This dissertation addresses a significant gap in audience-orientated criticism by introducing a new approach to theatre audience research: audience contribution through the vehicle of a postperformance discussion. Audience contribution considers the physical and vocal behaviour of audience members as contributions to the theatrical event. Much scholarship has concentrated on the written and performance texts. What I posit as the audience text, comprised of audience contributions, has been predominantly ignored. The audience text is an integral part of the theatrical event that changes, adds to and informs the theatrical experience for audience and arts professionals alike. Over the past century the audience role has changed from interactive contributor to passive receiver. For the contemporary theatre audience member, opportunities to contribute to the theatrical event have been limited to laughter, applause and consumerist practices such as the purchasing of theatrical merchandise. Similarly in much theatre audience theory, audiences are perceived as passive receivers of the drama whose only active contribution is through autonomous cognitive meaning-making processes. The study takes into account the extant audience theory of audience reception and builds on this. Post-performance discussions, which have risen significantly in popularity in the last decade, are an under-explored and under-utilised avenue for audience contribution. A new method for the facilitation of post-performance discussions that encourages audience contribution and privileges the audience voice is introduced. Case studies of post-performance discussions held after performances of Anne of the Thousand Days and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? trial this new discussion model. An audience text is created that informs the theatrical event and a new role for the contemporary audience is discovered: audience critic. Through the post-performance discussions, audience members become active contributors to, and co-creators of, the theatrical event. Audience contribution has significant implications for audience theory and theatre practice alike.

Cette thèse porte sur comment les publics de théâtre sont représentés au sein du discours des politiques culturelles tant en France qu’au Chili. Ceci est mis en rapport aux figures des publics destinataires des sites internet (y compris les réseaux sociaux numériques) de quatre théâtres publics de référence qui déclarent avoir une programmation dite « contemporaine » et « classique ». La question principale est d’identifier comment ces représentations circulent dans ces dispositifs. L’hypothèse centrale souligne le fait qu’il y a un rapport entre les conditions sociales et symboliques des discours des politiques culturelles qui s’actualisent dans les écris d’écran (Bonaccorsi, 2013) par des signes langagiers, visuels et numériques. L’approche théorique et méthodologique est principalement sémiodiscursive toujours à l’égard des nouvelles catégories émergentes des nouveaux corpus provenant d’internet (Rouquette, 2009). Cette recherche a permis de conclure que les politiques culturelles des deux pays tiennent un discours sur l’accès pour « tous » à la culture, « tous » étant, d’une part, la figure d’un « public plus citoyen » et d’autre part la figure d’un « public plus consommateur ». D’ailleurs les sites internet compris dans l’étude, même s’ils partagent une scène englobante et générique, actualisent (par des signes langagiers, visuels et numériques) différemment leur scénographie (Maingueneau, 2013) en fonction de l’éthos (Charaudeau, 2009) de chaque théâtre. Pourtant, les figures d’un « public national » et « potentiel acheteur » circulent comme traces des discours des politiques culturelles parmi les sites et au sein de réseaux sociaux où en plus, on observe une prise de parole profane (Pasquier, 2009), c’est-à-dire, des spectateurs. / The subject of this thesis concerns how the audience of theatre is represented within the discourse of cultural policies in France and Chile. This is related to the audience of internet websites (including social networks) of four public theatres of reference who report to have both a « contemporary » and « classical » program. The main question is to identify how these representations are transmitted amongst these devices. The principal hypothesis underlines the fact that there is link a between the social and symbolic conditions of the discourses of cultural policies which appear in « les écrits d’écran » (Bonaccorsi, 2013) through linguistic, visual and digital signs. The theoretical and methodological approach is primarily semiotic-discursive with regard to new categories emerging from Internet-based corpus (Rouquette, 2009).This research led to the conclusion that the cultural policies of these two countries have a discourse on access to culture for « everybody »; « everybody » being, on one hand, a « more citizenly audience » and, on the other hand, a « more consumer audience ». Moreover, the internet websites in this study update their scenography differently (through linguistic, visual and digital signs), even if they share a generic and global scene (Maingueneau, 2013), all of which is dependent on the ethos (Charaudeau, 2009) of each theatre. However, the « national audience » and the « potential buyer » appear as traces of the discourses of cultural policies among websites and social networks where, we can additionally observe a profane speech (Pasquier, 2009), namely, from the audience.

When people 'go to the theatre' we know that they are audiences. When young people go to Contact, however, they might be audiences, performers and/or theatre makers - they might play all three or more roles. Contact's users blur existing concepts and terminology. When we want to know more about theatre audiences, audience research offers models based on the distinction between audiences and theatre makers. If we want to know more about Contact's users, however, a model reflecting the blending of audiences and theatre makers' roles has yet to be developed. This thesis engages with Contact's users. It maps some of their multiple roles and experiences by asking two main questions: What are the practices of the people attending Contact and how can these practices be researched? A range of qualitative methods is necessary in order to investigate the wide variety of Contact's users' roles and experiences. Individual and group interviews are drawn from audience research, creative workshops are drawn from communication studies, and participant observation and visual research from the social sciences. Finally, a new method, Walking Fieldwork, is adapted for the use in theatre. A number of case studies are employed to investigate Contact's users. These case studies involve the observation of young actors during rehearsals and performances, the observation of participants in an outreach project, the investigation of audiences' experiences of two productions, and several short post-show interviews with general Contact audiences. This study found evidence that the relationship between theatre makers and audiences is changing. The term 'theatre user' is introduced as it opens up an area of overlap between the two and fits contemporary practices at Contact more closely. Contact's users function as communities, participants and co-creators. The descriptions of these roles and experiences contained in this thesis are understood as an initial exploration into practices of contemporary theatre users. However, further research is needed to build a more detailed understanding of these practices. In terms of research methods, this study found that the academic field of audience research needs to develop methods which are sensitive to both the backgrounds of theatre users and the theatrical context. The argument is put forward that audience research should become more aware of methods for the investigation of human experience and should enter into a 'methods-dialogue' with other academic fields of study.

In meinem Vortrag möchte ich zeigen, welche Entwicklungsetappen die Etablierung des Theaters in Tallinn durchgemacht hat. Interessant wäre darüber hinaus zu untersuchen, was dabei im Verhältnis zu anderen deutschsprachigen Theatern ähnlich bzw. was unterschiedlich war. Ich werde mich der Frage widmen, welche Beziehungen es zu anderen Truppen oder Theatern im Ostseeraum gab, welchem Repertoire die Vorliebe des Publikums galt und aus welchen Schichten der Tallinner Einwohner das Publikum bestand.

This thesis closely examines the utilisation of dramatic characters’ comments on matters of literary and theatrical criticism. This phenomenon shaped a trend in European theatre during the first half of the twentieth century, and Egyptian theatre in the second half of the century. My main hypotheses are, firstly, that dramatic characters’ comments on literary and theatrical matters of criticism respond to specific problems that challenge theatre practice. Thus, my reading of literary and theatrical criticism within the dramatic texts studied in my thesis focuses on this criticism’s reformative function to rectify the crisis that faces theatre practice in general, rather than playwrights’ individual motives, such as responding to their critics. Secondly, socio-political, economic, and cultural aspects shape historical circumstances, which influence the current state of the theatre industry. Therefore, although Egyptian plays are noticeably influenced by European metatheatre, Egyptian playwrights utilise these borrowed techniques to highlight specific problems of Egyptian theatre such as the corrupt administration of governmental theatre and censorship. Finally, while Egyptian plays exploit European metatheatrical techniques, Egyptian playwrights claimed their works as a revival of intrinsically anti-illusionist traditional forms of entertainment such as the shadow play and Karagöz. This claim reflected increasing calls for pure Egyptian theatre, as part of the anti-Western jingoistic discourse of the political regime of the 1950s. In order to examine these assumptions, my theoretical approach draws from the fields of metatheatrical studies; literary and performance studies of parody and intertextuality; the history of European and Egyptian theatre; sociological, political and cultural studies; theories of modern criticism, and critical reviews. My contribution to the field of metatheatrical studies is in highlighting the reformative function of literary and theatrical criticism, whether as a discourse or a metatheatrical device, within a group of European plays that belong to different movements of the avant-garde during the first half of the twentieth century. More significantly, my study investigates the same phenomenon in Egyptian plays that, since the 1980s, have gradually been marginalised as fringe theatre and neglected by academic studies.