THEATRON – ENGAGING NEW AUDIENCESThe Greek name for theatre – theatron – stems from theasthai, which means ‘to regard’ or ‘to look’. Theatron therefore is the ‘place from where you look’, stressing the importance of a creative dialogue between performers and their audiences. This is what we intend to do again in this project.In the words of Bertolt Brecht ‘a theatre without an audience makes no sense’. Unfortunately, too few young, not many new ethnic representatives and not many men are waiting for the curtains to rise. This threatens not only the finanical future of theatres, but also the legitimacy of the performing arts in society. We all know of the important role theatre can play in our lives and have set out to explore & develop methods of (1) creative community engagement and (2) integrated audience development to ensure that theatre remains where it belongs – right at the heart of European society.Over the past 18 months, 12 organisations have become a part of this vision. Smaller and bigger institutions, repertory companies and festivals are participating. Schools for the performing arts will also take part to ensure that knowledge and experiences are passed on to the next generation. The Freie Universität Berlin will ensure that our efforts are based on the latest audience research methodology and play an integral part in the Theatron quality assurance. We are proud to stress that Theatron is both a high-level creative collaboration with challenging co-productions and adaptations, and also a didactic, social and communicative endeavour. In order to achieve this, we have set ourselves up with a detailed and ambitious work programme combining artistic collaborations (touring, adaptations, co-productions, residencies, etc) audience engagement activities (audience research, CRM, marketing & new media, education etc.) and activities that promote the long-term establishment of this collaboration & its outputs (publications, conferences, curricula).