Drop The Rope
Source: Library of Congress
Several years ago, I attended the most powerful and memorable theatrical presentation I have ever seen. It wasn’t on Broadway or London’s West End or the Arena Stage. It was in a theater—Ford’s Theater. I sat in the orchestra section where others had gathered to watch a production of “Our American Cousin” on April 14, 1865. A uniformed National Park Service interpreter took the stage and told the story of what happened on that night. She gestured stage-left to the Presidential box and described the Lincoln’s party. She pointed out the torn bunting adorning the front of the box—torn from the spur on John Wilkes Booth’s boot that caught as he leapt from the box to the stage, causing him to break his leg. She brought the room to life, captured the drama, and made human the story of the tragic event.
I started working with museums 30 years ago. But my background in theatre arts—set design, costume design, and lighting design—led me to see (with apologies to Shakespeare), all the museum’s a stage. Museums often have dramatic settings, either the exhibits or architecture or both. Lighting, sound, projected media, and other tools add production value to enhance audience engagement. Some museums have fully equipped stages and shows like the Ice Age Encounter at the Natural History Museum of LA county and the Theater of Electricity at the Museum of Science Boston. But to me, the purest form of theater in museums is the live interpreter.
Source: Conner Prairie
“The chief aim of Interpretation is not instruction, but provocation,” wrote Freeman Tilden, considered by many the father of museum interpretation. Interpretation is, “… an attempt to reveal the truths that lie behind the appearances.”
“The interpreter is not primarily a teacher, but a companion in the adventure.”
Good theater is a collaborative process between the performers on stage and the audience. The performer pours herself into the character and story. As audience members, we simultaneously follow the story and empathize with the actor, giving back energy and emotion that propels the actor forward. Live interpretation is a collaboration between the interpreter and the visitor to the museum, historic site, national park, zoo, or science center. According to Tilden, “The interpreter is not primarily a teacher, but a companion in the adventure.”
Source: National Museum of American History
Theatre can take many forms in museums. Live music performance in the St. Louis Sound Exhibition at the Missouri History Museum. Live Arts at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. First-person historic interpretation at Conner Prairie. Cooking Up History at the National Museum of American History. Even if the live performance is not directly related to the interpretive themes of the museum, it adds life to the place and visitor experience in something Tilden refers to as “vivacity.”
As museums consider how to attract new and more diverse visitors, live performance and “vivacity” can help overcome negative perceptions of museums as static, boring, unwelcoming, or educational (A.K.A. school). Tapping into the power of theatre can transform experiences and perceptions to the benefit of visitors and museums. As Tilden states, “… entertainment is not a proper end of the art, yet the opposite of presenting his material in an entertaining manner is—simply being dull.”
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