Past Special Events

In-person workshop (preceded by group attendance at a performance) at Performing Shores/ The Shores of Performance: The Canadian Association for Theatre Research conference at Dalhousie University (June 15-17, 2023)

Following broader discussions about diversifying and renewing theatre audiences, made more pressing in the age of COVID, this roundtable explored the partnership and potential points of connection between theatres and audience researchers. It also advanced critical discussions in audience studies by thinking through how we invite, imagine, and cast Ontario audiences.

Following the success of our 2020 Conversation Series, we hosted two more conversations this summer. Conversation 1: How Do We Do This Again? Reconsidering Interaction, and Conversation 2: So You Want to do Audience Research?

While we couldn't meet in person at the time, we were keen to continue fostering a network of artists, scholars, and others interested in spectatorship. We created a three-part online conversation series centred on questions of audience research in a virtual environment. 

The Centre for Spectatorship and Audience Research held a catered roundtable discussion of methods and analysis of audiences of performance/live events with presentations from T.L. Cowan, Signy Lynch, Kelsey Jacobson, Jenny Salisbury, and Scott Mealey.

The event consisted of four panel discussions followed by a response from Dr. Barry Freeman. CSAR invited eighteen leading researchers from the UK, US, and Canada to share their emerging understandings of audience “translations”, improvements in methodological approaches, and effective modes of communicating discoveries to a wider circle of academics and practitioners.

From March 19-20, the CDTPS Centre for Spectatorship and Audience Research (CSAR) hosted award-winning researcher and educator, Dr. Matt Omasta. Part of his contribution was a hands-on workshop on the topic of mixed-methods, theatre-based research/analytical technique and well as a Keynote Address.

We hosted a pub night for dreaming, laughter, and a pint as we looked towards September.

As many of us were in Toronto attending either Congress or CATR, we thought it would be grand if we gathered to meet, dream, and debate in-between conference events!

Join Organizers: C. Silver, J. Salisbury, S.Mealey, K. Jacobson and Participants: K. Blair, A. Breel, E. Cox, G.Diokno, N. Lior, S. Tyber, M. Wilmink, S.Lynch, and M. MacArthur in this participatory exploration of new spectator research in 2017, as part of the CATR Conference.

We were so pleased to have an incredible visit from Dr. Helen Freshwater - author of Theatre & Audience, and advocate for audience research in the UK who joined us for in-depth conversations about the state of spectatorship research at the time and where we went from there.

The inaugural keynote in our new Visiting Scholars Series was delivered by eminent scholar and past president of the International Federation of Theatre Research, Dr. Janelle Reinelt. We hosted both a tea and conversation event and a keynote address.