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Reposted by Kirsty Sedgman

Arts Matter Bristol @uobartsmatter.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

📻 Dr @kirstysedgman.bsky.social (Theatre) joins @jonquilynhill.bsky.social on @vox.com #TodayExplained podcast to discuss the social contract & the rise of antisocial behaviour in public spaces Listen to the full programme 👉 podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/t...

podcasts.apple.com

The end of etiquette

Podcast Episode · Today, Explained · September 27 · 31m

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Kirsty Sedgman @kirstysedgman.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

British Academy talk went well, and I made it home & into my Zoom chair just in time for my 9.30pm podcast interview with Vox

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Kirsty Sedgman @kirstysedgman.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Busy day tomorrow. I’m giving a talk at British Academy in the afternoon, then a drinks reception, & then I’m racing back home from London to Bristol to be (hopefully!) just in time for a Vox.com podcast interview at 9.30pm. Trying to get some rest tonight to recover from Welcome Week.

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Kirsty Sedgman @kirstysedgman.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

That’s it. It’s done. I’m out. I am gay, and there’s nobody important in my life any more who doesn’t know. Even though Bluesky is a wasteland, it is *such* a relief to be able to say it out loud! I AM A LESBIAN, and I’m happy.

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Reposted by Kirsty Sedgman

Arts Matter Bristol @uobartsmatter.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

📻 Dr @kirstysedgman.bsky.social (Theatre) joins Paddy O'Connell on #BBCRadio4 Broadcasting House to discuss antisocial behaviour in public spaces as the mayor of Como bans bicycles in the city centre after being hit by one Listen to the interview from 19:57 👉 brnw.ch/21x59Xu

brnw.ch

Broadcasting House - England's mayors to get more planning powers - BBC Sounds

Andy Burnham to give mayors the power to overrule councils on some planning decisions.

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Kirsty Sedgman @kirstysedgman.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

Still horribly nervous but finally getting the hang of telly 😮‍💨 I was just on BBC Breakfast talking about the Wetherspoons ban on playing music & videos on phones out loud

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Kirsty Sedgman @kirstysedgman.bsky.social · 23/07/2026

GIVEAWAY TIME! To celebrate the launch of my new book, How to Understand Theatre Audiences, I’m going to send a prize to the first person who messages/emails me to say they found the sex joke. What’s the prize you ask? A 3D printed trophy that says “I Am An Amazing Reader Slash Genius” Ready? GO!

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Kirsty Sedgman @kirstysedgman.bsky.social · 13/07/2026

There is no such thing as the audience. How to Understand Theatre Audiences is out now ✨

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Kirsty Sedgman @kirstysedgman.bsky.social · 10/07/2026

It always amuses me that the Aldi own-brand version of Dr Pepper is called Professor Peppy

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Kirsty Sedgman @kirstysedgman.bsky.social · 09/07/2026

Spent an eye-opening couple of weeks in the Fredric Wertham archives at the Library of Congress researching his Seduction of the Innocent attacks on comic books, and now I’m heading home. Thanks Washington DC; it’s been quite a trip

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Kirsty Sedgman @kirstysedgman.bsky.social · 09/07/2026

How to Understand Theatre Audiences is out this month! Now available to preorder at 20% off www.routledge.com/How-to-Under...

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Kirsty Sedgman @kirstysedgman.bsky.social · 26/06/2026

It’s that time of year again! The annual primary-school camping trip. One weekend, dozens of screaming 8 year olds, two bags of cocktails and eight bottles of wine. Wish us luck 🤞🏻

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Kirsty Sedgman @kirstysedgman.bsky.social · 20/06/2026

It’s conference organising time! One of my favourite jobs every year is putting all the brilliant proposals we get for our @tapra.bsky.social working group (Audience, Experience & Popular Practices) into panels. It’s a lot of writing on post-its & moving bits of paper around & spitballing themes 🥰

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Kirsty Sedgman @kirstysedgman.bsky.social · 17/06/2026

are you weari… the $2500 Tellytubby boots? yes I am

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Reposted by Kirsty Sedgman

Caridad Svich @csvich.bsky.social · 13/06/2026

today in pocket theatre, i write abt misbehaving. with a shout out to @kirstysedgman.bsky.social . open.substack.com/pub/csvich/p...

open.substack.com

misbehaving

theatre's expectations

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Kirsty Sedgman @kirstysedgman.bsky.social · 05/06/2026

Proofs are IN! She is DONE! And she is my magnum opus. Icracked my brain open and poured the contents into this book; now I just have to hope that people will find it useful ✨💕 How to Understand Theatre Audiences out in July 2026

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Kirsty Sedgman @kirstysedgman.bsky.social · 29/03/2026

every time a lesbian dies, somewhere in the world a carabiner breaks

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Kirsty Sedgman @kirstysedgman.bsky.social · 13/03/2026

<Monty, who has been out as trans femme for only a couple of weeks and has just stolen one of my skirts> it has pockets!!! welcome to the sisterhood bbs 🥰

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Kirsty Sedgman @kirstysedgman.bsky.social · 28/02/2026

“I thought that ‘homophobia’ was when you are scared of your house” (Sully, 8yo, a comedy genius)

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Kirsty Sedgman @kirstysedgman.bsky.social · 18/02/2026

𝐋𝐢𝐧𝐤𝐞𝐝𝐈𝐧 𝟏𝟑 𝐩𝐞𝐨𝐩𝐥𝐞 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐞𝐝 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐘𝐨𝐮’𝐫𝐞 𝐠𝐞𝐭𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐞𝐝 no thank u, pls do not notice me, I do not wish to be perceived

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Kirsty Sedgman @kirstysedgman.bsky.social · 18/02/2026

“Kirsty, what is it like to live with you?”

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Kirsty Sedgman @kirstysedgman.bsky.social · 14/02/2026

Panic! At the Disco Existential Crisis! In the Archive

For context: I’m currently researching a new book, w/t Influence Men, about the dudes who invented audience research methods from the 1920s onwards. One of my case-studies is the WWII propaganda studies of Hitler’s speeches, conducted in the 1940s by Harold Lasswell and George Herzog. I know from their memos that they were planning to publish this research in at least one book – but then it didn’t happen. Why? On my last day, I found the answer in a box of their correspondence.

Herzog was bipolar.

For about three hours I read through decades of correspondence, speed-running the collapse of a brilliant research career thanks to this awful disease I share. Across three folders’ worth of documents, I followed its trajectory all the way from the very first signs (“sorry I can’t work this problem out, I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but I can’t seem to concentrate”) to being confined in a sanatorium for the last twenty years of his life unable to work (“I’ve finally been able to let go of the guilt of not finishing our research, but that doesn’t mean I don’t feel regret”).

Hard not to wonder if that might be me one day.

A selfie of me, a 40yo white woman with shoulder length orange hair, wearing a black cape with hood up sitting on a train

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Reposted by Kirsty Sedgman

Roberta Mock @robertamock.bsky.social · 01/02/2026

Our book, The Methuen Drama Handbook of Gender and Theatre, is now out in paperback, and can now be purchased for £35.99 (which is massively cheaper than the hardback version that came out at the start of 2024). 👇🏻 @methuendrama.bsky.social

bloomsbury.com

The Methuen Drama Handbook of Gender and Theatre

Shortlisted for the 2024 TaPRA Edited Collection PrizeThis is a guide to contemporary debates and theatre practices at a time when gender paradigms are both in…

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Kirsty Sedgman @kirstysedgman.bsky.social · 31/01/2026

Monty got home from her Bristol Old Vic Young Company session tonight having translated her current favourite song into Shakespearean English

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Kirsty Sedgman @kirstysedgman.bsky.social · 29/01/2026

the funniest thing about being bipolar is when the school mums run into Tom and say “oh I saw Kirsty recently, and she seemed so much more stable!” like sorry bbs, but no, Kirsty was simply Depressed 🥰

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Kirsty Sedgman @kirstysedgman.bsky.social · 26/01/2026

multitasking at the gym (assessing a funding bid)

A photo of a laptop with screen blurred balanced on a treadmill

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Kirsty Sedgman @kirstysedgman.bsky.social · 23/01/2026

a little from Column A, a little from Column B

A mirror selfie of me wearing a white tank top with “somewhere between psychotic and iconic” in black text

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Reposted by Kirsty Sedgman

Kirsty Sedgman @kirstysedgman.bsky.social · 05/01/2025

every Instagram advert from 1st Jan on: It’s time to go ghost mode sis! me: say no more me: <puts on long white nightdress; wafts around moaning loudly; starts throwing stuff at people who annoy me>

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Kirsty Sedgman @kirstysedgman.bsky.social · 19/01/2026

random woman at the gym: <gestures to take off my headphones> sorry to bother! I just wanted to say – I just opened up one of the lockers downstairs and found a spiky gold bra in it me: that’s mine! random woman: I guessed! I thought to myself “I wonder who that belongs to?”, and then I saw you

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Kirsty Sedgman @kirstysedgman.bsky.social · 18/01/2026

thank you to everyone – but especially my students, past & present ♥️

Acknowledgements

Much more so than anything I've ever written, this book has been in the planning stages for a very long time. That means I've got a lot of people to thank. First of all, I want to thank my students past and present. This year - September 2026 - marks ten years since I got my academic job in the Theatre Department at the University of Bristol, but I've been teaching for a lot longer than that. Nearly two decades.

Literally thousands of students. God I'm getting old. When I first started my PhD at Aberystwyth University I was twenty-four, and only a little bit more mature than the eighteen-year-olds I was teaching, so I used to start each new academic term sitting quietly in the seminar room while everybody filed in and gossiped around me thinking I was one of them. The collective gasp! when I stood up was always the highlight of my year. I definitely can't do that anymore.

What I have gained, though, is hundreds of hours of practice teaching the stuff in this book to my undergraduates. Because that's really why I wrote this thing you're about to read. The latter half I'm hoping will also be useful for established academics and theatre-industry people, who want to know more about how to do audience research (as well as why it matters). But more than anything else, How to Understand Theatre Audiences is designed to help students of theatre talk about audiences, write about audiences, and make performance work for audiences better. That's why it's written like this rather than in the 'academic-ese' of my other scholarly tomes - because this is how I teach, with illustrative examples and occasional snark and lots of cringey humour. Thank you to all of you - everyone I've ever taught - for letting me test these explanations out on you, and for asking such brilliant questions that they have shaped the way I educate.

Now it gets personal. Tom Sedgman, my best friend, you remain the most wonderful partner I could possibly have chosen with whom to raise our two boys. Monty and Sully, thank you for telling me I'm a brilliant mum even when I'm objectively pretty rubbish, but also for telling me you're proud of me for doing this job instead of giving it all up to be a stay-at-home parent. I'm really glad you talked me out of it, guys - I would have lost my freaking mind. The good news is that I should have a lot more time free now this is finished. Do you still want to play Mario Kart?

Martin Barker, my PhD supervisor and the world's best mentor - you get your own paragraph. I can't say how many times while writing this book I wanted to talk to you. I've done my best here to share your wisdom; I hope it would have made you proud.

Finally, my colleagues and friends. Emily, Kate, Freya - you are my girl gang, and I would not have survived the past few years without you. Yes, I mean that literally. You know what you did. Ellie and Jess, my favourite pal-eagues (colleagues who are also pals), I adore you both, as well as Fran (my favourite quality Italian) and the beautiful human & fantastic co-editor who is Kelsey Jacobson. Thank you to you all for all the oversharing you let me do during my maddest of moments. Hurray for being correctly medicated at last! And then there's one more person. Ava, my undergraduate peer-reviewer and research associate and general Theatre Department cat. I hope you never stop annoying me - whether it's throwing llama at my face, following me to the bathroom and demanding to know when I'll return, or balancing several hats on my head while I'm trying to work. Actually, thinking about it, I could live without those things - they are exceedingly irritating. But everything else, carry on.

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Kirsty Sedgman @kirstysedgman.bsky.social · 18/01/2026

Today this is what bipolar looks like. Last week I rode the mania to finish my new book, and managed to get it submitted to Routledge at 8pm on Friday – I was literally hitting send as the porter was locking up. But you can only run from the depression for so long before it catches you

A mirror selfie of me, a 40yo white woman with shoulder length orange hair and no makeup looking sad

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Kirsty Sedgman @kirstysedgman.bsky.social · 05/01/2026

I always wanted a pinstripe suit! Turns out 2026 is my year

A mirror selfie of me, a 40yo white woman with shoulder length orange hair, wearing a dark pinstripe waistcoat and trousers

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Kirsty Sedgman @kirstysedgman.bsky.social · 05/01/2026

This book is truly groundbreaking, and I don’t say that lightly. Apols to @ellierycroft.bsky.social & @gregmw4.bsky.social for the simplification – but the big argument is that “dramatic” theatre was a relative blip, bc “postdramatic” theatre has more in common w the “predramatic” early-modern stage

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EarlyModernista @ellierycroft.bsky.social · 05/01/2026

Happy New Year and a pretty stupendous start to 2026 from my perspective as Predramatic Theatre -my co-authored book with @gregmw4.bsky.social - was published by Palgrave on Friday! link.springer.com/book/10.1007... Very kindly, our reader said of the book :-

link.springer.com

Predramatic Theatre

This co-authored book offers a new and contemporary approach to pre-modern drama texts and performance practice.

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Kirsty Sedgman @kirstysedgman.bsky.social · 05/01/2026

me in my inbox, which has been so lovely & quiet for weeks, seeing people start firing off those post-holiday emails

A picture of a frog looking perturbed captioned “please do not perceive me”

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Kirsty Sedgman @kirstysedgman.bsky.social · 04/01/2026

this weekend I got to hang out with @katejholmes.bsky.social and try aerial yoga 🧘‍♀️

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Kirsty Sedgman @kirstysedgman.bsky.social · 04/01/2026

no no, I can’t close them, these are my emotional support tabs

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Kirsty Sedgman @kirstysedgman.bsky.social · 13/11/2025

my students when I tell them they’re not allowed to use AI to write their essays

A photo of a charger block with what looks like a row of horrified faces

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Kirsty Sedgman @kirstysedgman.bsky.social · 11/11/2025

celebrating a fabulous first day in the archives with a pumpkin cocktail (v on brand after having a pumpkin-pie-filled croissant cube for breakfast)

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Kirsty Sedgman @kirstysedgman.bsky.social · 10/11/2025

On the plane to NYC to do some archival research for my 5th book. This one is going to be an intellectual history of the development of audience research, going back to the 1920s. Working title: Influence Men

A selfie of me, a 40yo white woman sitting on a plane

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Kirsty Sedgman @kirstysedgman.bsky.social · 01/11/2025

I just said “6… 7…” to my two boys (11yo & 8yo) and it was like I’d activated a sleeper cell

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Kirsty Sedgman @kirstysedgman.bsky.social · 17/10/2025

Tonight I’m at Leeds Playhouse to host a fun chat for Leeds Festival of Ideas about all things manners with the lovely @williamhanson.bsky.social, the etiquette coach. I’ve come prepared by wearing plenty of pearls, ready to clutch if needed 😮🥰

A photo of me, a 40yo white woman with wavy orange hair wearing a white waistcoat and pink suit trousers with multiple lines of pearl necklaces and a black leather and brass harness

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Kirsty Sedgman @kirstysedgman.bsky.social · 17/10/2025

I had the ✨BEST✨ time this week giving the opening lecture for Prada Mode at London Frieze – feat. a compelling immersive installation by @elmgreenanddragset.bsky.social called ‘The Audience’, plus a series of brilliant talks about all things audiences

A photo of me, a 40yo white woman with shoulder length orange hair standing on a stage with a microphone. Behind me is a screen filled with synonyms for audiences

Another photo of me, this time standing in front of a poster with a blurred black and white photo of an audience member. The title is “Prada Presents The Audience by Elmgreen and Dragset”

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