Vol. 4 No. 1 (2012): The PROFESSIONAL THEATRES ISSUE

This issue of The Small Cities Imprint represents the culmination of over five years of research James Hoffman and Ginny Ratsoy undertook in their role in Thompson Rivers University’s Community-University Research Alliances Program, “Mapping Quality of Life & the Culture of Small Cities.”  Their mission – to  examine, analyze, and evaluate the relationship of three professional theatre companies in the small British Columbia cities of Kamloops, Prince George, and Nanaimo to their audiences – has been accomplished with the able assistance of a coterie of undergraduate students and innumerable participants in interviews, surveys, roundtables, and the like. The small city professional theatre – audience relationship is examined, both historically and in the present, from multiple perspectives: first, from their own, as both theatre scholars and audience members; second, from the perspectives of a variety of theatre practitioners in the cities; and third, from the vantage points of both present and prospective audience members in the three cities. These approaches are complemented by extensive research into performance theory and best practices.