Volume 11, Number 1, June 2021
| Exploratory Research of the Theater Marketing and Management －A Case Study of Taiwanese Opera’ |
Chia-Hung Yang 1 , Ching-Wen Lin 2 , Kuang-Heng Shih 3*
Abstract
With one hundred years of history, Taiwanese opera has been recognized as a form of precious performing art in Taiwan. Over the past century, Taiwanese opera has evolved over time in response to varied audience’s needs in different times and embraced varied forms of popular culture. Taiwan is an island, but different areas have developments of Taiwanese opera. Specifically, it is popular in southern Taiwan, refined in northern Taiwan, and inferior in central Taiwan.
This study adopted qualitative analysis. The results indicate that Taiwanese opera is less popular in central Taiwan, in comparison to northern and southern Taiwan. The main reasons included the discontinuation of signing up opera troupes after the 1999 Jiji earthquake, intense competitions among a variety types of traditional operas, improper allocation of resources, and wrongful positioning of the opera troupes that could not attract the audiences.
This study suggested that theatrical companies of central Taiwan should improve the operation and recognize the prevalence of online publicity, as well as they can upload the micro-Taiwanese opera online for free viewing, showcase their outstanding group performance to earn the market share of the “main character-oriented” opera market, and construct positive image of Taiwanese opera troupes. By such means, the opera troupes could create their niche in the online Taiwanese opera, and gain more opportunities of stage performances.
Keywords: Taiwanese opera, Management of Performing Arts, Regional Popular Culture, Theatrical Company of Central Taiwan
1 Graduate Student, National Changhua Normal University of Education, Taiwan
2 Professor at the Graduate School of Technology in Finance, CTBC Business School, Taiwan
3 Associate Professor, Bachelor Program of Fashion Creative Industry & Branding Management (Bachelor Program of Performing Arts Management), Chinese Culture University, Taiwan
*E-mail: sgh2@ulive.pccu.edu.tw