Thai Theatre Trends in the Age of Disruption

Abstract

Theatre industry in Thailand is facing tremendous challenges from the Digital Disruption, Covid-19, and a series of socio-economic and political crises internally. Such a transition causes Thai theatre companies to restructure the organization and to adjust form and content to suit the new environment. The purpose of this research aimed to examine direct and indirect factors influencing the industry in order to forecast trends and solutions to the problem. The study used a mixed-method to analyze a relationship between social phenomenons affecting the industry.

The research suggested that the impact on the theatre industry in Thailand could be categorized into two major levels: international and domestic factors. Thai theatre not only changed correspondingly with the world trends in terms of the technology disruption and the spreading of the Covid-19, but also oppositely to that of the world in terms of the audience’s average age. In addition, Thai theatre was affected by political instability, economic recession, and the change in social activities. Based on the aforementioned factors, Thai theatre has a high tendency of decreasing the number of places and spaces in Thai society, growing of the new generation of audience in the big cities, and changing content and form to fit the new situation. Practical applications mediating these issues include utilizing new technology to increase productivity, repositioning Thai perception about the theatre to fit the target audience, cooperating among companies, and developing arts administration programs in higher education to lead the changes.