Performances at an AIDS Memorial Quilt Display: An Ethnographic Study of Rehearsal

Several tentative research questions posed early in the study focused on the audience. The study of audience was later abandoned because it would not have been feasible for one researcher to conduct analyses of audiences while also observing performers. A study of these audiences would have been interesting because these were not a typical audience coming to a theatre for entertainment. These audiences were emotionally tied to the topic of the texts. Most of the audience members were highly knowledgeable about AIDS and related issues. The only audience analyses in this study were the directors\u27 and performers\u27 impressions of audience response obtained through interviews and the researcher\u27s own observations. The questions of the study became: what behaviors occurred during rehearsals, what were the performers\u27 initial impressions of the script, did these impressions change over time, how much initial knowledge did the performers have about AIDS and the AIDS Memorial Quilt, how well did the performers function as a group, and what ~ were the performers reactions to and perceptions of events at the quilt display