Bell Shakespeare Learning in action at Carclew
Audiences, audience development, and audience retention are recognised as key drivers in theatre companies’ programming, marketing and promotion. But what is the direct relationship between audiences, audience development and education programs? The Australia Council for the Arts, Anticipating Change in the Major Performing Arts report (2008) states that a number of Major Performing Arts companies have developed school programs to ‘build connections with audiences of the future’. Anyone who has sat in a theatre with an audience comprising large groups of students and young people knows that they are not audiences of the future they are audiences of now: digitally savvy complex thinkers, media consumers and art makers. They go to school but school is not their only go-to place.
