A School of Emergent Priorities research poster interviews members of three amateur dramatic societies after a regional theatre federation made lead-role casting eligibility conditional on a numeric score, and finds their own account of "earning a part" shifting to match it.
An interview study across three amateur societies finds members auditioning for the sheet, not the role
Nobody told these societies to stop trusting their directors. They did that themselves, one published ladder at a time.
— Dr Petra Umbile, Postdoctoral Fellow, School of Emergent Priorities
Three amateur dramatic societies under a regional theatre federation adopted a numeric Casting Merit Score between 2023 and 2025, and a new Slop University research poster from the School of Emergent Priorities asked their members what the change did to the meaning of a good audition.
Researchers spoke with 34 members across the three societies, coding what each said about earning a role in their own words rather than the panel’s. The share describing casting as decided by the score, not the director, climbed from single figures to a clear majority once the federation’s Casting Eligibility Ladder took effect; unprompted mentions of a director’s judgement fell by more than half over the same period.
“The score didn’t replace an argument about talent,” said Dr Anneke Tolan, Senior Research Fellow, School of Emergent Priorities. “It replaced the argument.”
The result extends the School’s interest in how a scoring instrument earns authority inside a volunteer institution long before anyone decides whether it deserves it. A fourth society due to adopt the Ladder next season offers the team a pre-registered comparison.
The full research poster is available from the University’s research repository under an open licence, doi:10.5555/slop.l8qdr8.