The site collects information on Australian drama, music theatre and dance events and related material.
The site includes current data, collected from 1 January, 2001; and retrospective data, including data from the Australian & New Zealand Theatre Record (ANZTR), the Wolanski Program Collection at the Library of the University of New South Wales, and the National Library Collection (PROMPT). (AusStage website)
'While the performing arts are a vitally important dimension of the cultural life of Australia, the performances themselves are often ephemeral and difficult to document in an enduring form. This article describes a successful, collaborative, community of practice-based model for ensuring the creation and curation of performing arts documentation in Australia. The collaboration involves key national professional and industry organisations and peak bodies, working together to ensure that important documentation is identified, preserved, and made available via the AusStage research and discovery platform.'(Publication abstract)
'Theatre is sometimes imagined as an art form at risk. From movies and television to global pandemics, these risks to theatre are significant and their impact on production is real. In Sydney, which provides a locus for this study, the arrival of talking pictures in the 1920s and the advent of broadcast television in the 1950s coincided with the demise of commercial enterprises and the demolition of old theatres in the city centre. More recently, the impact of COVID-19 restrictions on theatre programming and venue management is playing out across the city.' (Publication abstract)
'In 1825, Reverend Lancelot Threlkeld watched an Aboriginal Dance of Welcome at Newcastle’s East End Settlement. From the AusStage database - the research gateway to crucial information about live performance in Australia - we can learn it was held “in consequence of our coming among them”.' (Introduction)
'How are theatre scholars sharing information about people, places, and performance? This essay considers the current prospects for collaborative research on theatre production within the context of recent developments in the digital humanities. It identifies convergence in the way that twelve projects around theworld are collecting and organizing information about performance: Abbey Theatre Archives Performance Database (Ireland); AusStage (Australia); Hamm Archives, Brooklyn Academy of Music (US); Global Performing Arts Database (US, Singapore, Japan, Russia, China); IbsenStage (Norway); Internet Broadway Database (US); Staging Beckett (England); Scottish Theatre Archive (Scotland); TheaterEncyclopedie (Netherlands); Theatre Aotearoa (New Zealand); Theatrescapes (Germany); and Toronto Theatre Database (Canada). The essay derives core descriptions for shared concepts from the data models in use, placing emphasis on practical solutions, while recognizing variations in implementation. In the process it distinguishes four levels of determination for concepts of performance, event, production, and work. Recognizing what has been achieved, the essay contributes to the prospects of sharing data among projects. It concludes by illustrating how visualizing information on performance opens new horizons of significance for theatre research at scales ranging from local activity to global networks.' (Publication summary)
'For a few dazzling years in the early 1990s, many eyes in the Australian theatre world were turning to Canberra. The centre of attention was a brash young company called Splinters, recommended to those of us then working at The Performance Space by the late Bruce Keller, who had been working in Canberra with theatre-in-education company Jigsaw. Splinters was arguably the most remarkable and influential, truly home-grown artistic venture that Canberra has produced. It grew from the local (counter-)culture, and arose in and around the national government, the cultural institutions and the embassies of many nations that the city was designed to serve. The company's meteoric rise to national prominence in the early 1990s has not, to date, been documented and shared with the community that nurtured it, and its astonishing works and techniques deserve to be made available for overdue critical analysis.' (Author's introduction)
'How are theatre scholars sharing information about people, places, and performance? This essay considers the current prospects for collaborative research on theatre production within the context of recent developments in the digital humanities. It identifies convergence in the way that twelve projects around theworld are collecting and organizing information about performance: Abbey Theatre Archives Performance Database (Ireland); AusStage (Australia); Hamm Archives, Brooklyn Academy of Music (US); Global Performing Arts Database (US, Singapore, Japan, Russia, China); IbsenStage (Norway); Internet Broadway Database (US); Staging Beckett (England); Scottish Theatre Archive (Scotland); TheaterEncyclopedie (Netherlands); Theatre Aotearoa (New Zealand); Theatrescapes (Germany); and Toronto Theatre Database (Canada). The essay derives core descriptions for shared concepts from the data models in use, placing emphasis on practical solutions, while recognizing variations in implementation. In the process it distinguishes four levels of determination for concepts of performance, event, production, and work. Recognizing what has been achieved, the essay contributes to the prospects of sharing data among projects. It concludes by illustrating how visualizing information on performance opens new horizons of significance for theatre research at scales ranging from local activity to global networks.' (Publication summary)
