Tucks on their infinite journey. Based on the best-selling children’s classic by Natalie Babbitt, adapted for the stage by Claudia Shear and Tim Federle, and featuring a soaring score from Chris Miller and Nathan Tysen, the TYA edition of Tuck Everlasting is a condensed 70-minute version of the Broadway production, re-conceived by the authors to be performed by nine actors.

This edited collection explores methods for conducting critical empirical research examining the potential impacts of theatrical events on audience members. Dani Snyder-Young and Matt Omasta present an overview of the burgeoning subfield of audience studies in theatre and performance studies, followed by an introduction to the wide range of ways scholars can study the experiences of spectators. Consisting of chapter-length case studies, the book addresses methodologies for examining spectatorship, including qualitative, quantitative, historical/historiographic, arts-based, participatory, and mixed methods approaches. This volume will be of great interest to theatre and performance studies scholars as well as industry professionals working in marketing, audience development, and community engagement.

How dull plays are killing theatre and what we can do about it. Had I become disenchanted with the form I had once fallen so madly in love with as a pubescent, pimple-faced suburban homo with braces? Maybe theatre was like an all-consuming high school infatuation that now, ten years later, I saw as the closeted balding guy with a beer gut he’d become. There were of course those rare moments of transcendencethat kept me coming back. But why did they come so few and far between? A lot of plays are dull. And one dull play, it seems, can turn us off theatre for good. Playwright and theatre director Jordan Tannahill takes in the spectrum of English-language drama – from the flashiest of Broadway spectacles to productions mounted in scrappy storefront theatres – to consider where lifeless plays come from and why they persist. Having travelled the globe talking to theatre artists, critics, passionate patrons and the theatrically disillusioned, Tannahill addresses what he considers the culture of ‘risk aversion’ paralyzing the form. Theatre of the Unimpressed is Tannahill’s wry and revelatory personal reckoning with the discipline he’s dedicated his life to, and a roadmap for a vital twenty-first-century theatre – one that apprehends the value of ‘liveness’ in our mediated age and the necessity for artistic risk and its attendant failures. In considering dramaturgy, programming and alternative models for producing, Tannahill aims to turn theatre from an obligation to a destination. ‘[Tannahill is] the poster child of a new generation of (theatre? film? dance?) artists for whom "interdisciplinary" is not a buzzword, but a way of life.’ —J. Kelly Nestruck, Globe and Mail ‘Jordan is one of the most talented and exciting playwrights in the country, and he will be a force to be reckoned with for years to come.’ —Nicolas Billon, Governor General's Award–winning playwright (Fault Lines)