Playwriting and participation: textual strategies towards audience co-Authorship in performance

Shutt, Helen (2023) Playwriting and participation: textual strategies towards audience co-Authorship in performance. PhD thesis, University of Glasgow.

Abstract

To date, there has been a lack of critical attention on the role of the playwright in participatory performance. This thesis addresses this lacuna by exploring how textual strategies can be employed to facilitate audience co-authorship in performance. In so doing, this research investigates how playwriting can navigate both a “fixed” script and an “open” space for interaction in which the audience are placed and recognise themselves as co authors. A key interest is exploring if, and how, a model of co-authorship that is crafted by the playwright can engender an awareness of relationality amongst the audience. By focusing on the intersection between new writing and participatory performance practices this thesis extends knowledge of the aesthetics, ethics, and politics of audience co-authorship, in addition to furthering our understanding of what a performance text can be and do.

The methodology is multi-modal, employing playwriting practice, analysis of existing scholarship on participatory performance, and a study of theoretical concepts that support my enquiry. In Part One, I explore how participation in performance has been understood, with a particular focus on practice in the UK and Europe. I introduce key theoretical concepts, namely relationality, vulnerability, and affect, to support my enquiry into the political and ethical effects of co-authoring in performance. Part Two comprises two new co-authored works, “The Universe in the Flat”, a work for young audiences, and “Being with Raven”, a work for adults. These original works are accompanied by Critical Reflections in which I detail the process of writing and sharing the plays. In Part Three, I explore how care ethics and an aesthetics of care can guide the process of creating a co-authored performance which draws attention to ontological relationality. I argue that co-authorship calls for an interplay between the social and the aesthetic, and that the principles of care can offer guidance on how to create a responsive creative framework in which the audience recognises their contributions as valued artistic material. I demonstrate how, in a co-authored model, a dramaturgy of care can draw attention to the reciprocal ways in which artist and audience share in the making of the world of the performance.

• Item Type: Thesis (PhD)
• Qualification Level: Doctoral
• Subjects: P Language and Literature > PN Literature (General) > PN2000 Dramatic representation. The Theater
• Colleges/Schools: College of Arts & Humanities > School of Culture and Creative Arts > Theatre Film and TV Studies
• Funder's Name: Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)
• Supervisor's Name: Tomlin, Professor Elizabeth and Heddon, Professor Deirdre
• Date of Award: 2023
• Embargo Date: 3 May 2024
• Depositing User: Theses Team
• Unique ID: glathesis:2023-83569
• Copyright: Copyright of this thesis is held by the author.
• Date Deposited: 04 May 2023 10:37
• Last Modified: 22 Jan 2026 14:34
• Thesis DOI: 10.5525/gla.thesis.83569
• URI: https://theses.gla.ac.uk/id/eprint/83569