Developing and Validating a Theater Experience Scale

Abstract

Based on interviews with professional theater practitioners that suggested five components of theater experiences, namely, cognition, emotion, sensation, authenticity, and coherence, we developed and validated a Theater Experience Scale on a sample of 2,359 audience members in 17 productions. Cognition is the extent to which a performance is comprehensible yet provides cognitive challenges and inspiration. Emotion is the experience of engagement, emotional release and resonance, and surprise. Sensation concerns physiological and sensory stimulations and experiencing aesthetic pleasure. Authenticity is the extent to which performers are believed to be sincere and true in staging and performing the play. Coherence is about ensemble and integration between different theatrical elements. Cross-validation using exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses resulted in a 24-item scale for measuring these five factors. We also found that cognition, emotion, sensation, authenticity, and coherence were all significantly correlated with the audience’ overall enjoyment, as indicated by their likelihood to recommend the play to their family and friends.