Audience response testing

One of the main aims of the Performing the Jewish Archive Project is:

‘To develop methods of audience response testing which will help to determine how successful our performances are in generating audience engagement.’

To achieve this, project team members Dr Lisa Peschel (Theatre, Film and Television Department) and Dr Nick Barraclough (Department of Psychology), both based at the University of York, will develop and use methodologies from their respective disciplines to test how audiences respond to the performances staged by the project. They will do this aided by one of three PhD students funded by the Performing the Jewish Archive Project, Richard Oakes, who is supervised by both Lisa and Nick. This team will investigate how audiences engage with the performances on a number of levels including emotionally, mentally and physically and will take a particular interest in the impact of using co-textuality in the staging of performances.

Currently the audience response testing team is investigating the various methods previously used to test audience responses as well as other available methods that could be applied to the field. They recently completed pilot testing of their initial methodology at the ‘Out of the Shadows: Rediscovering Jewish Music, Literature and Theater’ festival in Madison, USA.

If you have any queries or would like to know more about the Performing the Jewish Archive audience response testing please contact: Dr Lisa Peschel (Lisa.peschel@york.ac.uk28) Dr Nick E Barraclough (nick.barraclough@york.ac.uk) or Richard Oakes at (rao505@york.ac.uk).