In this early Gatherings Roadshow talk, Dr. Kelsey Jacobson invites us into two strikingly personal archives built not by institutions, but by dedicated audience members. Drawing on interviews with eight seasoned theatregoers from across Canada, she focuses on two examples: a meticulously kept notebook filled with decades’ worth of ticket stubs, and an expansive Excel spreadsheet cataloguing every performance attended by a single individual. These self-created archives—born from passion, habit, and a deep engagement with theatre—offer a wealth of knowledge about performance in Toronto and beyond.
Yet, as Jacobson reveals, they also expose the biases, idiosyncrasies, and inevitable gaps in personal archiving. One theatregoer’s shorthand review—“If I stay awake, it’s a good show”—captures both the subjectivity and intimacy of such records. What does it mean to preserve theatre through the lens of a single audience member? How might these archives complement, complicate, or even challenge official records?
By foregrounding the audience’s role as active participants and historians of performance, Jacobson asks us to reconsider what—and who—constitutes a meaningful archive. In a form as ephemeral as theatre, perhaps it is precisely these partial, personal accounts that keep its memory alive.
