Shakespeare's Audiences: then and now

Project Leaders

Drs Laurie Johnson, Darryl Chalk and Rebecca Scollen

“Shakespeare’s Audiences: then and now” focuses on the social function of Theatre in enabling the critical agency of its audiences. Early Modern studies have long argued that Shakespeare’s theatre subverted the rule of the monarch, but these studies fail to explain how audiences played their part in subversion. More recent Audience Studies provide models for understanding the relationship between performance and reception. Pooling these areas of expertise, the project seeks to develop more complete accounts of the role that Theatre can play in developing socially engaged communities, in the past, present, and future.

Laurie Johnson is Senior Lecturer in English Literature and Cultural Studies and a member of the Public Memory Research Centre at the University of Southern Queensland. He is author of The Wolf Man’s Burden (Cornell University Press, 2001) and articles on Cultural Theory, Cyber Studies, Early Modern Studies, Ethics, Phenomenology, Psychoanalysis and related fields.

Darryl Chalk is Senior Lecturer in Drama and Theatre Studies and a member of the Public Memory Research Centre at the University of Southern Queensland. His work on connections between contagion and theatricality in Shakespearean drama and early modern culture has been published in Early Modern Literary Studies and in edited collections.

Rebecca Scollen is Manager of Artsworx at the University of Southern Queensland (www.usq.edu.au/artsworx). She is a member of the USQ Public Memory Research Centre and her interests include: audience research, reception and development; regional arts; sustainable (arts) communities; and arts participation and volunteering.