Behaviour and attitude: the Theatre Talks method as audience development

This article analyses the result of an audience development project based on the method known as ‘Theatre Talks’, which places emphasis on the experience of theatrical events rather than on marketing or communication tools. This approach also questions some of the fundamental understandings of audience development, mainly the division between product-led and target-led audience development as they are conceived by Kawashima. The analysis of the results of the Theatre Talks project is based on an analytical framework combining Kawashima’s typology of audience development methods with Sheth and Frazier’s point about looking at attitude as well as behaviour when approaching both attenders and non-attenders. Within this frame, the article demonstrates how the Theatre Talks method can succeed in challenging the way in which very different groups of participants experience theatre.