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ToolsEder, Thomas Fabian and Rowson, James (2023) Documenting crisis: artistic innovation and institutional transformations in the German-speaking countries and the UK. New Theatre Quarterly, 39 (4). pp. 333-354. ISSN 0266-464X
Abstract
The unprecedented suspension of cultural events across Europe in March 2020 had a profound impact on the performing arts. Alongside the proliferation of digital and hybrid modes of theatre-making the Covid-19 pandemic has also precipitated a substantive shift in how theatres operate at both institutional and organizational levels in an attempt to respond to the volatile economic impact of the pandemic on the culture sector. This has provided a decisive moment for the reinterpretation of the theatrical landscape raising fundamental questions relating to institutional transformation that challenges precarious working models and entrenched hierarchical divides. Drawing on wider transnational research as part of the ‘Theatre after Covid’ project, this article examines the institutional effects of the pandemic on theatre and performance in the United Kingdom and the German-speaking countries. It will detail the findings of a wide-ranging survey conducted in 2022 with theatre workers and organizations that addresses how the industry is adapting and transforming in response to the crisis. Using this new data as a starting point it will analyse how new forms of artistic innovation have emerged during Covid-19. By focusing on these institutional and aesthetic developments this article argues that the pandemic has produced a paradigm shift that has crucially reinscribed how theatre is created, programmed, and understood.
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