Engaging Audience for Feedback
- Kieran Burgess
- 4 days ago
- 4 min read
This free resource is one of a series of units, guidebooks and lesson plans for teachers of Theatre. Although written with the DP Theatre teacher and student in mind, it can be adapted for other ages and curricula quite easily. Resources are adaptable and can be shared with colleagues, but please do not remove the credit to Kieran Burgess and this website. A condensed version of this unit plan was adapted by ISTA and is available on the IB Exchange platform, and the original extended unit is available below.
Overview
Gathering audience responses is a vital task for learners of theatre: how do we know if we are successful in meeting our intentions? The criteria in both the Collaborative Project & Solo Theatre Piece assessment tasks require reference to audience feedback to support the student’s evaluation of the piece against its intentions. Without this, students cannot move beyond the lowest scoring markband. This mini unit includes activities for teachers to use with a whole class, as well as guides for students, groups or teacher-led activities for more refined design of audience feedback sessions and analysis of response. It includes suggested models and clarifications of the IB’s definitions of key terms surrounding the use of audience feedback in DP Theatre assessments.
Teacher materials included in this set:
Teacher Notes: Unit Instructions
Presentation slides
Student materials included in this set:
Handout 1: Ladder of Feedback template
Guidebook: Design, Question & Analyse - Audience Responses.
If these free resources have saved you some time and you want to show a gesture of thanks, I'd be so grateful for any small amount you wish to give!
Rationale
Theatre requires an audience to exist. As performers, directors, creators and designers, we form clear ideas about how we want to affect our audience: what is it we want them to think, feel or do as a result of experiencing our work. We hope to invoke certain feelings and thoughts, and to convey specific messages through the way we mould and shape our bodies, voices, space, objects, light, sound and more. But, in the inherently two-way nature of theatre, we cannot rely only on our performance choices. Gathering audience responses is a vital task for learners of theatre: how do we know if we are successful in meeting our intentions? The criteria in both the Collaborative Project & Solo Theatre Piece assessment tasks require reference to audience feedback to support the student’s evaluation of the piece against its intentions. Without this, students cannot move beyond the lowest scoring markband. This resource pack includes activities for teachers to use with a whole class, as well as a comprehensive guidebook with space for student responses. The guidebook can form the centre of this work for students, groups or teacher-led activities, and the presentation slides can be added at key moments in the process to spark discussion and nurture understanding. The unit includes suggested models and clarifications of the IB’s definitions of key terms surrounding the use of audience feedback in DP Theatre assessments.
Students will develop...
Knowledge:
Role of feedback in assessment criteria
Skills:
Using Theatre-Maker Intentions (TMIs) to formulate audience questions and prompts
Analysing audience feedback
Using feedback to inform process
Active listening
Conceptual Understanding:
Intended impact vs actual impact
Embracing unexpected perspectives helps us grow
Key tasks
This unit contains activities that are best spread over a period of time of finalising and presenting a piece of theatre. Some activities work as whole class inquiries early on in a creative process or as an unattached standalone discussion. Others rely on actual created theatre and audience responses to complete. The guidebook is central to the students’ independent inquiry and process, and can form the basis for teacher-guided inquiry too. The accompanying slides include side-coaching notes for teachers.
Key tasks include:
Discussion on why feedback is needed
Identifying helpful vs unhelpful feedback
Ladder of Feedback protocol
Using templates and prompts to generate questions or prompts from TMIs
Analysing audience response
Discussion on hosting effective talkback sessions.
Key assessment
As always, feedback is most effective when it is ongoing, personalised and aligned with the assessment instruments in the subject guide. Assessment in this selection of activities is optional, but there are clear opportunities for assessing student work:
The paragraph emerging from the guidebook, task/chapter 5 - analysis of audience feedback - is directly linked to criterion A2 of the Collaborative Project and B2 of the Solo Theatre Piece. Teachers can apply the relevant task criterion to the student’s response.
Links to the Theatre guide
Collaborative Project
Solo Theatre Piece
Collaboratively creating original theatre
Performing Theatre Theory
Staging Play Texts
Developing
Presenting
Evaluating
Links beyond the subject
(Language &) Literature: intent and interpretation
TOK: can works of art be deemed successful if the audience interpret differently from the intent of the artist?
TOK: is subjectivity incompatible with reliability?
Further potential development
Develop case studies of professional theatre companies and how they utilise audience feedback in their development process (an example from Kieran Burgess for Ad Infinitum theatre company is here).
Incorporate guest speakers such as dramaturgs, creators or theatre critics who can provide insight on critical reception and its role in artistic creation.
Extend the analysis of feedback by having students create revision plans based on audience responses, detailing specific adjustments to their work.
The set is provided as a view-only Google Folder of Docs and Slides. Please download or make your own copy of any files you wish to edit. Do not 'Request Access' to the Google files as this will be ignored. Please feel free to adapt or add to these files, but please retain the credit to Kieran Burgess and this website. Please do get in touch if there are any broken links.
If these free resources have saved you some time and you want to show a gesture of thanks, I'd be so grateful for any small amount you wish to give!
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