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" I recently attended the Theatre Communication Group (TCG) Annual Conference in Dallas, where a major focus of discussion was that very topic. For three days, I listened to panelists, questioned participants, and considered the discussions. I met many bright managers who passionately explained how they are trying to bridge the perceived gap separating potential audiences from their theater companies. I regret to report that no one could offer a concrete definition of the term "audience engagement". "

"But not all kinds of audience analysis are evil. It's an important but often-overlooked practice for any organization. When I ask an NGO "who are you trying to engage with?", the answer is often simply "everybody" or "you know, the people on our list". There’s an inclination to think “everybody will obviously be interested in our cause!” In reality, the more you refine who you want to talk to, the easier it is to reach them. Consider these two sample audiences:"

So what does this mean for theatre? Well, like I just said, performances, audiences, and things can be at multiple locations, at the same time, sharing a connected experience. Performers and audience can get "connected" with the output systems of spaces and spaces become "sensitive." So that would mean that you're now controlling the theatre lights, or my slideshow, or you're interacting with my body if I'm rigged in whatever way. Performers, audiences, and spaces can influence and manipulate each other, and the input-output system. In the classic theatre-the technician over there is sitting in the dark and is not supposed to be seen. But they're there and they're everywhere. The interesting thing is the whole theatre space is rigged in a very hierarchical way. But the Internet of Things is modular, so the idea is that everybody in the room can potentially become the operator or performer of a given system.

"'Relaxed' performances, aimed at people with disabilities and their carers, are few and far between - but they have benefits for all of us. The whole point of theatre is that disruption should be possible"

Housch-ma-Housch is one of the funniest and most talented comedians in the world. His one man show is the result of many years of work. He delights the audience with a performance combining miming, clowing and magic. This comedian is an absolute multi-talent and palette of his roles is almost limitless.

"In this insightful and contextualizing Festival Portrait, actor Simon McBurney highlights the risks of the co-dependent relationship between the audience and performers - the capacity for success, but also the capacity for spectacular failure."

I have conversations with studio heads and at some point when I'm passionately advocating using film they'll say 'at the end of the day doesn't storytelling trump everything?' I say 'no it doesn't, otherwise we'd be making radio plays, it would be a lot cheaper.'

" But why does mere revision make so many Shakespeare fans so uncomfortable? Some people don't like any alterations to Shakespeare's text nor even presenting them in anything other than their historical settings. To me, such an ultrapurist approach can lead to what I somewhat derisively call "museum piece Shakespeare"-though, I must say, I do enjoy visiting and spending hours in museums, and among my favorite stagings of Shakespeare are text-centric, historically costumed productions. But even these are cut for length. Furthermore, to varying degrees, each could be called an "adaptation" because any time an actor picks up a Shakespearean role, he or she is adapting it for that production, and sometimes adapting it from performance to performance, depending on the theater and audience."

Highlighted by songs in which women celebrate the murder of wayward men and a lawyer demonstrates the art of manipulating the media, musicals don't get much more cynical than Chicago. A ripped-from-the-headlines jazz-age play by Chicago Tribune reporter Maurine Dallas Watkins turned into a 1975 musical by songwriters John Kander and Fred Ebb in collaboration with Bob Fosse, Chicago enjoyed an initial run of qualified success, overshadowed by the crowd-pleasing A Chorus Line. It makes perfect sense, however, that it found a second audience on Broadway in the 1990s

Students often get hung up on the notion that in the theatre, sets, costumes, props all have to meet the standard of the movies. They have to be three dimensional and real. A car must have four wheels and move. A house must have two levels and different rooms. The truth is actually quite different - a theatre audience is very forgiving. If you let them know what world the play inhabits (two people sitting side by side on cubes, one holds their hands up as if holding a steering wheel) they will believe. They will go along for the ride. A single object can be so many different things - a chair can be a chair, or a car, or a mountain. The possibilities are endless.

A patron's loyalty is built step-by-step with each interaction with your organization. Each purchase and each donation is an indicator of the affinity that patrons feel for the organization. The problem in the evolution of patrons often occurs in the hand-off between marketing and development.

A custom targeted localized publicity campaign can bring get you media coverage in the newspapers, and on radio and TV for your local events. You can conduct the campaign so that you drive people to your event and also get feature stories which talk about your event. Both will improve sales.