Magda Romanska’s Digital Access to the Performing Arts

The effects of the pandemic on theatre are still being felt. And probably will be for several years to come. Yet, as well as the negative impacts of 2020–21, theatre also did discover some more positive aspects of the situation, namely the vast expansion of the digital arts. One of the best books to examine the implications of the huge increase, and subsequent fall off, of digital streamed theatre in the early part of this decade is Magda Romanska’s excellent Digital Access to the Performing Arts. The book looks closely at the digital pivot during and after the pandemic, outlining the relationship between copyright laws and disability laws, the post-pandemic decline in theatre audiences, and the role that AI can play in the future of the performing arts. It argues convincingly for increased accessibility to the performing arts via digital tools — especially for anyone with limited access to live performance events. Romanska is both Emerson College Professor of Performing Arts and Media and Editor-in-Chief of TheTheatreTimes.com, the largest global digital theatre portal. Her interest in transmedia arts runs through this carefully crafted book, which, with help of co-authors, systematically covers the UK, USA, EU and Australia. As director and professor Anne Bogart says, “This is an urgent and necessary book. It insists, without apology, that digital access to performance is not a luxury, but a lifeline — a matter of both disability rights and human rights.” The book was developed by the Digital Access Research Project (launched in 2023 at metaLAB at Harvard) and published by Bristol University Press — it is now available for free. I highly recommend it.

© Aleks Sierz

• Magda Romanska’s Digital Access to the Performing Arts is published by Bristol University Press.

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