Talking about Theatre

Talking about Theatre is designed to structure a conversation about your experience of theatre or dance. Operating through a series of questions or instructions, each conversation asks you to think and reflect on a performance you have just seen. You can have the conversation with yourself, with someone else, or with a group of people.

This is the Music and Sound Conversation, focusing on the sonic and audio elements of the performance as entry points to a
conversation that should shaped by the particular performance you are talking about.

Other booklets in this series are themed in order to structure different conversations – generic, narrative, experimental and scenographic.

LET'S BEGIN

You don’t need an art background or any specific information in order to have this conversation – you just need to have seen a performance and be in the mood to talk about it.

There are no right or wrong answers, no incorrect conversations.

Further down on this page you will see some boxes, in which you can write your answers.

Please type your email here:

ONE

Did you like the performance?

YesNot sureNo

List three words that describe your overall feeling about the performance.

TWO

What kind of things did you hear? Was there speech, song, music, sound effects, ambient noises etc… If in pairs or a group, take turns listing the different things that you heard.

THREE

If there was music, was it played by the performers on stage or did it come from off stage? Was the music part of the story or was it incidental / atmospheric?

FOUR

Was music related to particular characters or particular moments in the performance? What was the impact of this?

FIVE

Did the sound or music change during the performance? What did this tell you about different moods in the performance?

SIX

What non-musical sounds where there in the performance? How were these produced?

SEVEN

Were these sounds realistic or symbolic? In what ways?

EIGHT

What did the sounds and music in the performance tell you about the setting of the performance, about when and where it was taking place?

NINE

If you had to select just one sound to represent the whole performance, what would it be and why?

TEN

Think back on your answers to previous questions. What have you discovered from thinking about this performance? Has your opinion about it changed? Have you learned anything about yourself or others?

POST-CONVERSATION-QUESTION

What additional question would you like to ask yourself or other people about the performance?