Covid, Crisis and Prognosis: Prospecting the Future of Theatre Christopher Balme (Munich) In this article I discuss the current Covid-19 crisis in relation to an intensified reflection about the future of theatre. The argument proceeds via a review of crisis theory to a discussion of recent research into futurity, especially the idea of prospection. Specifically, I shall examine the interrelationship between crisis and prognosis as it pertains to theatre and the performing arts. Material is drawn from a database currently being assembled within the framework of the research project “ Krisengefüge der Künste ” which is collating public discourse on how the pandemic is affecting the performing arts. A comparison is made between discourses in the UK and Germany which leads to some final reflections on how such discussions may impact on the institutional legitimacy of publicly funded theatre. The Covid-19 pandemic has produced a situation of suspension: an interruption of daily patterns, social contexts, work routines, closure of all venues and organisations dependent on intensive social contacts. We find ourselves in a predicament of extreme insecurity, which has, historically, always produced an intensified preoccupation with the future and an increased reliance on experts to guide us through these uncharted waters by means of their ability to forecast the future. The first great age of the expert was in the period immediately after the Second World War during the Cold War when the implications of atomic weapons became fully felt and the old playbooks of war and diplomacy no longer seemed relevant. Recently decried by populist politicians, the expert has returned in the shape of the virologist, epidemiologist, (the latter by definition dedicated to providing prognosis of how an illness may spread) and even the sociologist. Less publicly visible but no less intensive has been the discussion amongst theatre professionals and scholars about the long-term impact of the pandemic on the institutional foundations of the performing arts, especially in the publicly funded versions. The article examines the vigorous and multifaceted public discourse on the future of theatre. It begins with a discussion of the connex between crisis and future, especially in the writings of Reinhart Koselleck and moves to a review of recent research into scenarios and the different forms of investigating the future with a special focus on what is termed here ‘ prospection ’ . The empirical section draws on database currently being assembled within the framework of the research project “ Krisengefüge der Künste ” (in English: Configurations of Crisis in the Performing Arts) based at the Institut für Theaterwissenschaft of LMU Munich which is collating public discourse on how the pandemic is affecting the performing arts. 1 The project commenced in 2018, two years before the current crisis. On the basis of a comparison between discourses in the UK and Germany the article concludes with some reflections on how such discussions may impact on the institutional legitimacy of publicly funded theatre. The Future of Crisis The Corona or Covid-19 pandemic is by any definition a crisis: it has produced a situation of extreme insecurity and the calculation of Forum Modernes Theater, 32/ 2 (2021), 178 - 191. Gunter Narr Verlag Tübingen DOI 10.2357/ FMTh-2021-0017 risk proves difficult as the virus mutates. The pandemic is an extreme case of an exogenous shock which has suspended, at least temporarily, large areas of activity: tourism, gastronomy, cinema, and practically all forms of live performance. The Chinese word for crisis, wéij ī ( 危机 ), is composed of two words or characters: wéi, meaning ‘ danger ’ , and j ī , which can be translated as ‘ chance ’ or ‘ opportunity ’ . In this idea of a ‘ dangerous opportunity ’ , we find an ambiguous tension in the concept of crisis that signals impending danger while at the same time pointing out avenues to productively use such risks to overcome the crisis. Etymologically, a crisis (Gr. κρίσις ) refers to a turning point in an illness, of which the outcome is either the patient ’ s recovery or death. A crisis contains therefore an element of peripeteia, and most definitions recognise crises as times of dramatic intensification, during which alternative courses of action are demanded. The semantics of crisis shift during the Enlightenment from the narrowly medical and legal to the more broadly historico-philosophical. German historian Reinhardt Koselleck argued that crisis is intimately bound up with a new way of conceptualising futurity that arose during the eighteenth century and the French Revolution: It is in the nature of crises that problems crying out for solution go unresolved. And it is in the nature of crises that the solution, that which the future holds in store, is not predictable. (. . .) The question of the historical future is inherent in the crisis. 2 It lies in the nature of crises, at least in a post- Enlightenment understanding of the term, that they lead to an intensified preoccupation with the future. The connection between crisis and prognosis, a particular form of futurity, is one that Reinhart Koselleck traces back to Rousseau ’ s Émile (1762). Koselleck argues that Rousseau develops the first usage of crisis in the sense, “ that emanates from a philosophy of history and also offers a prognosis of the future. ” This new use of the term was thus directed, according to Koselleck, “ against both an optimistic faith in progress and an unchanged cyclical theory ” . 3 From this new dualism, ‘ crisis ’ takes on the conceptual contours of its modern understanding. The post-enlightenment understanding of crisis is predicated on a diagnosis that the old system is moribund but the new future is not clearly defined. There is of course a significant difference between Rousseau's diagnosis of the ancien régime and today's situation of sudden suspension and interruption of almost all social and many economic activities. The common ground can be found in the analysis of underlying trends that are already virulent and suddenly come to the surface. The experience of crisis varies depending on the institutional system: the University for example has weathered the crisis in terms of its core activities - teaching and research - reasonably well (although some forms of research depending on participant observation and archival research have had to be suspended or at least significantly curtailed). Economically, however, it has been a different story. Those university systems dependent on a high percentage of fee-paying students, especially international students, have suffered disproportionately in comparison to those systems that are largely state funded. Most academics adapted to the new situation of online teaching: it was almost as though, because digitalised teaching materials were available, the switch to online transmission was a minor adjustment rather than structural change. The software (Zoom, Teams, Webex etc.) already existed. This was not the case, of course, for practical courses predicated on rehearsals, one-on-one teaching et cetera. From a Corona perspective, 179 Covid, Crisis and Prognosis: Prospecting the Future of Theatre education in the performing arts looks remarkably old-fashioned, not having changed much since the pre-modern period. 4 The switch to online meetings and conferences was also effected relatively quickly. In the light of ecological debates and concerns about carbon footprints, this was an innovation or reform waiting to happen. A reduction of conference activity to pure information and discussion under conditions of online surveillance is certainly a novum from which the conference industry may never recover. Currently, in May 2021, most countries find themselves in an interregnum, a liminal period of in-betweenness, where, as Victor Turner has taught us, change and innovation often take place. This crisis-induced interregnum has created a space of intensified reflection about the future. A research project is currently being constructed to address the question of how theatres have responded to the Corona crisis and, in a process of longterm participant observation and discourse analysis, will trace these responses. ≈ Our perspective is framed by neo-institutional theory. This means that certain terms and presuppositions from this research tradition guide our initial hypotheses. The overall question leading our collaborative research project is that of institutional transformation. We hypothesize that the current crisis will lead to an acceleration of existing structural problems: the ancient regime, to put it in Rousseauian terms, is ready for change and the covid-19 crisis may be the exogenous shock that will accelerate pre-existing predilections and expose structural fault-lines. This proposition that structural problems provide the basis for intensified reflection on the future entails moving into the area of prognosis, a dimension many scholars tend to avoid because of the absence of hard data. Nevertheless, it is undisputed that the future is a temporal dimension that is not only integral to modernity and its various temporal extensions (post-) modernity (Lyotard), liquid modernity (Bauman), reflexive modernization or second modernity (Ulrich Beck), or a globalization-driven hyper-modernity (Frank and Meyer) but is constitutive of it. 5 Whatever the preferred terminology, we are surrounded and determined by future-thinking based on calculations of some kind. Whether it is price of our insurance policies computated according to the mathematics of risk, the stock market with its futures trading, governments engaged in often clandestine modelling, or think tanks designing scenarios, all these terms reference the domain of the future. 6 When we look at theatrical institutions and how they have reacted to the Corona crisis we can already propose some provisional hypotheses: One might be that a prognosis of the post-covid era is framed by the theory of path dependence, which argues, in James Mahoney ’ s formulation, “ contingent events set into motion institutional patterns [. . .] that have deterministic properties ” . 7 These deterministic properties tend to mean that substantive institutional change is extremely difficult or slow. There are two main types of path-dependence. The first and probably most widely accepted are ‘ self-reinforcing sequences ’ , which refer to “ the long-term reproduction of a given institutional pattern. ” 8 The second kind are known as ‘ reactive sequences ’ . These are “ chains of temporally ordered and causally connected events ” . 9 Both lead, in different ways, to the phenomenon of institutional inertia, which suggests that organisations will do everything they can to retain, or return as quickly as possible to, the status quo. This is in fact the most probable outcome, even in or after a situation of crisis. When the majority of institutional stakeholders see no immediate advantage in changing the pre-existing regime then it is unlikely this will happen because 180 Christopher Balme the opportunity costs of substantive institutional change are too high or the political fallout too onerous. In this case the interregnum becomes quite literally a moment or period of suspended time when almost nothing of long-term significance happens. The paths laid out by previous practices and decisions are so clearly defined that any departure from them would require considerable courage, even foolhardiness on the part of an artistic director or minister of culture to depart from them. Our own discipline is a stakeholder in this process, inasmuch as fundamental theoretical precepts, especially the metaphysics of presence, work to send us back into the black boxes as soon as possible. 10 The second, more remote possibility is that some kind of substantive change will result from the interregnum, i. e. that the dynamics of path dependence will be curtailed. In this case, we need to theorize how we can examine the future scientifically. Broadly speaking, there are three main ways to envisage the future: prediction, forecasting, and prospection. A prediction is usually made without drawing on intersubjectively verifiable evidence (unless it is located in the entrails of a sacrificial animal, in the palm of your hand). Forecasting on the other hand is highly reliant on hard data and usually employs forms of specialist knowledge and techniques not available to the general public, like the weather forecast, economic ‘ business climate ’ indices, or epidemiological prognoses. The third possibility, prospection, which will be applied in the following examples, works mainly on the level of discursive analysis: a prospection singles out factors that are relevant in shaping the future and explores their interdependence. A prospection refrains from making final statements about the future, but instead indicates potentialities and tries to determine how current developments might play out in the future. 11 Prospecting in this sense means trying to indicate potentialities and possible developments in the future. It is a more hermeneutic analysis but still reliant on data and a mixed methods approach. Sociologists Mallard and Lakoff refer to prospecting as “ a set of practices for envisioning an unknown future ” and distinguish between “ constitutive rather than predictive prospection. ” 12 The aim is thus not to predict the future per se but rather to imagine possible futures in order to better understand and design policies in and for the present. Modelling the future of theatre: economics The first attempts to ‘ model ’ the future of the performing arts during the pandemic were already published in May 2020. These were scenarios by consultancies and constituted a form of forecasting, which is mainly interested in the economic effects of the crisis of cultural institutions. The Munich-based company, Actori, which specializes in arts and sports consultancy, developed scenarios regarding the economic effects of the lockdowns. In May 2020 it published a first report outlining possible scenarios of future developments, and brought out a revised version in October 2020. 13 The report is an example of forecasting or modelling, as it extrapolates from existing data. Drawing on the detailed statistics published by the Deutscher Bühnenverein (Theaterstatistik 2017/ 18), Deutscher Musikrat and the Statistisches Bundesamt Actori calculated possible losses in income and attendance depending on the length of the closures through lockdowns. The updated October report outlines three scenarios: l Scenario I - Recovery by spring 2021 181 Covid, Crisis and Prognosis: Prospecting the Future of Theatre l Scenario II - Normality as of 2021/ 22 season l Scenario III - Restrictions until end of 2021/ 22 season. By 1 October 2020, the report calculated, around 123,000 events are likely to have been cancelled by the institutions surveyed due to Corona. The loss of visitors amounted to around 70 million and the lost revenues added up to approximately 520 million euros. In Scenario III, the Corona-related revenue losses amount to around 2.1 billion by the end of the 2021/ 22 season. The focus was on theatres and opera houses, orchestras, festivals and museums. Some of the assumptions were already outdated by the time the reports were published (in May and October 2020). Viewed from the present (May 2021), Scenario III provides the most accurate calculation of the expected financial losses. The report concludes with a summary of chances and challenges for cultural institutions and their - in most cases - public sponsors (state or municipal authorities). The former are seen in the area of digital offerings and the possibilities of acquiring new audiences. The challenges are not just in a better calculation of financial knock-on effects but also in the demand for ‘ future strategies ’ . These are formulated explicitly in terms of ‘ scenarios ’ in order to better calculate the artistic, social and monetary effects of the Corona crisis. Although the scenarios developed are largely fiscal and based on forecasting, the conclusion makes clear that they can also be read in terms of ‘ constitutive ’ rather than predictive prospection, as proposed by Mallard and Lakoff. Another attempt at forecasting the longterm effects on the cultural sector was published by the Ernst&Young Consulting. The report was commissioned by GESAC, Fig. 1: Estimated losses due to Corona closures in the cultural and creative industries. Source: Rebuilding Europe, p.30. 182 Christopher Balme the European Grouping of Societies of Authors and Composers. 14 It begins with an affirmative picture of the cultural and creative industries, the CCIs, pre-Covid. The authors paint a picture of the cultural and creative industries as an economic heavyweight with a turnover of 643 billion euros. The estimated drop in turnover because of Covid-19 varies quite starkly by sector. But the most important calculation is that the performing arts are by far the hardest hit with a projected loss of 90 % across the EU- 28 countries. Of all the sectors, only the video games industry is projected to increase its turnover. 15 The Ernst&Young report can be located mid-way between forecasting and prospection, because it includes a considerable amount of qualitative data, mainly interviews and surveys, and conventional market research, in its findings. 16 While the EY report surveys European countries, the OECD attempted a global prognosis in September 2020, or at least the effects on its member states. Entitled Culture shock: COVID-19 and the cultural and creative sectors, this report provided a wide-ranging discussion of the cultural and creative sector (CCS) using similar assumptions to those of Ernst&Young regarding the size and vitality of the sector. It proposes that the medium to long-term effects will be all the more significant. Over the medium term it identifies the following problems: l the anticipated lower levels of international and domestic tourism, l drop in purchasing power, and l reductions of public and private funding for arts and culture, especially at the local level l downsizing of cultural and creative sectors will have a negative impact on cities and regions in terms of jobs and revenues, levels of innovation, citizen wellbeing and the vibrancy and diversity of communities. 17 In addition, the report argues that the crisis has “ sharply exposed the structural fragility of some producers in the sector ” . This means that the sector has a high number of “ microfirms, non-profit organisations and creative professionals, often operating on the margins of financial sustainability ” . 18 They have been particularly hard hit by the closures and in addition provide essential services for the larger public institutions. The report also identifies the frequent inadequacy of public Fig. 2: Turnover in the performing arts market in Germany calculated on the basis of a short, a long or two lockdowns. Source: Betroffenheit der Kultur- und Kreativwirtschaft, p.27. 183 Covid, Crisis and Prognosis: Prospecting the Future of Theatre support schemes for employees in the CC sectors. The large number of freelance, intermittent, and ‘ hybrid ’ workers, i. e. those combining salaried part-time work with freelance work, has meant that they often fall through the funding categories of support schemes. The long-term economic effects are calculated on the high probability that there will be a reduction in investment with reduced levels of cultural production, followed by a ‘ demand shock ’ , “ as consumers reduce their consumption of cultural and creative sector goods and services ” which could be further exacerbated by a reduction in public funding for the cultural and creative sector. 19 In February 2021 a scenario analysis was published by the Competence Centre Cultural & Creative Industries of the German federal government. This calculation is also based on three scenarios. In the first variant, a hard shutdown was calculated lasting until the beginning of March 2021. In the second case, the hard shutdown would last until the end of March. The third scenario includes a double hard shutdown with an early opening in March and renewed closures in April (Fig.2). 20 Compared to the pre-crisis year 2019, for example, the centre calculated a minus of up to 69 percent in turnover for the performing arts. The figures are similarly dramatic for the music industry (minus 59 percent) and the arts market (minus 61 percent). Prospecting the future of theatre When the first lockdown was implemented in Germany in March 2020 leading to the closure of all theatres, the research group in Munich began collecting the numerous articles that resulted as a response. It became quickly obvious that this once-in-a-century situation was generating an unprecedented discussion in the theatrical public sphere. While the focus was on the situation in German-speaking countries, press in other parts of the world was also sampled. Entries were and continue to be collected in a Zotero database. It is by no means exhaustive but certainly represents a cross-section or sample of current thinking in terms of institutional transformation. The database currently lists around 600 items, mainly newspaper and magazine articles but also web entries, blogs, videos, commentary reflecting on the unravelling crisis, gathered in real time as it were. The first entry dates back to March 2020. Each article is tagged according to key words so that we can conduct preliminary surveys of recurrent topics before diving deeper into the content of the articles. We survey articles mainly from Germany and the UK, but also include some items from Italy, France, Denmark, and the Netherlands. The immediate and not surprising observation is the sheer amount of prose generated, a veritable discursive explosion, as a whole profession was essentially drydocked and had time to reflect. It quickly became clear that next to the immediate pressing problems regarding loss of work, reopening, aid packages for the arts etc., a major topic of discussion pertained to the future of theatre. Approximately 25 % of all entries refer to financial implications of the crisis which contain an implicit future dimension: calculation of income, job losses and closures. Over a quarter of the entries currently reference the future in some way. Futurity can mean the immediate future, i. e. speculation on the re-opening of theatres, but often it was of a much more fundamental nature and referenced the institutional forms of the current theatrical landscapes. While the future features prominently across the media discussion in various countries, the way the future of theatre is envisaged differs considerably. The prelimin- 184 Christopher Balme ary hypothesis is that the degree of openness for change is dependent on the institutional structure of the theatre system. Those that are strongly path-dependent such as the German system will be resistant to substantive transformation, whereas systems such as that in the UKwith a higher reliance on a mix of box office, sponsorship and project funding have generated a more volatile discussion in terms of institutional transformation. Comparison of UK and Germany In June 2021 The Stage, the UK ’ s most important theatrical trade publication, published a selection of articles entitled “ Theatre 2021: ‘ Back soon . . . back better ’” , in which “ changemakers across the industry ” were invited to think about the future of the sector. 21 Twenty-eight short articles charted possible future paths for the theatre sector or ‘ industry ’ as it is known in the UK. The topics ranged from campaigner Sarah Jackson on parents and carers to former Conservative minister Ed Vaizey (or rather Baron Vaizey of Didcot to give him his proper title) reflecting on theatre and government. In the light of such titles it is little wonder that there was also an article on class as well as several on diversity. The twentyeight articles can be grouped under seven broader rubrics: Labour and health; support and policy; audiences and diversity; technology; education and training; spaces; ecology. Three groupings stand out: seven articles are devoted to labour and health, six each to support and policy, and audiences and diversity. Digital technology, a topic one might have expected in the middle of a pandemic that has driven large sections of the population inside and online for business and for pleasure - has only three articles. Topics and issues that were already virulent before the pandemic (in the UK class and diversity for example) become repurposed for the new situation, where an already existing discourse is exacerbated. These twenty-eight articles reflect only one issue of the magazine which appeared in late June 2020. Since the outbreak of the pandemic there have been numerous other contributions covering topics such as embracing slowness to more pessimistic assessments of the long-term effects on self-employed artists. The closest equivalent in Germany to the 28 articles in The Stage were published in a volume entitled Lernen aus dem Lockdown? Nachdenken über Freies Theater (in English: Learning from the lockdown? Reflections on independent theatre). 22 As the title indicates, the main focus is on the independent sector, which has been especially hard hit by the total shutdown of all live performance. The independent theatre sector, known in Germany somewhat colloquially as the ‘ Freie Szene ’ has traditionally positioned itself discursively as a countermodel to the state and municipal ensemble and repertoire system (the famous Stadt- und Staatstheater). That this is often more a rhetorical gesture than a reflection of artistic practice, which has seen numerous initiatives over the past years to integrate the two groups, does not mean that the rhetoric decreases in intensity. When there is engagement with the broader theatrical system, then it is articulated often in a utopian mode of total rejection, a call for a clean slate. For example, the curator and dramaturg Stefanie Wenner reflects in her essay entitled “ Atempause wo sich das Leben Bahn bricht ” (in English: Breathing space: where life breaks free ” ) on a theatre that does not yet exist. The essay is a kind of riff on the notions of Pause (pause, break, interruption) and pose. Theatre itself can be a pose of the bourgeoisie, a culture whose break-up in the absolute sense may have come. For this theatre was 185 Covid, Crisis and Prognosis: Prospecting the Future of Theatre based on contracts and conventions whose disappearance we need not mourn . . .. What we do now, what practices we establish here, can become a blueprint (Blaupause) and the basis of a new theatre culture of the coming together of human and non-human bodies, a celebration of the present, appreciative participation, pause as liberation. 23 Envisioning a theatre whose time has come, which has outlived its usefulness, is a trope theatre historians are familiar with: we find it in the writings of the fin-de-siècle theatre reformers such as Adolphe Appia, Georg Fuchs, and Edward Gordon Craig, in Brecht ’ s critique of bourgeois Aristotelian theatre or Artaud ’ s even more radical call for a Theatre of Cruelty. All these models are predicated on notions of the tabula rasa, the clean slate of new beginnings, arguably one of the most powerful tropes of modernity whether in the arts, architecture or politics. The embrace of digital technology, for example, is one of the more emphatic stances we find in the independent scene which implies a critique of entrenched positions. For example, in the article by Michael Annoff und Nuray Demir, “ Showcase im Splitscreen: Video Messages to the Dominant Culture ” : In the silence of the home office, old audience development dreams are awakened, in which new groups of visitors are won over without having to change themselves . . .. But theatre will only emerge stronger from the crisis if it starts from scratch: with its programming and its dramaturgies. In 2018, The Carters shot their "APES**T" video at the Louvre and quickly had more clicks than the museum had visitors all year. 24 To date 233 million views on YouTube suggest indeed that a rap video filmed in a high culture temple finds more interest than a production from the independent performance scene, although the refrain, - “ Have you ever seen a crowd going apeshit ” - , sounds somewhat nostalgic in the current situation of worldwide lockdowns. Their point is that the video is a beautifully filmed and iconographically hugely resonant work referencing numerous memes and tropes of Black Culture, which demand exegesis using the tools of performance analysis. As the authors put it: “ Mona Lisa had to settle for the role of an extra, like an aging silent film star. ” 25 There is also a definite pessimistic undertone in their argument: “ In the 2020 crisis, TikTok dances go through the roof. The audience figures for the lockdown programmes of German-language cultural institutions, however, are languishing in double figures. ” 26 Can this discrepancy be bridged? The tension between the past and the future is framed in The Carters video as a form of Afrofuturism, and as a more universal digital future, a theme that runs through the collected essays like a red thread. It is a tension that remains unresolved, intentionally so, as the exponents of the metaphysics of presence defend positions against or in contrast to the advocates of the digital future. The entries in the database make clear that the semantic field of digitality, streaming and digital theatre is a dominant theme together with the future of labour in a reconfigured theatrical landscape. Whereas the former is primarily an optimistic scenario (although there are of course detractors), the area of work and labour is determined by anxiety and uncertainty. The semantic field of digitalisation returns over 140 items, about 25 % of the references in the database. Work and labour on the other hand are referenced in almost 250 items and constitute by far the most dominant topic in the entries. More precise content analysis still needs to be done, but already we can observe a massive insecurity and also discursive intensity around the future of work in the performing arts. This topic, perhaps even more than digita- 186 Christopher Balme lisation, was already virulent before the pandemic but has taken on a new urgency. It is one thing to be underpaid for one ’ s labour, it is quite another to be deprived of that labour for the foreseeable future. Legitimation Legitimation or legitimacy are not words that feature extensively in the articles, podcasts and blogs as explicit terms. These are tags that we have assigned ourselves: in the language of cultural anthropology it is an etic and not an emic category, it is the language of scholarship, not necessarily of the natives themselves. The natives being in this case the artists and journalists leading the discussion. From the point of view of neo-institutional theory, however, legitimacy is pivotal for conceptualizing the future. As the sociologists Jeanette Colyvas and Walter Powell state: “ Legitimacy is perhaps the most central concept in institutional research “ . 27 It is essential because notions of legitimacy comprise the glue that holds together institutional frameworks, which are by definition, abstract belief systems rather than nuts and bolts bureaucracies or companies, for which neo-institutional theory employs the term ‘ formal organisation ’ . In a seminal article, John Meyer and Brian Rowan describe institutions in terms of myths that organisations employ to underscore their importance, which often translate as need for government support: “ Organizations under attack in competitive environments [. . .] attempt to establish themselves as central to the cultural traditions of their societies in order to receive official protection ” . 28 Institutional myths masquerade as rationalized and impersonal rules that try to appear as technical necessities. Any theatrical system that lays claim to government support through subsidy is involved in and indeed dependent on mythmaking in this sense. The way in which organisations acquire and secure recognition and power is one of the central insights of institutional theory. Whether legally sanctioned, morally authorised or as part of shared cultural and cognitive frameworks, institutions emerge and solidify through legitimation processes. They are self-reproducing systems of rules that are rarely questioned because they are embedded in cultural practices and ideas. The German city and state theatre system is the result of such a process. 29 Less often described and researched are those legitimation processes in which social regulations and norms are no longer selfevident and therefore no longer enjoy the status of “ taken-for-grantedness ” (Colyvas/ Powell). They amount to the opposite tendency, delegitimation, in which institutions lose support and acceptance, a development that in the worst case can lead to institutional failure. 30 Delegitimation describes a process of questioning that can undermine the existing legitimacy of institutions. It can be initiated through discursive procedures, which can result in more far-reaching measures, ranging from reduction or cancellation of subsidies to the complete closure of organisations or reallocations of funding budgets. When the myths no longer hold or become questioned, we can speak of crisis. Crises of legitimation are characteristic of modernity as a whole, as Jürgen Habermas diagnosed already in 1973. 31 Even before the pandemic, theatre in many countries was embroiled in a legitimacy debate: many of the interlocutors came from within the system, or from the margins, as we saw in the contributions from the German independent theatre scene. The arguments are manifold and by no means consistent across theatrical cultures. The common denominator is less a financial argument, i. e. subsidy being a waste of taxpayers ’ money, than the question of impact. Just as universities are being coerced 187 Covid, Crisis and Prognosis: Prospecting the Future of Theatre into proving the ‘ impact ’ of their research, which translates roughly as producing some kind of social good, so too is publicly subsidised theatre also being slowly shifted towards this discursive territory. In Germany for example the term ‘ urban society ’ (Stadtgesellschaft) has created pressure on city theatres to address this somewhat amorphous entity: the implication being that the traditional subscriber audiences are not representative of a diverse urban society. It is noticeable that theatres are expanding their range of activities beyond the presentation of plays in order to secure their legitimacy in a diverse urban society. They want to become ‘ third places/ spaces ’ where a heterogeneous population can meet and form a new urban society through shared aesthetic and cultural experiences. In addition, theatres are increasingly using their expertise and resources in urban projects, in the sense of being a catalyst for communitybuilding processes and cultural urban development. In this context, newly focused stakeholders, especially those parts of the urban society that have so far been excluded in many cases from theatre, are currently receiving special attention. The pandemic has produced extreme manifestations of this trend, especially in the UK. There theatres have been repurposed as social centres or even vaccination points. Artistic directors have been proud to point to this new demonstration of social relevance. For example, Natasha Tripney, reviews editor of The Stage, asks whether Covid has sparked “ positive changes in the industry ” : Many regional theatre companies have become vital resources, maintaining engagement with older and more vulnerable members of the community, and keeping people connected even during a time of isolation. Some, like Slung Low, have gone that step further, with Leeds City Council making it the lead organisation in coordinating community care in its local area, providing food and support to those most in need. 32 Steve Tompkins mused in his contribution for Theatre 2021 on a theatrical Green New Deal: What if our theatre spaces are also teaching spaces, information exchanges, neighbourhood hubs, health centres, nurseries, libraries, pubs, citizens advice bureaus, counselling drop-in centres and local shops? What if the theatre economy runs its own local food-growing network and rewilding projects? 33 The example of Slung Low in Leeds is framed as an example of ‘ positive change ’ and Tompkins is definitely advocating a form of radical change if theatres also double as health centres, garden nurseries and libraries. From the point of view of delegitimisation, it could be seen as the exact opposite. One could argue theatres are ultimately just buildings, third spaces that can be repurposed into anything the situation demands. In the past theatres were converted into cinemas, then car parks or shopping malls, commercially more viable uses of expensive real-estate. Occasionally they have been converted back to their original function under pressure from cultural heritage arguments. It is possible that in the not-to-distant future, cultural heritage will be theatre ’ s most important and reliable discursive anchor. In Germany, a similar trend is underway, although it tends to still be on the level of ‘ projects ’ rather than part of its core activities. German theatre-workers are still public employees under contract to produce art and who continue their work in this area, rehearsing, designing, directing, perhaps for a digital performance, perhaps for that distant light at the end of the tunnel when the theatres reopen for the time when flesh-andblood spectators stream back in. 188 Christopher Balme In the more volatile institutional framework in the UK the relentless critique concerning deficiencies in diversity (race, class, gender,) and social relevance, has the potential to accelerate institutional delegitimisation. The theatre's struggle for recognition as an art form and not just as a form of entertainment, which theatre basically achieved by the mid-20th-century by embracing modernist principles, is now under pressure from within and without. Under normal conditions this would be an exceptionally slow, incremental process. But under the conditions of an extreme exogenous shock, there is a real danger or, depending on your perspective, there exists real potential that the process will be accelerated. Outlook Discussions of legitimacy are perhaps the most ambivalent of the many topics and fields that have emerged during the course of the pandemic. The social turn in theatre is of course a topic that well predates the Corona crisis. The redefinition of art in terms of its social function has been as extensively critiqued as it has been advocated. 34 The pandemic has provided a context in which, for some theatres at least, social work and support have become the only functions they have been permitted to exercise. Once peripheral, even marginal activities on a project basis, these activities have been redefined as a primary function. But does repurposing theatre as a local cultural centre, nursery, or library, to say nothing of a second-hand shop or vaccination point, seriously delegitimise the theatre? As an art form narrowly defined it probably does, for those engaged in applied theatre, the question is probably more difficult to answer unequivocally. What our research has demonstrated thus far is that the theatre itself as a sector or industry or art form (the appellations are by no means synonymous) is undergoing a process of pronounced uncertainty. This concerns both the livelihood of its practitioners, the labour involved, as well as the aesthetic principles on which it has based its claims for legitimacy, namely the metaphysics of presence. There are few arguments for the legitimacy of theatre, especially in its subsidised public version, that do not emphasize the centrality of the here and now, the irreplaceable experience of liveness, and the social good that comes of audiences gathering to watch a performance together. Some even argue that this is a rehearsal for democracy. 35 The crash course in digitalisation that many theatres have undergone has underlined that mediated performances are certainly possible, although not perhaps preferable. This recognition will probably have swifter and more profound ramifications for the cinema than for the theatre, but the latter also needs to envisage a future which is, if not entirely, then most probably, partially digital. In this paper, I have demonstrated a form of prospecting, a methodology where a combination of statistical calculations and discourse analysis can contribute to a focalisation of concerns and thereby help to define possible futures. That they may not be iridescently bright is a risk that all fortune tellers are aware of. But even the apparent darkness at the end of the tunnel may hold surprises. Notes 1 See https: / / www.krisengefuege.theaterwissen schaft.uni-muenchen.de/ index.html. [accessed 6 May 2021]. 2 Reinhart Koselleck, Critique and Crisis: Enlightenment and the Parthogenesis of Modern Society. Oxford/ New York 1988, p. 127. 3 Reinhart Koselleck, “ Crisis ” , in: Journal of the History of Ideas 67/ 2 (2006), pp. 357 - 400, here: p. 372. 189 Covid, Crisis and Prognosis: Prospecting the Future of Theatre 4 See for example the survey conducted by the THE on online teaching which showed that more than three-quarters of those surveyed “ would like online meetings to endure beyond the pandemic ” , with over 50 % wanting the retention of online lectures and conferences. The number in favour of online seminars and exams on the other hand was significantly lower, just over 30 %. https: / / www.timeshighereducation.com/ features/ times-higher-educations-digital-teachingsurvey-results [accessed 6 May 2021]. 5 See for example, Jean-François Lyotard, La condition postmoderne, Paris 1979; Zygmunt Bauman, Liquid Modernity, Cambridge 2000; Ulrich Beck et al. Reflexive Modernization: Politics, Tradition and Aesthetics in the Modern Social Order, Stanford 1994; David John Frank and John W. Meyer, The University and the Global Knowledge Society Princeton 2020. 6 These terms are by no means synonymous but reference discrete strategies using different methods. Risk calculation goes back at least as far as the origins of the insurance industry in the late seventeenth century. The futures commodity market emerged at roughly the same time in the Dutch Republic and gave rise to the infamous tulip mania. Modelling is a technique whereby computers are fed data to demonstrate possible outlines based on several variables. Scenarios tend to be more ‘ imaginative ’ in the sense that they are less constrained by existing data and sketch out ‘ alternative worlds ’ , which serve in turn to help planning. On risk, see Peter L. Bernstein, Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk, New York 1996. 7 James Mahoney, “ Path Dependence in Historical Sociology ” , in: Theory and Society 29/ 4 (2000). Pp. 507 - 48, here: p. 507. 8 Ibid., p. 508. 9 Ibid, pp.508 - 509. 10 By ‘ metaphysics of presence ’ I mean the insistence on the here and now, the experience of liveness as the ineluctable ontology of performance. We find it formulated in many different contexts (Peggy Phelan, Unmarked: The Politics of Performance, New York 1993; Erika Fischer-Lichte, The Transformative Power of Performance: A New Aesthetics, London, 2008; Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht, Production of Presence: What Meaning Cannot Convey, Stanford 2004; most recently Willmar Sauter, Aesthetics of Presence, Newcastle upon Tyne 2020. Most discussions tend to draw a sharp, even binary distinction between performance as presence and mediation as non-performance. 11 Christian Dayé, Experts, Social Scientists, and Techniques of Prognosis in Cold War America, Socio-Historical Studies of the Social and Human Sciences, Cham 2020, p. 10. 12 Grégoire Mallard and Andrew Lakoff, “ How Claims to Know the Future Are Used to Understand the Present Techniques of Prospection in the Field of National Security ” , in: Charles Camic, Neil Gross and Michèle Lamont (eds.), Social Knowledge in the Making, Chicago 2011, pp. 339 - 77, here: p. 339. 13 https: / / www.actori.de/ fileadmin/ PDF_PPT_ DOC_XLS/ Corona_Studie_-_actori.pdf and the October update: https: / / www.actori.de/ fileadmin/ PDF_PPT_DOC_XLS/ 201001_ Corona_Studie_Update.pdf[accessed 6 May 2021]. 14 Rebuilding Europe: The Cultural and Creative Economy Before and After the COVID- 19 Crisis, ed. Ernst & Young, commissioned by The European Grouping of Societies of Authors and Composers (GESAC), January 2021, https: / / www.rebuilding-europe.eu [accessed 6 May 2021]. 15 See also the OECD report, Culture shock: COVID-19 and the cultural and creative sectors, published in September 2020. The focus here is mainly on employment. http: / / www.oecd.org/ coronavirus/ policy-responses / culture-shock-covid-19-and-the-culturaland-creative-sectors-08da9e0e/ [accessed 6 May 2021]. 16 McKinsey also published a report in July 2020 entitled Europe ’ s digital migration during COVID-19: Getting past the broad trends and averages. Clearly the business or task of forecasting has fallen mainly to the consultancy firms, who can draw on established practices and methods to provide at least some kind of forecast of probably effects and trends. 190 Christopher Balme 17 Culture shock, p. 2. 18 Ibid. 19 Ibid., p.3. 20 Themendossier. Betroffenheit der Kultur- und Kreativwirtschaft von der Corona-Pandemie: Ökonomische auswirkungen 2020 & 2021 anhand einer Szenarioanalyse (19. 02. 2021). https: / / kreativ-bund.de/ wp-content/ uploads/ 2021/ 03/ Themendossier_Betroffenheit_ KKW2021.pdf [accessed 6 May 2021]. 21 See https: / / www.thestage.co.uk/ features/ thea tre-2021-back-soon-back-better [accessed 6 May 2021]. 22 Haiko Pfost et al. (eds.), Lernen aus dem Lockdown? Nachdenken über Freies Theater, Berlin 2020. 23 Stefanie Wenner, “ Atempause wo sich das Leben Bahn bricht ” , in: Pfost et al. (eds.), Lernen aus dem Lockdown? , Berlin. 2020, Kindle Edition, pp. 13 - 14. 24 Michael Annoff and Nuray Demir, “ Showcase im Splitscreen: Videobotschaften an die Dominanzkultur ” , in: Pfost et al. (eds.), Lernen aus dem Lockdown? , Berlin, Kindle Edition, pp.16 - 22, here: p. 17. 25 Ibid. 26 Ibid. 27 Jeanette Colyvas and Walter W. Powell, “ Roads to Institutionalization: The Remaking of Boundaries between Public and Private Science ” , in: Research in Organizational Behavior 27 (2006), pp. 305 - 53, here: p. 308. 28 John W. Meyer and Brian Rowan, “ Institutionalized Organizations: Formal Structure as Myth and Ceremony ” , in: The American Journal of Sociology 83/ 2 (1977), pp. 340 - 63, here: p. 348. 29 See here Christopher Balme, “ Legitimationsmythen des deutschen Theaters: Eine institutionsgeschichtliche Perspektive “ , in Birgit Mandel and Annette Zimmer (eds.), Cultural Governance: Legitimation und Steuerung in den darstellenden Künsten, Wiesbaden 2021, pp. 19 - 42. 30 See for example, Christine Oliver, “ The Antecedents of Deinstitutionalization ” , in: Organization Studies 13/ 4 (1992), pp. 563 - 88. 31 See Jürgen Habermas, Legitimationsprobleme im Spätkapitalismus, Frankfurt am Main 1973. 32 Natasha Tripney, ‘ New Horizons: Has Covid Helped to Spark Positive Change in the Industry? ’ , in: The Stage, 21 January 2021 <https: / / www.thestage.co.uk/ long-reads/ long-reads/ new-horizons-has-covid-helpedto-spark-positive-change-in-the-industry? utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=4%2E%20Newsletter> [accessed 6 May 2021]. 33 Steve Tompkins, ‘ Theatre 2021: Steve Tompkins On . . . a Green New Deal ’ , in: The Stage, 24 June 2020 <https: / / www.thestage.co.uk/ features/ features/ theatre-2021-steve-tompkins-on-a-green-new-deal> [accessed 6 May 2021]. 34 See here the writings of art critic Claire Bishop, especially, “ The Social Turn: Collaboration and Its Discontents ” , in: Artforum, 2 (2006), pp. 178 - 83; and Claire Bishop, Artificial Hells. Participatory Art and the Politics of Spectatorship, London 2012. 35 See for example Simon Goldhill who makes the argument for ancient Greek theatre in “ The Audience of Athenian Tragedy ” , in: P. E. Easterling (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Greek Tragedy, Cambridge 1997, 54 - 68. David Wiles makes a similar argument in connection with the concept of citizenship in his study Theatre and Citizenship: The History of a Practice, Cambridge 2011. Indeed much of the discussion on theatre and citizenship makes this connection explicitly. 191 Covid, Crisis and Prognosis: Prospecting the Future of Theatre