Devising new research questions in theatre studies and cultural economics: the cross-disciplinary collaborative creation of an audience questionnaire using devised theatre techniques

Interdisciplinary collaboration is a useful tool both for attacking existing research questions from a range of angles and for producing new research questions. This article focusses on the practical development of an audience questionnaire by academics from theatre studies and cultural economics. As we demonstrate, the creation of research questionnaires is a complex task, especially so when part of interdisciplinary research. By documenting how we used techniques from devised theatre, including playfulness, that are likely to be familiar to theatre studies academics, we argue for the value of practical as well as theoretical theatre studies skills and knowledge in interdisciplinary collaboration.