TY - JOUR AU - Ernst, Manilla AU - Sauter, Willmar PY - 2015/05/12 Y2 - 2024/03/29 TI - Antigone’s Diary – Young Audiences as Co-creators of GPS-guided Radio Drama JF - Nordic Theatre Studies JA - NTS VL - 27 IS - 1 SE - Articles thematic section DO - 10.7146/nts.v27i1.24245 UR - https://tidsskrift.dk/nts/article/view/24245 SP - 32-41 AB - The play, <em>Antigone’s Diary</em>, is a re-written version of Sophocles’ classical play, developed with teenage schoolchildren in the riot-ridden suburb Husby, a 30-minute subway ride away from the centre of Stockholm. Rebecca Forsberg of RATS Theatre adapted the plot into an interactive radio performance with a mobile audience, walking through the suburb and responding via text messages to Antigone’s questions after each of the twelve scenes. Young audiences were of especial interest for this project. Therefore, school performances for teenagers are the focus of this survey. The responses of pupils were studied during and after performances by means of observations, qualitative interviews and quantitative analysis of the text messages that the participants sent in response to Antigone’s questions. The seriousness and enthusiasm of young audiences were one of the stunning outcomes of this survey and a number of quotations illustrate the immersive power of this production. Furthermore, this experiment also served as a test bed for the Department of Computer and System Science, to which Rats Theatre is closely tied. The multimedia performance, combining radio drama, mobile audiences in a local environment and the options of interactive participation, demonstrated the potential of participatory experiences to engage audiences in democratic processes that can be applied to issues of political interest and decision making in the public sphere. ER -