Theatre Finder is a collaboratively edited, peer reviewed, online database of historic theatre architecture from the Minoan “theatrical areas” on the island of Crete, to the last theatre built before 1815.
Recent scholarship has put increasing emphasis on the places of performance, examining the ways in which space can be manipulated to bring performers and their audiences together. A significant component of such work has been the study of theatre architecture. The Theatre Architecture working group of the International Federation for Theatre Research has begun to examine the ways in which architecture can establish audience expectations, and enhance or limit an audience’s experience of a performance.
Little attempt has been made, however, to apply these approaches to historic theatre buildings, in large part because of the prohibitive costs of locating and traveling to structures scattered around the world. Theatre Finder is an attempt create the necessary finding aid for these buildings and provide a consistent body of relevant data for them, with digital reconstructions at a consistent scale.