Does one size fit all? Bridging the urban/rural taste divide

For artists focussed on inner-city audiences, the idea of touring regionally can be confronting. But are audiences any different outside the capitals?

A scene frome the Dirty Pretty Theatre & Critical Stages co-production, Thérèse Raquin. Photo by Jeff Busby.

In some states, touring regionally is built into a company’s KPIs and factored into a season’s offerings from the word go. Elsewhere, small-to-medium companies may be keen to take their work on the road in order to provide employment opportunities for their performers, but anxious about the reception their adventurous productions might receive at a regional performing arts centre.

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Richard Watts OAM is ArtsHub's National Performing Arts Editor; he also presents the weekly program SmartArts on Three Triple R FM. Richard is a life member of the Melbourne Queer Film Festival, a Melbourne Fringe Festival Living Legend, and was awarded the Sidney Myer Performing Arts Awards' Facilitator's Prize in 2020. In 2021 he received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Green Room Awards Association. Most recently, Richard received a Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) in June 2024. Follow him on Twitter: @richardthewatts