A Suitcase of Methods Report #5 1 Testing a New Theatre Concept Collaboration between ’A Suitcase of Methods’ and ’Theatre GROB’ By Anna Lawaetz, PhD How do you conduct a test of a new theatre concept for your audience if you want to get information about the audience’s perception of it? Marie Lundgård, head of communication at theatre GROB asked ‘A Suitcase of Methods’ for help to conduct at survey in the spring 2016. Theatre GROB wanted to test a new concept, ‘the GROB-starter’ a 10 minute long one-act play introducing new young playwrights and actors, just before the main performance of the evening. They were concerned about how the short performance would affect the perception of the main performance of the evening. Two plays- two worlds The main performance ‘Panda affæren’ (‘The Panda Affair’), written by Maj Rørbæk Damgaard, is a comedy targeting the relation between China and Denmark mirrored through a pharmaceutical industry relation. The 10-minutes GROB-starter ‘Synkron’ (‘Synchronized’), was written and staged by Anastasia Nørlund as a part of GROW; the theatre GROB’s development platform for young unschooled theatre talents. As the main performance of the evening, it was a comedy, but taking place in the changing room of a public swimming pool albeit a very different location than the main performance of the evening. The theme was friendship and synchronized swimming – thematically far away from the political themes in the main performance. Instead of letting wet swimmers sit in the set design of ‘Panda affæren’, the