The document summarizes research on the use of performance as an interpretive tool in museums and historic sites. Some key findings from the research include: 1) Performance can have a long-term impact on audiences and is frequently more memorable than other aspects of museum visits. 2) Well-designed performance is one of the most powerful ways to enhance visitor understanding and appreciation of difficult topics. 3) Interactivity and participation in performances greatly aid audience recall and understanding of the site and its collections.

1. 1
Museum theatre & ‘live
interpretation’

2. The context: 2 decades of change in museums
– UK and worldwide
• Shift in focus from ‘curating’ to ‘audience’
• Education and ‘social inclusion’ now high on the agenda
• the very purpose of a museum is being interrogated
just as wider debates take place about “nationality”,
“citizenship”, “heritage” (incl. “whose heritage?”)
• many museum directors now see their galleries as sites
for experiment, debate, and as bases from which to
reach out into the community
• Drama seen as 1 way of stimulating those debates -
its fictionality highlighting the constructedness of many
of the narratives the museums tell through their
exhibits
• But, a contested practice: e.g. drama fictionalises,
diverts attention, can trivialise – and can be
expensive…

3. from the Port Arthur Historic Site (19th cent. penal
colony in Tasmania) Visitor Information Brochure:
 ‘Frequently asked questions’: “Why don’t
staff dress up in costume?
 “Many visitors have enjoyed this style of
presentation at other sites and say that they
would welcome it at the Port Arthur Historic
Site. But Port Arthur is a real place with a
dark and difficult history. Dressing staff up
in convict and other costumes could turn the
experiences of those who were imprisoned
here into light entertainment, which we do
not think is appropriate.”

4. 4
Museum theatre & ‘live
interpretation’
Some snapshots from USA, UK,
Australia – and Sweden

5. 5
‘Living history’
Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia

6. 6
“Re-enactment” of an 18th cent. trial of witches
(Williamsburg)

7. 7
Plimoth Plantation, Massachusetts
1st person interpretation

8. 8

9. 9

10. 10
3rd person – the Indian settlement outside the plantation
stockade

11. Sovereign Hill, Ballarat, Australia
11

12. 12

13. 13
The Young National Trust Theatre (theatre in education
programmes at country houses – until 2000)

14. 14
The Victorian Schoolroom at Wigan Pier

15. National Maritime Museum, Greenwich,
London: The Gunner’s Tale

16. 16
“This
Accursed
Thing”
Manchester
Museum
2007-8
The traders
barter over
slaves

17. 17

18. 18
“This
Accursed
Thing”
The slave
trader
confronts
his
audience

21. 21

22. 22

23. from the Port Arthur Historic Site (19th cent. penal
colony in Tasmania) Visitor Information Brochure:
 ‘Frequently asked questions’: “Why don’t
staff dress up in costume?
 “Many visitors have enjoyed this style of
presentation at other sites and say that they
would welcome it at the Port Arthur Historic
Site. But Port Arthur is a real place with a
dark and difficult history. Dressing staff up
in convict and other costumes could turn the
experiences of those who were imprisoned
here into light entertainment, which we do
not think is appropriate.”

24. PERFORMANCE, LEARNING AND
HERITAGE
- an investigation into the uses and impact of
performance as a medium of interpretation,
learning and engagement in museums and at
historic sites, 2005-2008
(funded by the Arts & Humanities Research
Council)
University of Manchester: Centre for Applied
Theatre Research
www.plh.manchester.ac.uk/

25. Main research methods
• Longitudinal research: visitor groups observed,
interviewed and re-visited over a 12 month period
for each case study, to test perception,
engagement, recall, and learning outcomes
• Focus groups and one-to-one interviews – of
range of visitor types (school groups, family
groups, independent visitors); and actors,
education officers, policy makers
• Comparative case study research
• Action Research and Experimental Research
(related to the commissioned performance)
• Questionnaire surveys
• Video and stills-camera recordings
• complemented by a broader mapping of
developments in museum theatre practice in the
UK and abroad

26. Research findings – a selection
1. IMPACT OF PERFORMANCE
 Performance has long term impact on audience
members – this can be for positive or negative reasons
however.
 When performance is offered as part of a museum
experience, it is more frequently mentioned in the
narratives of visitors than other aspects of their visits,
especially over the longer term. Memory is often aided by
recall of the performance’s immediate surrounds (the site
as ‘set’) and artefacts (often seen as ‘props’). More could
be made of these links.
 There is no one-size-fits-all style or method of
performance. There are innumerable ways in which
performance can be employed by institutions. But visitor
response is more appreciative when there is a clear
alignment of the goals of the site with a suitable method
of performance .

27. 2. Learning through performance
 Well-designed & executed performance is among the most
powerful of interpretive techniques & can enhance the
visitor’s appreciation and critical understanding of
the subject matter.
 It has been used to great effect in dealing with
challenging and difficult content within heritage
environments. It is especially effective for instigating,
framing and hosting debate and dialogue, and can give
people a new-found appreciation of the complexity of the
heritage.
 Performance can give voice to, and celebrate, the
experiences of marginalised individuals or
communities excluded from the grander narratives of
conventional history.

28. 3. Interactivity
 interaction and participation are hugely memorable
aspects of performances that aid (most) audience
members’ recall of facts, sites and artefacts. They can also
greatly enhance people’s understanding of the heritage,
their emotional response to it, and their desire to repeat
the experience (i.e. re-visit)
 The experience is usually enhanced by
• some form of induction and de-briefing as a way of
introducing and closing the performance (without
closing down the questions raised)
• incorporation of moments of genuine challenge within
the performance  “un-settlement”
• tacit permission to opt in and out at any point.

29. 4. Visitors and Audiences
 the quality of engagement and the extent of
the learning generated by performance
depends not just on the novelty of the
experience, nor just on the quality of the
performance itself, nor the volume of
information conveyed, but, at least as much,
on the way the experience is framed.
 There are complex and ongoing transitions
that take place, from visitor to ‘audience’, to
participant and to ‘learner’, and back again,
in museum performance. How do we
facilitate these transitions?

30. 5. Institutional context
 Visitors are able to integrate their experience of
performance into the larger experience of their visit if
the connections to sites/collections/artefacts
are made explicit. This not only aids recall of the
performance itself, but of the other encounters had
on site also. This is often not well facilitated by
museum management.
 sustainability and publicity are major issues not
being suitably addressed by a majority of sites under
observation. Lack of adequate publicity sends a
negative signal to visitors about the worth of the
activity as perceived by the institution.

31.  The research has inevitably
generated more questions than we
began with. More research is
needed!
31

32. Key questions that might be asked when designing
performance events in museums or historic sites:
 How do we induct visitors into the performance event
(and the ‘rules of the game’ - the ‘contract’)? How do we
‘frame’ the event (re-enactment, story-telling, etc)?
 What are the moments of inspiration/surprise/
revelation (the ‘wow’ factor)?
 What are the points at which the audience/their
preconceptions are unsettled, or challenged? And how
is this managed?
 How/when do we ensure opportunities to exercise choice
– to opt in or out of the ‘contract’ – and agency?
 How do we ensure opportunities to ‘de-brief’ & to make
connections with the rest of the site/the
exhibitions/subject matter?
 What place does empathy have in the process? – how
important is it to induce empathic engagement with
characters in the piece? – if it is, how do we ensure that it
enlarges rather than narrows understandings?

33. PERFORMANCE, LEARNING AND
HERITAGE
University of Manchester: Centre for Applied
Theatre Research
www.plh.manchester.ac.uk/

34. Engagement
• How do people respond to the site? The ‘eventness’ of
the performance? And their positioning as ‘audience’
(or participant)?
• As a result of performance, do they exert an
increased sense of ownership over the spaces, the
institutions and the stories on offer?
• How do they respond to opportunities for debate and
dialogue? Does this translate into thinking and talking
about current issues?
• How do people recognise and respond to the ‘rules’ of
interaction? How do these differ by type of
interaction?
• Does interaction help with the retention of
information and/or increase understanding

35. • How do people respond to unsettling or
challenging experiences? Can they be alienating
rather than engaging?
• How is choice about how and when to interact
articulated? Who controls the interaction? Who
decides when it ends?
• Do people show evidence of increased empathetic
engagement with the history they are being
presented with?
• What can observations and footage tell us about
the physicality of engagement ‘in the moment’?

36. 36

37.  I didn’t understand what motivated them [sailors
at Battle of Trafalgar] or that that allowed them
to have such a victory, if such a thing is a
victory in war. I didn’t understand that, I didn’t
consider that. I certainly do now. [NMM_I_PP2_60]
 Often it is kind of a curiosity element that you
are seeing something tangible about what you
know already. [NMM_I_PP2_59]
 I think the things that I gained from the
exhibition or the enthusiasm to gain something
from the exhibition was spurred by the theatre
piece. [NMM_I_PP2_60]

38. Charting Audience Response

39. 39

40. • The holding up of... the manila ring. That was a really
powerful moment of concrete imagery, where they were
saying: this is the life of a person, and this is what a
person was worth. [MM_I_PP1_73]
• Before the play I couldn’t understand why people did it
[slavery], but once we had that scene where we asked
him [the slave trader] questions and he gave answers,
you start to understand why they did it. It was still
wrong, but you understood the motives behind it; they
weren’t just cold hearted. They actually had reasons for
doing it and stuff.
INT: And do you think that that’s important...
Yeah, ‘cause if you’re trying to persuade someone
against it, then if you use the other person’s arguments,
then it makes your arguments stronger. So that’s good.
[MM_S_PP2_154]