Opening rehearsal rooms as a way of broadening access, demystifying the process and breaking barriers

Access to the theatre industry is often frustrated through lack of experience. Many theatre companies have a stated aim to widen participation in order to fully represent the communities and society that they work in. This study assesses how opening up access to the rehearsal room can embolden and accelerate change as well as encourage a multiplicity of routinely marginalized voices to speak and be heard. It seeks to ask whether opening access to the rehearsal room has benefits for participants, companies and the industry at large. In this context, opening the rehearsal room means to facilitate observation access for those not directly involved in the production. After a nascent, small-scale version of the observation offer, a questionnaire was circulated to those who were invited and/or actively participated in the observation offer with conclusions drawn from responses and other related contextualizing literature. The results suggest that the offer can help to increase participation, with suggestions as to how it can be fine-tuned in further, future iterations.