Stay at home, engage at home: extended performance engagement in the time of COVID-19

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article examines how Theatre for Young Audiences practitioners innovate in terms of deepening young people’s experiences of recorded performances in the digital space. It defines extended performance engagement, mapping the current context of pre- and post-performance interventions connected to professional theatre in the USA and Europe. The article questions the potential for growth and expansion of awareness of extended performance engagement in a world affected by COVID-19, and how this field values the overall experience of engaging with live performance, even when streamed at home. The investigation questions how we measure the successes of this engagement and its afterlife following on from the live, and now digital, space.