Project description
Economic aspects of 18th century theatre
Literary studies have largely steered clear of eighteenth-century theatre financial archives due to their complexity and magnitude. However, account books and ledgers contain valuable data about ticket sales, audience members, revenues, actor salaries etc., which have much to tell us about the constraints on cultural production. The EU-funded THEATRONOMICS interdisciplinary team of economists and theatre historians will study this data using financial analysis sensitive to the particular contexts of the period. The project will analyse manuscript data from the two major London theatres, Covent Garden and Drury Lane. By applying innovative econometric methods and utilising the tools of digital humanities on rich transatlantic archives, THEATRONOMICS will reveal a new perspective on theatrical culture in the eighteenth century.
Objective
Eighteenth-century literary studies has taken a ‘theatrical turn’ over the past twenty-five years and the century historically associated with the ‘rise of the novel’ now acknowledges the centrality of the theatre to Georgian cultural and political life. However, we have virtually ignored its remarkable financial archive. Account-books, ledgers, and ephemeral manuscript folios contain rich data on ticket sales, audience members, revenues, actor salaries, repayments to investors, costume, scenery and other costs: this is richly detailed source material that needs to be understood. THEATRONOMICS places money at the heart of eighteenth-century theatrical culture. This project will apply financial and econometric analysis to this data to write a new history of eighteenth-century theatrical culture (1732-1809). Manuscript data for Covent Garden and Drury Lane—the two major theatres of Europe’s biggest city—will be transcribed, digitized, and analysed using econometric methods in order to incorporate the theatres’ underlying commercial operations to our research. Our central goal is the application of economic methodologies so that new perspectives on the careers of managers, playwrights, actors, and plays emerge. When we look at the hard financial data underpinning the performance scheduling decisions; the productivity and profitability of actors; the amounts spent on scenery, costumes, scenery, and candles; and the socioeconomic profiles of the audience, we will have a transformative understanding of the ‘back end’ of the theatre business. By synthesizing this complex data, THEATRONOMICS will further enable us, by interacting with other datasets, to ask new interdisciplinary questions about the place of theatre within the ecology of London. THEATRONOMICS’s insistence on gazing through the financial lens of cultural production gives us an innovative and sustainable basis for the next generation of eighteenth-century theatre studies.
Fields of science
- social scienceseconomics and businesseconomicseconometrics
- humanitieshistory and archaeologyhistory
- humanitieslanguages and literatureliterature studiesliterary theoryliterary criticism
- social scienceseconomics and businesseconomicsproduction economicsproductivity
- humanitiesartsperforming artsdramaturgy
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
ERC-COG - Consolidator GrantHost institution
H91 Galway
Ireland