Connecting Theatre and Politics: Results from A Pilot Study

When we go to the theater, do we want to escape our everyday realities or confront them head-on? For North American audiences over the last few decades, it’s usually been the latter. 

In Theatre Audiences: A Theory of Production and Reception, author Susan Bennett notes that, in North America, “the depoliticizing at the production stage [has] destroyed the play”. Other theatre critics and theorists have gone as far as to say that the American theater-going public has a historically anti-political bias when it comes to their appetite for topical policy-related stage productions.

There is something offputting about this desire to separate politics from the stage. Is it reflective of someone’s inherent privilege when they say something like “I’m not political”? Is it reflective of the fact that in spite of arts programs constantly being under threat to be defunded in schools with low resources, the average theatergoer didn’t grow up in such a school system making the issue entirely foreign to them? 

Fortunately, the desire, or better yet, the ability to achieve this separation is faltering. 

Through our recent research with Theater & Policy Salon, a member of our Incubator for Creative Impact, it seems that audiences in the Washington, D.C. metro area are becoming increasingly interested in hard-hitting topical plays. Whether it is because of the urgency of this moment in U.S. and global politics due to rising nationalist sentiments or antiracist movements, our research unearthed the potential for the political to not only come center stage but to become the center of an experience which navigates the intersections of fiction and fact as themes from the play are explored by experts and creatives at post-show talk-backs.

Read more about the pilot project here.

To measure the impact of the experience and the audience’s interest in the content, we developed a modified tool based on the Aesthetics Perspectives Framework. Developed by Animating Democracy, it’s a framework designed to enhance understanding and evaluation of creative work at the intersection of arts and civic engagement, community development, and justice. 

When surveyed, attendees demonstrated a real hunger and appreciation for events that allowed them to engage with and explore political content in these theatrical settings. Their interests for future experiences and discussions spanned the entire spectrum of political issues - from immigration reform to gun control to abortion. 

The success of the pilot program will hopefully spark program growth for our partner as well as increased opportunities for this type of programming in other communities, wherever they may be.

If you are interested in feeding the political appetite of theatergoers in your community, we recommend considering the following questions - if only to make your space approachable to all who are choosing to come to dial into the presented topic - this political moment: 

  • Are we creating space for theater/political experts and newcomers in exploring this political topic?  

  • Through the content on stage and in the discussion, are we respectfully presenting a balanced argument that honors the playwright’s intent and modern understanding of the issue?

  • Are we comfortable embracing the controversies that may emerge from the discussion and the subsequent fallout - even from audience members and donors? 

While we can’t come together in theaters as we once did a few months ago, we can plan for what comes next. We can help our audiences, new and old, reflect and grow — either when we come back to our physical spaces or by embracing new digital ones.