Twenty-First Century amateurs and the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Open Stages initiative

The twenty-first century has brought new attention to amateur creativity and the theatre is no exception with long-standing amateur theatre companies joined by forms of creative participation often described as ‘non-professional’, voluntary, vernacular and everyday. In line with broader cultural movements towards a repositioning of the amateur in contemporary culture, a number of professional performing arts organizations have begun collaborating with amateur performers in order to establish deeper connections within their regions while simultaneously attracting new audiences