Stay at home, engage at home: extended performance engagement in the time of COVID-19

ABSTRACT

This article examines how Theatre for Young Audiences practitioners innovate in terms of deepening young people’s experiences of recorded performances in the digital space. It defines extended performance engagement, mapping the current context of pre- and post-performance interventions connected to professional theatre in the USA and Europe. The article questions the potential for growth and expansion of awareness of extended performance engagement in a world affected by COVID-19, and how this field values the overall experience of engaging with live performance, even when streamed at home. The investigation questions how we measure the successes of this engagement and its afterlife following on from the live, and now digital, space.

Introduction

Since the onset of the pandemic in March 2020 and the physical closing of theatre doors, companies that present and produce Theatre for Young Audiences (TYA) around the world have been opening virtual doors for audiences at home. Virtual doors to a digital space are not the same. Rather than being ushered into the theatre with the sounds of other families or classmates surrounding, individuals click into a theatre’s website. The theatrical wash of the stage space is replaced with blue light from a screen. The sound of the door closing behind you and the anticipation of the upcoming performance is replaced with the sounds of a washing machine, a kettle boiling, a younger sibling doing their homework. The experience of going to the theatre is completely replaced with staying in the home space, and that is only if you have access to a device. Theatre-makers are challenged to replace the liveness of theatre with something recorded and to substitute gathering in a space as a community with experiencing theatre separately. The differences and challenges go beyond these and must be acknowledged so that we as a field can better understand the value of what we do.

When thinking of theatre as an experience, we can visualize an entire event. Whether this takes place in a theatre venue or a school space, it consists of moving into place as an audience member, waiting for the performance to begin, filtering out afterward, traveling home or to your classroom. It is an experience with the potential to extend before seeing the performance, during (through participation), and afterward. Matthew Reason (2010, 114) describes the post experience as a performance’s “afterlife”, resounding in the audience’s mind afterward. In my research I define these intentional moments which aim to deepen and elongate the young person’s experience of theatre as extended performance engagement, which I refer to as EPE.

Pre- and post-performance engagement are terms used to define a facilitated experience connected to the themes, content, or theatrical elements of a live performance before and after seeing it. A related, all-encompassing term is audience engagement, described by Brown and Ratzkin (2011, 5) as a philosophy around the experience an audience has when engaging with art: before, during, and afterward. In my research, I focus on the impact of the experience immediately following a performance in the theatre venue and later in the school classroom. In this article I first discuss these EPE practices as they stood before the pandemic to better understand their function. I then seek to address how TYA is innovating, defining, and measuring success in the digital space in terms of EPE, especially when arts organizations are called to “remove barriers to access for their programmes and buildings for children, young people and their families” internationally (ASSITEJ 2020a, 8.5).

Value of extended performance engagement

While EPE practices such as pre- and post-performance workshops, post-show discussions, and teacher resource guides are common among TYA companies, the value and impact of these experiences are rarely being explored. A recent study conducted in New York City unpacks the understood value of live theatre experiences for young people to enhance social and emotional development, provide engagement in school, and “develop their ability to imagine the future” (Shmidt Chapman and Halpern 2019, 4). These findings tell us the importance and potential power of live arts experiences to hope and envision future possibilities for young people. The report states that having the ability to engage before and after performance serves to amplify the impact of the theatre experience (Shmidt Chapman and Halpern 2019, 4). However, more detail into this type of engagement is not covered. The limited understanding of the effects of EPE practices suggests that oftentimes, the pre- and post-performance experiences are shortened or neglected altogether.

Based on my own experience working as a drama facilitator for theatre companies and arts festivals in Ireland and New Jersey, some challenges the EPE programs there face include schools’ busy timetables, limited time to engage with artists due to the actors’ contracts, and limited confidence or lack of knowledge that teachers may have when leading drama activities and accessing materials provided by the theatre company.¹ In these instances, it is possible that resources were not provided in the first place, or that those provided did not match the specific needs of the class group that attended the performance.

Another challenge EPE programs faced before the pandemic is a lack of exchanging practices. Surely an understanding of what programs exist and how they are executed can benefit those who create them and the young people experiencing them. This challenge is addressed in a recent compilation that aims to share best theatre education practices (Finneran and Anderson 2019, 4). While EPE practices are present throughout the chapters, they are not explicitly named or spoken of for their aims and value. My research seeks to address this gap. How are the aims of these practices articulated among theatre companies regionally, nationally, and internationally, and are these aims shared? How is EPE recognized and supported by larger organizations? What does and does not work when put into practice? Are the materials adaptable to different contexts? Do they need to be? We as TYA practitioners have a responsibility to assess successful programs by seeking to understand how they evidence their impact and continue to develop their resources.

In the midst of an international pandemic, I argue that TYA practitioners moving to a digital space makes extended attempts to engage young people in theatre more visible. It increases visibility among a network of international theatre-makers (those who create for both child and adult audiences), classroom teachers who are invited to access materials virtually, and potentially the departments of education and arts education policy makers in different national contexts. TYA practitioners are innovators in their attempt to extend engagement and their practices are now made visible to theatres that typically target adult audiences, but whose work includes community, audience, and educational engagement. While there are limitations to experiencing theatre in a digital space for all types of theatres, there are benefits to discovering the ways we can engage on and off screen that are tied to a performance. For example, how might EPE serve to move young people away from the screen to engage creatively after watching a digital recording of a performance?

There is minimal research into the value of EPE and no clear, consistent way for measuring the success of these approaches in person, and now digitally. How do we understand the benefits of engagement strategies when accessed from individuals’ homes? With recent changes to an online format, what opportunities to track the digital footprints of EPE exist? Before assessing EPE practices in the digital space, it is important to get a clearer idea of the goals for extending engagement beyond a performance. Why are they important and what do we hope young people gain?

Motivations for extended performance engagement

In the context of TYA, EPE is sometimes referred to as the post-performance experience (Reason 2013, 102). Reason’s (2013) idea of “afterlife” acknowledges performance as something that has the potential to stay with young people after they leave the theatre and return to their daily school routine. This is important because it sees performance as one part of a theatre event, which has the potential to live on and impact young people in an ongoing personal and pedagogical way. Importantly, this does not mean that every performance will resound in a positive or influential way. However, it recognizes that the performance experience has a place in the young person’s life before, during, and after they see it with the potential to empower them to form their own opinions about art (Reason 2013, 101). This remains true for digital performance, although the experience itself may differ in effectiveness based on the circumstances.

In a study of the theatre experience as an event outside of solely performance, Emma Miles (2018, 38–39) argues that “it is not just the performance itself that is significant, but the rituals of theatre-going and the social meanings made by children about and through the theatre space”. These holistic experiences feed into the social and cultural meanings that young people make which influence their ongoing development. Nevertheless, Reason (2013, 107) argues that these experiences must be facilitated, that we have “a responsibility to contextualize, enhance, and frame the experience”. The argument that children will not come to the richest experience possible on their own is corroborated by Christian Leavesley and Jolyon James (2019) of Arena Theatre Company in Australia in an article describing their artistic process:

Most children are initially conservative in their responses to our exercises. It is our artists who give them frameworks and tools with which to find their expression and their voice. Children do make extraordinary observations, and generate profound insights, but most often it is our artists who frame their responses in a way that helps them to resonate beyond the moment. (Leavesley and James 2019, 26)

This values the young people’s voices and opinions on what they experienced, while acknowledging that it is up to the adults, in this case the artists, to frame, or help them formulate their thoughts. The idea of resonating “beyond the moment” is in line with what Reason (2013, 97) mentions as “afterlife” of performance, making room for young people to make connections from the artwork to their own lives. For that reason, I ask, who is responsible for facilitating and framing these experiences, especially now that they are online? Many teaching artists and drama facilitators are either out of work or transitioning to drama sessions over video chat platforms. Young people are not getting that holistic experience of traveling to and from a theatre or experiencing theatre in their school hall. Furthermore, what ways and methods of facilitating EPE digitally are most effective for the personal development of children? These questions and this transition to digital space forces the field to focus on the specific reasons for extending the theatre experience. In other words, what we do and why we do what we do.

Motivations for extending the TYA experience include the further pedagogical and personal development possibilities of connecting, reflecting, questioning, and expressing. Common among TYA and Theatre in Education (TIE) practitioners² is the feeling that a performance should not rely on supplemental material, but rather be deepened by it (Jackson 1993; Meredith as quoted in Wooster 2007). The selected aims of EPE that I explore come from practices in both TYA and TIE. These common aims, as articulated by this field of practice, are to introduce young people to the art form so that they can experience how a performance is put together, pose questions which engage curiosity about the form or about humanity,³ make space for the audience to reflect on themes or moments from the performance, extend learning, provide space to process story and connect material to their own context, and inspire an interest in drama, storytelling, or theatre as an artform. While the live or digital theatre experience has the potential to do many of these things on its own, the hope is that a facilitated experience afterward enhances the aims of the theatre performance. However, neither a theatre experience on its own or supplemental material afterward is proven to engage thought and create a learning environment (Nicholson 2009, 58). Therefore, a deeper understanding of the aims and outcomes of EPE might lead theatre practitioners to more authoritatively uncover the elements that are successful in engaging young people.

Ways of engaging

Key to this discussion is an understanding of the ways in which young audiences engage with theatre and performance, the many forms that EPE takes, and who facilitates these experiences; the experiences range from short discussions immediately following a performance to in-school workshops that span weeks. These methods of EPE include question and answer sessions, teacher resource guides, lobby displays, drawn responses, participatory workshops, and longer-term, extended residencies. The most common form of EPE before and during the pandemic has been teacher resources, also referred to as study guides/packs. This is because many theatres produce them, and they can be published online.

In some cases, theatre companies have dedicated staff members to look after these various forms of engagement. In the USA, these roles were first developed in the 1970s in response to major funding cuts for arts education in schools (Considine 2018, 2). In an article outlining the many definitions for the term community engagement, American Theatre magazine highlights that although there is no agreement on job titles, the goals of engagement remain the same: to welcome young people (or those underrepresented) into theatres, to establish experiences that have meaning, and to develop the presence of theatre outside of the physical theatre space (Considine 2018, 3). Now that young people are either not entering theatre spaces, or will be in small groups and limited numbers, who is responsible for helping them develop that presence in their own spaces? In some cases, teaching artists, who commonly would lead these experiences in the USA, have been made redundant or furloughed due to the crisis. Therefore, the responsibility falls on the teachers who are balancing their own transitions to virtual learning in a short period of time as well as the parents/caregivers overseeing their child’s homeschool experience. The shift to the digital space has brought about significant challenges for teachers, students, and theatre-makers. While TYA online may not be much more accessible digitally than it would be live, the transition during the pandemic has made TYA companies’ efforts to stay connected to young people more visible. Let us now focus on how companies have shifted to a digital space for teachers, students, and theatre-educators.

The shift to digital space

The shift to the digital space has accentuated one of the main challenges EPE practices faced, even before the pandemic: time. Now that young people are engaging in school activities at home, the time they are capable of spending online is condensed from a typical school day’s activity. High school aged students report that they are overwhelmed by the workload given by multiple teachers, even though school administration is making extra efforts to avoid this in some cases (Reynolds 2020, 5). To offset overwhelming students, teachers have been tasked with creating content for shorter periods of online engagement compared to what young people would experience with face-to-face learning in school. With this information we can assume that the main areas of focus, particularly in the USA, are the core subjects: math, reading, and writing. This would mean that arts-based subjects may have less priority in the online curriculum. This depends on the standing of the arts in curriculum which differs from state to state and country to country. However, according to my research EPE is already an area that is either non-existent or vaguely referred to in current Irish curriculum (both online and in-person). Therefore, with end-of-year pressures to collect assignments and having to learn an entirely new way of teaching, the amount of time that teachers have to include virtual visits to theatres and engagement with performances is unknown. However, theatre-makers would argue that these arts experiences are essential for engaging the creative mind and contributing to a child’s personal development during quarantine (Harris 2020, 16). Theatre education is a form of knowledge and enables young people to reflect on themselves and navigate the present moment, as well as imagining the future (Santiago-Jirau 2020, para 6). Therefore, it is deserving of time in the digital learning environment. If given a place, however, is it always accessible to young people?

TYA as a field constantly seeks ways to invite all audiences into their spaces regardless of ability, income, race, and gender. Theatres around the world have created subsidy schemes to allow schools who cannot afford the standard price of a theatre ticket to attend live performances for little to no charge thanks to generous donations and access funding programs. For example, the New Victory Theater in New York City’s Schools with Performing Arts Reach Kids (SPARK) initiative models how to provide arts-deprived school communities with live performing arts (New 42nd Street 2020) and Baboró International Arts Festival for Children in Ireland’s ACCESS programme, based in Galway where I am conducting my research, supports ticket and bus subsidy, free workshops, and a touring program (Baboró 2020). How are they navigating access now that doors are closed?

In the digital space, these initiatives face a challenge because of limited access to devices, especially in rural areas as reported by a theatre practitioner from the nonprofit Empowered Players, based in Virginia, USA (Harris 2020, 19). Some families may have one or no devices at their homes, forcing children to share screens and access at different times. Other families may have very poor Wi-Fi signals and may not be able to engage in live webcam sessions with teachers or directors (Harris 2020, 19). Therefore, theatre companies and schools have had to develop programs that seek to place art materials and devices into young people’s hands in order to ensure continued learning. In some cases, school districts provide laptops or tablets as well as internet access for each student, which may help offset the challenge of access (Feiner 2020, para 9). However, there may be delays in getting devices to children or some school districts may not be able to provide devices for all students. On the other hand, young people with any cognitive or physical difference and immunocompromised children who have limited ability to travel to a theatre experience a unique opportunity to access theatre in their own homes. Therefore, how can TYA practitioners think outside of the box to keep performance an element of young people’s lives? The TYA field is responsible for many children’s first experience of theatre, therefore we must consider how this first experience may be digital for some children. As a result, theatre educators can act upon the opportunities and benefits which may not have surfaced if it were not for the period we find ourselves in.

One of the greatest benefits for the area of EPE in TYA has been the international exchange of practices that has surfaced thanks to digital platforms and national organizations. There is a feeling that we are all in this together and people from around the globe have come together to share experiences and collaborate on innovative strategies for theatre-making and engagement. The International Association of Theatre for Children and Young People (ASSITEJ) is a body that supports TYA globally. This organization is in place to primarily support the development and dissemination of work, and since the pandemic, has been organizing regional meetups online (ASSITEJ 2020b, para 3). The ASSITEJ national centers have been inviting practitioners to share national practices. For example, TYA/USA hosts webinars for drama facilitators, theatre-makers, and educators to keep them connected. In the USA, “theatre and arts education leaders across the country are coming together virtually to identify ways we can support each other, adapt our work to continue serving our constituencies, and support the freelance teaching artists that deliver these programs” (Santiago-Jirau 2020, para 4). International Performing Arts for Youth (IPAY 2009–2016) have hosted regional “kitchen table sessions” for groups of countries to meet, discuss, and collaborate. American Alliance for Theatre and Education (AATE) have extended their annual conference to the online community for theatre educators to connect. These international initiatives have resulted in inspiring discussions and hope for the future of the field and for today’s young people. Some of those practices and their aims will be discussed in the next section. The outcomes are yet to be assessed.

Virtual field trips and @home initiatives

One of the most common forms of EPE internationally is the teacher resource guide, referred to by many different names that include, but are not limited to: study guide, activity pack, and educational pack. These are typically distributed by the theatre company or hosting arts organization with a general aim to help teachers engage their students with the themes of the show surrounding the performance. They are written by a theatre staff member or an independent, external writer with a background in both the arts and education. According to a recent study conducted by Matt Omasta (2019, 7; 2020, 15) in the USA, over 80% of TYA companies surveyed offer teacher resource guides. This is because many of their audiences are school groups. He notes that most resource guides are written by the theatre’s education staff members, rather than external writers (Omasta 2020, 15). Omasta’s (2019) study is one of the only ones that addresses resources for TYA performances in the USA. This may be because there is a lack of consistency in the overall design of these resources. Even the name of this form of EPE is inconsistent. This suggests that an exchange between teachers and theatre companies about the effectiveness of resources linking to performance is essential for understanding the impact and filling a major gap in research internationally. Currently, we face a situation which encourages resources to be made available online and insists on virtual exchange.

With the recent transition to digital space, it is becoming easier to track the use of the resource guides based on downloads and website visits. Theatres rely on the electronic versions of resources to be distributed to teachers along with digital recordings of productions. The makers of these resources are now focused on using them as a tool to encourage young people to move away from the screen in order to connect with family members in their homes and surrounding outdoor environments (Egan 2020).

Many of ASSITEJ’s national centers continue to pool resources and distribute online recorded performances from around the world to viewers.⁴ The idea of making recorded performances accessible to young people during this time was a shared idea and has been the basis of inspiration for many TYA companies who are under uncertain circumstances.⁵ It has shifted small-scale, local EPE projects initiated by individual arts organizations to be made visible and in many cases, moved into a nation-wide initiative. Nevertheless, how companies determine the impact and benefits of these online resources for children and teachers remains unclear. Now that innovation has spread from companies internationally, how can we learn from research techniques that measure impact specifically? It is important to take a closer look at specific theatre companies and their approach for sharing resources and collecting data during the pandemic. The following organizations represent only two of the many innovative ways TYA companies are engaging children with digitally recorded performances and resources internationally.

Imaginate/Edinburgh children’s festival (Scotland)

In 2010, Imaginate, the Scottish national organization for theatre and dance for children and young people, published a guide to help teachers connect performing arts experiences to the Scottish curriculum called Evaluating the Performing Arts. This step-by-step guide supports teachers and young audiences to appreciate and engage with theatre experiences. Therefore, it has more of an emphasis on how to engage with the performance experience in general than with related contextual and curricular themes. It was influenced by the Aesthetic Education model from the Lincoln Center Institute in New York, USA (McGrath 2010, 4). Aesthetic education is described by Lincoln Center Institute’s Philosopher in Residence, Maxine Greene as “the deliberate efforts to foster informed and involved encounters with art” (McGrath 2010, 4). This model shifts the way we approach arts education by cultivating young people’s experiences of different art forms, which then leads to a deeper understanding of the art form itself rather than pushing an educational agenda (Hill Bose 2008, 58). This approach to EPE aligns with Imaginate’s vision for “ more children in Scotland to experience work that is deeply engaging, innovative and inspiring … .that all children deserve the opportunity to develop their creativity, emotional intelligence and reach their true potential” (“Imaginate” 2020b, para 2). If aesthetic education relies on an encounter with a live artform, then how are companies such as Imaginate making this encounter regularly accessible in the pandemic?

Ten years ago, Imaginate utilized an online system called Glow, which acts as a digital platform for classes in different schools to interact online (Fenby 2011, para 1). At that time, the main challenges with accessing Glow were training teachers how to get the most out of it. Research conducted after its initial use suggests that this resource helped pupils and teachers better engage with live performance and contributed to the continued professional development of teachers. The biggest challenge was that the teachers would need time for and access to online training for this platform, and this training would have to be implemented throughout Scotland (Fenby 2011, para 16).

In the current crisis, this resource may be useful for teachers to access when preparing digital experiences of theatre. Imaginate provides a step-by-step user guide for teachers that goes through the different elements of the resource (“Imaginate” 2020a). With these resources teachers can guide students through remembering a performance, exploring the story, characters, design, and technology of a performance, and judging or reviewing the performance in order to express their opinion. Without wanting to stop young people’s interactions with performance, the organization has decided that viewing recorded live performances online has become a way to access the arts during lockdown. To continuously provide for children without internet access, Imaginate distributes art packs and inspiration guides to their homes. These resources are usually for stand-alone workshops, but have the goal of engaging children creatively while out of school (McMillan 2020, para 5). Great knowledge can be gained from innovations such as these.

While keeping in mind that the resource materials are part of a Scottish context, it is inspiring for theatre educators to see the possibilities of providing physical materials to children to ensure access. This requires resources from theatre companies, and the hope is that the Education departments and larger funding bodies can provide additional support for these initiatives. However, challenges remain when analyzing the usage of these resources. Fiona Ferguson, Creative Development Director, notes that it is difficult to tell who uses the online resources outside of basic google analytics (e-mail to author, July 14, 2020). Additionally, it takes time to collect this information thoroughly and formally. Many organizations dedicated to young people in the UK do not have staff to cover those tasks, especially now that they are prioritizing the creation of online content, rather than assessing feedback. Therefore, now that digitized outreach initiatives are becoming more visible, the shift to digital space highlights the roles of the staff who work to connect young people with theatre. Whose responsibility is it to generate material? To collect feedback? Similar to Imaginate, the following company’s Education staff work closely with schools to provide access to digital theatre.

Miami Theater Center

Miami Theater Center (MTC) in Florida maintained a relationship with the local public school district at the rise of the pandemic. The theatre company began providing virtual field trips for distance learning soon after schools closed in March 2020. After consulting teachers and the Miami school board, the Education Staff at MTC learned that teachers wanted to access digital performances on their own time, rather than attending live workshops on video conferencing platforms (Row-Traster 2020). Teachers found that their students were overwhelmed with the online content from distance learning. Therefore, working with the public school district, MTC made recorded versions of performances from around the world available through a district-wide portal for teachers. Since MTC is a presenting theatre, they were able to distribute digital resource guides from the different companies that have performed there in the past. The wide distribution of these resources for free would not have been possible without the support of the school district, thanks to a strong partnership developed over the years between MTC and Miami public schools (Row-Traster 2020).

Victoria Row-Traster (2020), MTC’s Director of Education and Family Programming, spoke to a panel of educational professionals about the benefits and challenges of transitioning to digital space during a TYA/USA webinar. Row-Traster commented that connecting teachers with online materials that are accessible at any time is a benefit for teachers. The teachers are enjoying the digital performances and find it simple to use them because the Florida learning standards are laid out for them. This is not a huge adjustment for teachers because many are already familiar with MTC’s resources. Row-Traster (2020) indicates that those teachers who would have brought students to see performances at MTC are happy to use these resources because they know and trust the theatre and the quality of work presented. This finding speaks to the relationship that the Education Department has cultivated with the schools and teachers in their community over the years, but does not address how that trust is built or how it will be sustained in future through these virtual programs.

An unexpected finding for Row-Traster (2020) was seeing how many teachers who had not previously stepped foot in MTC were able to access and use the digital resources. This pointed to the realization that many children in Miami may now experience theatre for the first time in a digital way. However, crucial questions remain: now that some children are experiencing theatre digitally, how are they finding the experience? What are the impacts of these digital resources on children and how can we measure them now that children are accessing from their homes? These questions will continue to help define the value of EPE, both digitally and in person, as well as argue for the benefits that come from a live performance experience as theatres transition back to opening their doors.

Conclusion

My research finds that EPE is provided by many TYA companies, but is not commonly mapped as a field in itself. For example, there is not much research into the practices and/or shared or deep understanding of how they might be measured and who is responsible for this. While the pandemic has tragically led to many closed doors to theatre spaces for young people, it has also offered an exchange of practices in a digital form. TYA companies are communicating in unprecedentedly open and international ways about how to sustain relationships between young people, teachers, and the artform while trying to stay afloat as organizations. This digital shift acts as a catalyst for theatre companies that identify with adult audiences, yet occasionally offer work for young people and/or families.

As we can see from the inventive ways that some theatres create virtual models for teachers to access resources and arts-based activities connected to recorded performances, we cannot assume that teachers and students are using these resources. If they do use them, it is not entirely possible to measure authoritatively, or meaningfully tell, what the impact of the resources for students and teachers is internationally, as this would require highly individualized and detailed feedback that may differ between schools and regions. Therefore, as a field it is important to begin, or continue documenting this practice and mapping the benefits and challenges of these resources so that we can better understand if they are accomplishing the goals the theatre companies set out for them.

An example of this mapping in action is TYA/USA’s (2020) recent efforts to collect virtual programming information from American theatre companies and share it widely by running a virtual reality summit. As the pandemic persists, we have seen an abundance of innovation in the field which was showcased and challenged at TYA/USA’s recent summit. The innovations lead to an understanding that when children reenter theatre venues there is an option to continue to engage with them in their classrooms before or after through digital EPE workshops. During the summit, Associate Artistic Director of Childsplay (Arizona), Jenny Millinger, commented that giving teachers the option of accessing extended activities virtually could combat their main challenge of time (TYA/USA 2020). Perhaps prerecorded EPE activities provide the flexibility and motivation teachers need to continue to extend the theatre experience in the classroom, bringing resource guides to life. Therefore, the effectiveness of these recordings can be assessed next to other forms of EPE in the future.

Currently, we have the opportunity to share the way we measure the impact of these approaches with one another. This is the time to make visible our practices of gathering information about the value of our work and successes and challenges in terms of digital EPE and share them by convening online and exchanging models. Feedback must be gathered continuously through the efforts of remaining staff working for theatre companies and by using accessible tools such as surveys, feedback forms, and even phone calls. The way of gathering information will differ depending on the community. Based on the virtual reality summit, Childsplay survey teachers as often as every three months to better understand how their needs are changing (TYA/USA 2020). Nevertheless, very few theatre companies have demonstrated how/if they are getting feedback from children. Evaluating EPE is crucial so that the voices of parents and guardians responsible for supporting digital learning at home, as well as the teachers and students themselves, can be accounted for.

With the power of visibility among practitioners, it is possible to use this time of gathering digital feedback to aid the transition back to in-person experiences of engagement. Models of collecting information from teachers, parents, and young people themselves are necessary to develop the most meaningful EPE strategies to connect, deepen, and engage in live performance experiences. It is through this awareness of engagement strategies that TYA practitioners can argue for the true value of presenting live theatre experiences for young people: connecting, engaging, and feeding the curiosity beyond the time they spend on screens and into their lives. As documented in the recently written ASSITEJ Manifesto, “Arts and culture allow us to imagine the world we wish to create for and with our children and young people, and are therefore crucial as we take action to ensure better conditions for our societies” (ASSITEJ 2020a, para 1). May this be a time of bringing children to the screen to engage with performance and using EPE practices to take them off the screen to connect what they experience through performance to their lives, extending creativity beyond the digital world.

Acknowledgments

Thank you to the theatre educators that responded to my email inquiries, specifically Fiona Ferguson at Imaginate. This article could not have been completed without the mentorship of Dr. Charlotte McIvor and the many inspiring webinars offered by TYA/USA throughout the pandemic.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Irish Research Council Postgraduate Scholarship, GOIP/2019/1188.

Notes

¹ Research findings stating time and budget as biggest challenges can be found in O’Sullivan, Schoenenberger, and Kingston (2017, 11).

² The differences between TYA and TIE are debated by many, see (Wooster 2007). However, common among them is the option to engage with resources, discussion, and/or workshops afterward.

³ TIE has been known to pose social questions that deepen a child’s understanding of the self rather than the former goal of introducing young people to theatre-making or talking about form, which is often explored in TYA programs (Nicholson 2009, 41).

⁴ Initiatives such as TYA@Home (USA) and Super Happy Fun Times at Home (Ireland) provide a platform for schools and families to access arts-based activities oftentimes connected to recorded performances.

⁵ International examples of TYA companies/festivals who have shifted to a digital space include, but are not limited to: Safe Place Festival (Israel), Windmill Theatre Company (Australia), Young People’s Theatre (Canada), ASSITEJ Korea International Summer Festival, National Arts Festival (South Africa), Katkatha Puppet Arts Trust (India), The Theatre Practice (Singapore), Center Gabriela Mistral/GAM Productions (Chile).