Data Scope
AusStage researchers have designed the database to be both extensive and inclusive and have defined the scope of the data set in the following ways:
1. Focus
The core record is the live Event - a distinct happening, defined by title, date/s and venue; typically, a performance or series of performances at a Venue. A Venue is also broadly defined as a place where an Event happens - a building, a tent, an outdoor environment, a locality. The year of the Event is required; full dates for first performance, last performance, and opening night may be recorded. AusStage also gathers factual information about the organisations involved in conceiving, producing or presenting events, the individuals who contribute in various ways to events, and the material artefacts, textual records and digital traces that form the documentary evidence of live events.
2. Genre
AusStage includes performances in a wide range of Genres: spoken-word theatre, ballet and dance, music theatre and opera, circus and puppetry, stand-up comedy, physical theatre and cabaret. AusStage has not set out to cover music-only events (concerts, recitals, rock bands, etc) but some music events are included where they form part of a program collection. AusStage distinguishes between the live performance at a Venue, and recordings of live performance that are accessed elsewhere. Audio-visual recordings, radio broadcasts and television transmissions are entered as resources that relate to a live event. As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the subsequent rise of Online Theatre Events (both streamed online or hosted at a Venue) can included in AusStage and categorised by the new secondary Genre of Online Theatre.
3. Geographic
AusStage includes performances of dramatic works made and presented in Australia. AusStage also includes Australian productions of works written by international authors, productions from overseas companies touring Australia, and some performances by Australian artists and companies presented in venues outside Australia. The AusStage data set reflects a metropolitan bias in the geographic distribution of performing arts activities: venues for live performance are often situated at the centre of population settlements.
4. Historical
Coverage is extensive for the years of prospective data entry from 2001 to the present, and for the years 1986 to 1996 for which data were sourced from the Australian and New Zealand Theatre Record. Retrospective data entry reflects the extent of performing arts collections, and the research interests and energies of the AusStage community. Data entry on the capital cities, particularly Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide, is strongest from the 1950s onwards. Coverage of the nineteenth and late eighteenth centuries is not yet extensive. The earliest event recorded in AusStage is The Recruiting Officer, performed in a mud-wall hut in Sydney on 4 June 1789.
5. Status
AusStage includes performances by professional, amateur, pro-am, co-operatives, training schools and colleges, community theatres, and youth theatres. The AusStage sustainability strategy places an emphasis on professional production and government-funded organisations. Professional training schools and colleges are targeted by tracking graduate networks and campaigns to encourage feedback from artists on their own records. Amateur, community, and youth theatres are targeted through outreach, promoting AusStage to organisations and training volunteers to undertake data entry.
6. Sources
The members of the Performing Arts Heritage Network of Museums Australia contribute actively to the development of AusStage. Retrospective data entry has drawn on many collections, including the Prompt Collection at the National Library of Australia, the Wolanski collection at University of New South Wales Library, the Seaborn Broughton and Walford Foundation Archives and Performing Arts Collection, the Queensland Performing Arts Centre Museum Collection, and the University of Adelaide Library Special Collections and University Archive.
