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In assessing that research, Barone and Eisner suggest that talent, competence, and perception must be seen to be appreciated in many arenas. Conference presentations and publications by Dr. Prendergast have provided many opportunities for ongoing multidisciplinary conversations about the phenomenon of arts-based inquiry to communicate research in cognitive and aesthetic domains as both knowledge and art. Her reviewers have remarked on her work as fresh, innovative, exemplary, and beautifully written, and her students describe it as engaging, thought provoking, relevant, and easy to put into practice.
Teaching Spectatorship: Essays and Poems on Audience in Performance is a result of Dr. Prendergast’s interest in the complex interactions between culture and its audience/participants, that is, how societies create, transmit, receive, and transform (or are transformed by) culture, particularly in drama/theatre and the other art forms. It is that sustained interest that has led her to foreground the importance of audiences as “co-creators” of what it is that is being presented. Her understanding of the existential nature of performance and the significance of the audience as a player in its making has much to say to those of us who “perform” in classrooms.
It is often said of academics that although they may be excellent scholars, when it comes to “walking the talk,” they are not as successful. We have had many opportunities to observe and participate in Dr. Prendergast’s classroom practice, and to see her in action is to recognize an excellent teacher at work. The theory described in this text is embedded in her practice, an aesthetic practice that is accessible to youth and young adults through her knowledge of rehearsal and performance strategies. Her ability to engage audiences in her teaching performance reflects the benefits she writes of here; there is little time to sit and stare because we are generating, through a process of sustained involvement, the kinds of thinking and responding that entertain possibilities of (and for) thought and action.