Researching Popular Entertainment

Author: Kim Baston and Jason Price Series: Routledge Advances in Theatre & Performance Studies

Paperback

Researching Popular Entertainment is an essential volume for scholars delving into the vibrant yet complex world of popular entertainment. Written by a global network of experts, this book addresses the unique challenges researchers face in this field.

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Researching Popular Entertainment is an essential volume for scholars delving into the vibrant yet complex world of popular entertainment.

Written by a global network of experts, this book addresses the unique challenges researchers face in this field. The often-dismissed status of popular entertainment, coupled with its reliance on physicality and improvisation over scripted performances, has meant archival and textual sources tend to be more limited than in related theatre and performance disciplines. This scarcity requires historians to find alternative pathways through the available materials to recuperate seemingly insignificant figures and performance forms from our cultural past. This book provides a candid look into the research processes of its authors, highlighting some of the approaches they have adopted to overcome these challenges. It emphasises that reading performance as entertainment is a deliberate methodological choice. Regardless of whether a work is deemed high or low art, legitimate or illegitimate, understanding how it captivates its audience is central to the study of entertainment.

Readers will benefit from its in-depth analysis and practical guidance, making it an indispensable resource for anyone studying popular entertainment.

About the Author

Kim Baston is Adjunct Senior Lecturer at LaTrobe University, Australia. She spent many years working as an actor, director, animateur, and composer in theatre and film, in the UK and in Australia. Her research interests include the use of music in theatre, applied theatre, circus history and culture, and popular entertainments.

Jason Price is a Reader in Theatre and Performance Studies at the School of Media, Arts and Humanities in the University of Sussex, UK. He served as co-convenor of the Popular Entertainments Working Group with the International Federation for Theatre Research from 2018 to 2024.