The Young Audience

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

'Edward Bond: Bondian Drama and Young Audience' focuses on one of the most influential playwrights of Britain, Edward Bond, and his plays for young audiences. The chapters examine the theatrical and pedagogical prospects of the plays on young people which have been mostly staged since 1990s, throughout the globe. The issues covered in this book involve interdisciplinary studies such as theatre, pedagogy, ethics, children, culture, politics, among others. These topics have crucial importance for the production of plays for young audiences. Apart from this, the book focuses on Bondian Drama and its relation with the dramatic child, involving most of his plays for young audiences. The authors in this volume examine theatrical and pedagogical backgrounds of the plays, discussing critical issues, by questioning the specialities of Bondian drama and present future implications of this for young audiences. This volume presents substantial and elaborate information on crucial issues, and enable detailed discussions from various perspectives on theatre.

Jam Gallahue, fifteen, unable to cope with the loss of her boyfriend Reeve, is sent to a therapeutic boarding school in Vermont, where a journal-writing assignment for an exclusive, mysterious English class transports her to the magical realm of Belzhar, where she and Reeve can be together.

This book explores representations of gender, sexuality and ethnicity in Hindi films, in the socio-political context and in terms of how young audiences in India and the UK construct them. In-depth interviews, observations and photographs provide insights into spectatorship and comparison with theories about Hindi film and popular culture.

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.

From the success of Matilda on Broadway to the 2015 revival of Annie in movie theaters, it's clear that theater with and for young people has widespread and enduring appeal. Despite this, there is no contemporary guide designed for playwriting for youth in professional and educational contexts. In Playwriting and Young Audiences, Matt Omasta and Nicole B. Adkins put this right. Providing a range of perspectives, the book collects the practical advice and wisdom of seventy-five artists and practitioners. It is a deeply poignant account of those who have dedicated their lives to work that applauds the dignity and depth of young people.

Audiences are not what they used to be. Munching crisps or snapping selfies, chatting loudly or charging phones onstage – bad behaviour in theatre is apparently on the rise. And lately some spectators have begun to fight back... The Reasonable Audience explores the recent trend of ‘theatre etiquette’: an audience-led crusade to bring ‘manners and respect’ back to the auditorium. This comes at a time when, around the world, arts institutions are working to balance the traditional pleasures of receptive quietness with the need to foster more inclusive experiences. Through investigating the rhetorics of morality underpinning both sides of the argument, this book examines how models of 'good' and 'bad' spectatorship are constructed and legitimised. Is theatre etiquette actually snobbish? Are audiences really more selfish? Who gets to decide what counts as ‘reasonable’ within public space?Using theatre etiquette to explore wider issues of social participation, cultural exclusion, and the politics of identity, Kirsty Sedgman asks what it means to police the behaviour of others.

Ever since the exposure of the Kitten Killer of Hangshou captured the imagination of online communities world-wide, vigilantism and digilantism has come to the fore as an emerging and poignant issue. In their book Introducing Vigilant Audiences Daniel Trottier and colleagues (and contributors) have produced an excellent and throughtful ‘must read’ for all who are studying vigilantism, or just interested in it. Prof. David Wall, University of Leeds This is a collection of cutting edge and thoughtful case studies of global digital vigilantism that advances this emerging and increasingly important field in useful and intriguing ways. Prof. Michael Pfeifer, City University of New York This ground-breaking collection of essays examines the scope and consequences of digital vigilantism – a phenomenon emerging on a global scale, which sees digital audiences using social platforms to shape social and political life. Longstanding forms of moral scrutiny and justice seeking are disseminated through our contemporary media landscape, and researchers are increasingly recognising the significance of societal impacts effected by digital media. The authors engage with a range of cross-disciplinary perspectives in order to explore the actions of a vigilant digital audience – denunciation, shaming, doxing – and to consider the role of the press and other public figures in supporting or contesting these activities. In turn, the volume illuminates several tensions underlying these justice seeking activities – from their capacity to reproduce categorical forms of discrimination, to the diverse motivations of the wider audiences who participate in vigilant denunciations. This timely volume presents thoughtful case studies drawn both from high-profile Anglo-American contexts, and from developments in regions that have received less coverage in English-language scholarship. It is distinctive in its focus on the contested boundary between policing and entertainment, and on the various contexts in which the desire to seek retribution converges with the desire to consume entertainment. Introducing Vigilant Audiences will be of great value to researchers and students of sociology, politics, criminology, critical security studies, and media and communication. It will be of further interest to those who wish to understand recent cases of citizen-led justice seeking in their global context.