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Abstract
The Gateshead International Festival of Theatre (GIFT) has been running since 2011. It is an annual opportunity for audiences and artists to gather and share experimental work with a strong focus on collaboration and conversation. As noted in my interview with the Festival’s Director, Kate Craddock (which is also published in this special issue of CTR), it went online for 2020 and 2021. 2022 marked its return to in-person activity. I attended almost all of the events in the programme, which stretched across three days from Friday 30 April to Sunday 2 May 2022.
Helen Freshwater is author of Theatre & Audience (2009). Recent publications include chapters titled ‘Histories of Audiencing: On Evidence, Myth, Nostalgia’ and ‘Audiences: Ownership, Interaction, Agency’, both due for publication in 2022 by Routledge and CUP. Between 2017 and 2020 she was Co-I on ‘Understanding Audiences for the Contemporary Arts’, an AHRC-funded project.