Zidane Abubakar, Priya Pillai, Caspar Kerr

Presentation

Facsimilie to Data

We would start by attempting to apply computer vision/NLP processing tools to the images of the registrars. However, we suspect that the old style of handwriting may make it more difficult to accurately read the pages, and so we plan on hiring graduate students who are experts in the time period and know French to write up all the data.

The data that we collect will be the following:

  • Tickets
    • Prices
    • Number
    • Category (social class)
  • Play Information
    • Title
    • Date
  • Expense Categorization
    • Types of expenses
    • Net earnings
  • Actor/actress information
    • Names
    • Pseudonyms
    • Dates performed

We also plan to connect to another database to determine the genres of the play, as well as gather information on important historical events happening in this time period in Paris.

Storing and Presenting Data

We will input the collected information into an online database, which will be publically accessible for people to look and analyze the data themselves. However, our main method of presenting the project will be an online interactive simulation game that will allow players to pretend to be the owner of the Comédie-Française and make decisions about the theater based on the data.

Tools Built

There are two main methods we will share the data. The first is a traditional method of allowing the database to be publically accessible. This is to maintain the transparency behind the project. The second is the game. It will serve the purpose of humanizing the data and making it easier to understand the context behind the data. The game will ask players to pick plays, ticket prices, and actors every year based on information in the database.

Audience

We are planning to design the game focusing mostly on middle/high school students who might be studying French history or theater more generally. We would like the game to be fun enough that anyone in the general public would want to play it.

Research Questions

How did the sociopolitical context affect the decisions theater managers made? How did the Parisian public’s taste in theater change over time?