Pilot of new method of evaluation (impact-related evaluation) from two theatrical performances of Arthur Schnitzler's play Professor Bernhardi. The performances were preceded by talks by literary scholar Annja Neumann and clinical anatomist Cecilia Brassett.

Feedback was requested from the audience with the following statement and question: “Arthur Schnitzler’s Professor Bernhardi explores the ethics of care and how they are rooted in different institutional contexts. Did today’s performance change your perspective on how we care for the sick or prompt any thoughts about the role of politics and religion in healthcare?”. Post-it notes on the back of the performance booklet provided space for comments. The audience was asked to leave their comments on a whiteboard after the performance.

The feedback was solicited to evaluate the impact the event had on members of the public in the audience, and is deposited here as evidence to support future impact case studies. The image was created with the intention of using it as the basis for an interactive digital version of the feedback whiteboard, which would provide a transcription of the notes (using the project’s transcription tool Transcribo), and enable continued discussion and feedback via comment threads for each note.

The performances, which took place on the 28th and 29th October 2016 in the Anatomy Lecture Theatre on the Downing Site, Cambridge, were a collaboration between theatre company [Foreign Affairs] and academics from the AHRC funded Schnitzler Digital Edition Project and the Department of Physiology, Development and Neuroscience.

The image is a composite of 15 photos which were aligned and remapped using the panorama software Hugin. The photos were taken in the Anatomy Lecture Theatre following the second performance.

Annja Neumann is responsible for the creative concept behind this method of evaluating public engagement as a means of collecting evidence of impact, as well as the question presented to the audience. Hal Blackburn is responsible for the linear (planar) panorama method used to capture the resulting feedback. The comments on the Post-its are the work of anonymous audience members.