Reasonable Audience

Kirsty Sedgman is Lecturer in Theatre at the University of Bristol, UK, and current British Academy Postdoctoral Research Fellow. She specialises in audience research and cultural value. Her work investigates how different people experience and find meaning in live performance. How are pleasures and disappointments made meaningful within their lives? And what can all this tell us about the role of the arts in society, as well as the relationship between cultural institutions, power, identity, and place? @KirstySedgman

• 1. Introduction.- 2. The Theatre Contract.- 3. Audience Attention & Aesthetic Experience.- 4. A Defence of Theatre Etiquette.- 5. On the Reasonable Audience.- 6. Marked/Unmarked Bodies.