Creating safer ‘unsafe’ spaces: an augmented care ethics approach to recontextualise risk management for audience handling by production staff in immersive theatre
This thesis explores the ethical and practical challenges of audience risk management in immersive theatre from the perspective of stage and front-of-house managers. It examines how production staff can establish safer environments for audiences without compromising artistic integrity, integrating care ethics into risk management to reimagine care as an essential element of risk communication and a broader safety culture. Key tensions include: balancing the aesthetic of secrecy, central to much immersive theatre, with the need for informed consent, managing risk communication between production staff and performance makers, and navigating the complex relational dynamics between performers and audiences whose diverse socio-cultural backgrounds shape their perceptions of risk. This research develops a care ethic of immersive theatre, building on Joan Tronto’s (1993) four stages of care: caring about, willingness to care for, caregiving, and care-receiving. By integrating care ethics into risk assessment, the study reframes risk management in immersive theatre as a practice that not only mitigates harm but also supports the positive risks that contribute to the medium’s artistic impact. This approach advances a more nuanced safety culture, one that preserves the unique aesthetic of immersive theatre while ensuring that, when boundaries are inadvertently crossed, care remains central to the audience experience. Using an exploratory, multi-method qualitative approach, the study employs case studies and a Practice-as-Research workshop to investigate how stakeholders perceive and communicate risk and care for immersive audiences. The work develops an approach that allows practitioners to refine risk communication strategies, address common misunderstandings between creative and production teams, and evaluate existing safety tools, highlighting the absence of prior training opportunities as a major stressor for production staff. This research proposes a change to risk communication design, asking practitioners to clarify the language used in safety discussions. This creates new modes of transmission for training through the workshop and improves message distribution techniques to ensure clearer and more effective communication across all stakeholders.
PN2000 Dramatic representation. The Theater
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