Abstract
Introducing the idea of “no-object fandom,” this chapter demonstrates how audiences develop fan communities around theoretical texts which they have never seen in full, because they do not actually exist outside a fictional universe. Part of her pioneering research into how audiences respond to mediatized representations of live performance, Sedgman presents findings from original reception research into fandom of the TV show Smash. After the show’s sudden cancellation in 2013, fans began to lament the failure of the show’s meta-texts—the musicals Bombshell and Hit List—to make their way to a real live Broadway stage. Bringing together online responses from a range of sources, including the largest-ever Kickstarter campaign for a theatrical performance, this chapter demonstrates how fans navigated a shared sense of loss. Without a completed show to consider, it fell to audiences to construct an imagined version of how these musicals might actually work on stage.
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Sedgman, K. (2017). No-Object Fandom: Smash-ing Kickstarter and Bringing Bombshell to the Stage. In: Hillman-McCord, J. (eds) iBroadway. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-64876-7_7
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