Centering Spectators: Audiences as Pedagogues?

Might we characterize audiences as pedagogues? My ‘provocation’ for the Association of Theatre in Higher Education conference argues for the examination of how audience members contribute to performance through sometimes obvious, and other times surreptitious, curricular systems of teaching audience behaviour.  

While the proscenium stage might be viewed as encouraging uni-directional delivery – from the stage to the auditorium, thereby offering the easy metaphor of performers and performance as teachers and curricula to be delivered to the waiting receivers or students in the audience.  

Following Ranciere’s Ignorant Schoolmaster, however, many scholars recognize that such a model – in which a student is dependent on teacher - is deeply limiting and negates other possible knowledges and notions of access. I’d like to similarly consider a more multifaceted network of producing and receiving in theatre.  

I want to re-cast the audience as the central figure or object of study in my analysis. To allow for experimentation with the idea that centering the audience as producers of a theatrical event, rather than receivers, allows for an exploration of alternative theoretical possibilities. This was prompted by my attendance at two events, both well outside my ‘theatrical wheelhouse.’  

First, at the Toronto Football club watching a soccer game: myself, an avowedly not-sportsy person, very quickly learned the moments to cheer (beyond when a goal is scored, that much I knew I swear), and in some instances was physically forced to join in. When the stadium begins to shake under the weight of hundreds of people stamping their feet, a kind of embodied pedagogy occurs wherein I move in sync with everyone else – my feet end up stamping along with everyone else because the whole stadium is shaking.  

Second, at the Rocky Horror Picture Show, even if I have no knowledge of what audience participation is anticipated, I might be handed a goodie bag with newspaper, water guns, etc. Watching the model of my fellow attendees, I learn when to yell out lines, hold up my props, etc.  

In both instances I, as audience member, am attuned to my fellow spectators, watching for cues, being entertained by their creative antics, and anticipating responses – when the TFC score a goal I quickly learn that the fans occupying the south end of the stadium will set off coloured smoke, so I know to look to them.  

Kirsty Sedgman has written extensively on audience etiquette and the often culturally exclusionary practice that can result from holding fast to expected audience behaviours: you must sit still, be quiet, and focus – or you need to leave the theatre. In these examples, similarly, there is a clear expectation of how to behave, and you might for instance, be uncomfortably stared at TFC when you do not adequately pay attention to the game, as I can attest to. I rather stubbornly was an emancipated spectator insofar as I refused to attend to the soccer ball in favour of continuing to make notes about the spectators. But, these physicalized and/or vocalized versions of participation are all quite obvious markers of spectatorial pedagogy: audience members teaching other audience members how to audience.  

This risks me making the erroneous implication that only physically participant audiences are active teachers and/or learners. Following Rancière’s Emancipated Spectator, Diderot’s Le Fils Naturel claimed that audience members were divorced of the “capacity to know and the power to act” (Rancière pg. 2) essentially characterizing them as passive, which spurred Brecht, Artaud, and other theatremakers focused on activating this problematically passive spectator. Instead, says Rancière there is no gap to be filled from less active spectators to more active theatremakers. Everyone is always already active. Rancière vouches for a re-valuing of viewing, in which processes of selection, interpretation, connection, acceptance or negation (pg. 13) are active actions from audiences. Audiences, he says are "only ever individuals plotting their own paths in the forest of things, acts and signs that confront or surround them" (p.16). So, let me offer a slightly different example of audience pedagogy.  

Hamilton’s release onto DisneyPlus and my own newfound TikTok addiction spurred a different case study: musical theatre TikTok. In one TikTok a fan zooms into a moment from the Hamilton film. Actress Jasmine Cephas Jones, playing Peggy, is standing near Anthony Ramos, who plays John Laurens. The two of them dance and flirt. This all occurs in the deep background of the scene, far away from Lin-Manuel Miranda and the soloists, and is very easy to miss. The fan making the TikTok explains, however, the apparently deep significance of this moment: it is not simply that Peggy is now dancing and flirting with John Laurens, but in fact, Jasmine dancing and flirting with the man she eventually, in real life, becomes engaged to. The moment of flirtation onstage, takes on increased significance as potentially ‘more real’ because of the actors’ real relationship.  This is a poignant example of binocular vision, to follow Bert O. States, in which the actor bodies onstage are oscillating between being characters flirting, and real people flirting. This is all helpfully pointed out by a fan in a twenty-second TikTok, who trains us how to watch this moment and read these layers into it. 

This has spurred a number of different TikToks, many of which provide close-reading analysis of moments from the show, but also some poking fun at the practice of what some deem ‘over-analysis.’ In one satirical TikTok, a fan suggests that an ensemble performer coughing in the back of a scene was “an homage to one time his real life grandma got sick.”  

This consideration of audience as pedagogue is closely intertwined with ongoing debates about expert and anti-expert discourse. Kirsty Sedgman describes an “imperative within the arts to push back against the encroaching de-hierarchization of cultural value beyond critical and scholarly perspective” (307). Some suggest turning to audiences for research purposes inflames an anti-expert bias, vaulting the ignorant spectator to a position equivalent to seasoned and experienced theatre critic. This is, I think, a misreading of much audience research, which does not aim to find equivalence between those two perspectives, but to study “how people from different subject positions and social locations actively make sense of things by drawing on varying ‘cultural reference points, political beliefs, sexual preferences, personal histories, and immediate preoccupations’” (Sedgman p. 318, quoting Helen Freshwater p. 6). How might we consider audiences as experts in being audiences: to consider not what the meaning is of the piece, but how audiences are approaching, negotiating, and analyzing it. To embrace diverse systems of knowledge.  

This all serves to beg big questions: what is the role of the audience? How much should they know? Is the experience inherently improved by increased knowledge? Do these spectators cum pedagogues support or undermine Rancierean ideas? When I look to other audience members as experts in how to spectate, am I merely reinforcing power dynamics and knowledge values active = good, passive = bad? Or have I in some way re-negotiated positions of power to upset the uni-direction of the stage to audience? To me, this demonstrates the fluidity of expertise; that young Tiktoker undoubtedly is far more expert in the specific biographies of the Hamilton cast and performance. My expertise is entirely different and unthreatened. I am student to her as schoolmaster, but emancipated in my ability to be both between and beyond those categories of learner and teacher by choosing to incorporate, reject, or ignore her knowledge-sharing. 

Freshwater, Helen. Theatre and audience. Macmillan International Higher Education, 2009.  

Rancière, Jacques. The emancipated spectator. Verso., 2007.  

Sedgman, Kirsty. "Audience experience in an anti-expert age: A survey of theatre audience research." Theatre Research International 42, no. 3 (2017): 307-322. 

---. The Reasonable Audience: theatre Etiquette, Behaviour Policing, and the Live Performance Experience. Palgrave Macmillan, 2018. 

Audiences, Attendees, Participants, Oh My! Re-thinking active spectatorship

By Kelsey Jacobson

Audience, spectator, participant, viewer, listener, onlooker, witness, voyeur, spect-actor, receiver: our terms for audience are multiple and many. And most of them connote particular expectations of the role of audience members or particular sensory experiences: ask yourself, which of these is most attractive to you? Why? I want to consider the connotations of the terms we use when describing audiences, especially as relates the idea of an active audience and how/if the pandemic and shift online has altered that. 

Scholars have generally noted an increase in active audiencing , participation or co-creation in contemporary Western theatre. This explosion is occurring, perhaps, in response to the suggestion that audiences play a less contributory role in theatre than they have in the past. Caroline Heim cites theatrical shifts in the 20th century resulting in: 

the disempowerment of the theatre audience, the decline in audience sovereignty, and the change from active to passive spectatorship. Due to changes in theatre architecture, the rise in power of arts professionals, changes in audience demographics, and the rise of a commodity culture, contemporary audience contribution has been largely relegated to laughter and applause. (1) 

This perceived de-activation of theatre audiences over time is regarded as problematic and connects with the broadly pervasive notion that, as Matthew Reason writes, “an active audience is good, a passive audience bad” (272). Jacques Rancière’s The Emancipated Spectator describes the two beliefs underlying this idea: “the spectator is held before an appearance in a state of ignorance…the spectator remains immobile in her seat, passive. To be a spectator is to be separated from both the capacity to know and the power to act” (2). As Rancière articulates, “Theatre accuses itself of rendering spectators passive and thereby betraying its essence as community action. It consequently assigns itself the mission of reversing its effects and expiating its sins by restoring to spectators ownership of their consciousness and their activity” (14-15). 

And so we see an explosion in participatory, immersive, and otherwise activated spectatorship experiences. When I think about what I have done for theatre, the list is long: shared secrets late at night over the phone, committed to political action, slow-danced with a stranger, been held, caressed, cuddled, handcuffed, blindfolded more times than feels appropriate to admit, walked—and walked, and walked—through entire neighborhoods, historic trails, and huge warehouses. I am an active participant. 

And then along comes COVID. And spectators, it seems, are forced once again into a deeply passive role - but there is opportunity here to really reconsider what we mean by active and why we value it. There is no running around the McKittrick Hotel. I am sat at home, on my couch, watching on my laptop screen. It would be difficult for me to have a measureable effect on the performance, especially in those instances where the programming is pre-recorded. I could potentially write some inflammatory comments on the Youtube stream or get myself kicked out of the Zoom (and the carceral qualities of Zoom rooms are certainly worth examining). But, my action seems limited.  

Now it’s true that many online performances did require or at least invite, some sense of active participation. I watched (spectated, participated in, co-created?) “standard” livestreamed shows like NT at Home wherein audiences could offer typed comments, Creation Theatre’s memorable participatory Zoom Shakespeare where I provided my cat as visual scenography and offered sound effects when called on, and I navigated The Under Presents The Tempest via VR headset. Each of these shows challenged the notion that viewing ‘at home’ means non-active. However, rather than offer us the opportunity to actually renegotiate what we mean by active participation I worry that such experiences simply continue to reinforce the idea that what it means to be active is solely physical and not ontological or even epistemological. 

Part of what I think inhibits the renegotiation of active audiencing in online theatre that I thought might happen is actually the virtual nature of such performance. What might be judged as ‘active’ participation in-person is rendered as two dimensional, limited to a small screen, and therefore viewed as potentially less active. This is because we have drawn evaluative distinctions between virtual and real - going all the way back to Western metaphysics and the core foundation of mimesis that values the real (especially the sensory and evidentiary) over the virtual (the unseen, the unmeasured). 

 
This matters because given work-at-home orders, online school, etc. perceptions about what constitutes real ‘work’ and whether ‘online’ work is as valuable, have been rampant. I need only look at Twitter this morning to see statements questioning why tuition is the same for online university courses as in-person, or a recent article from the Rolling Stone that I saw just a few weeks ago stating “Why I think virtual awards for virtual theatre deserve real recognition.” The persistent devaluing of the online or ‘virtual’ against the higher value ‘real’ makes it paramount to discuss visibility and valuation of active participation and spectatorship.  

Active, after all, is a very nebulous term. What kind of active? For whom? For what bodies? Rancière suggests that efforts to bring audiences closer to the artwork vis a vis active participation only serve to further underscore the different valuations assigned to theatremaker and theatrereceiver, emphasizing the distinction between the two roles as it tries to elevate the role of spectators. Instead, says Rancière, there is no gap to be filled from less active spectators to more active theatremakers. Everyone is always already active. Rancière vouches for a re-valuing of viewing, in which processes of selection, interpretation, connection, acceptance or negation are considered active actions from audiences. For online performances these processes of selection, curation, etc. are, I would argue, actually heightened in the creation of theatre events (choosing the space, snacks, etc.). 

 
Don’t get me wrong – I miss in-person theatre, teaching, life. But what I want to point out is how quickly the value-laden idea of and desire for action and active audiences can manifest in making forms of labour and participation visible and invisible, especially online. This is a politics of spectatorship and work, that can’t be ignored so long as we continue to practice and live both online and in-person. 

 
Complicating this valuation is the implicit connection between theatrical and political activity. In her book on theatre audiences, Helen Freshwater connects the desire for active spectatorship to political action when she describes “one of the most cherished orthodoxies in theatre studies: the belief in a connection between audience participation and political empowerment” (3). In other words, the perceived participation of the audience is indicative of broader ideals of democracy, civic engagement, and citizenship in the real-world. But, this too needs renegotiation in an era of viral movements, activism organized via social media etc. The move online forces an opportunity to really think about the role of the audience. And it starts with terminology and the values we assign. 

Freshwater, Helen. Theatre and audience. Macmillan International Higher Education, 2009. 

Rancière, Jacques. The emancipated spectator. Verso., 2007. 

Reason, Matthew. "Participations on Participation. Research the “active” theatre audience." Participations: Journal of Audience and Reception Studies 12, no. 1 (2015): 271-280. 

Heim, Caroline. "‘Argue with us!’: Audience co-creation through post-performance discussions." New Theatre Quarterly 28, no. 2 (2012): 189-197. 

The Creation of a Utopian World in the Theatre: Audience, Community, and Difference

By Jenylle Rufin

Theatre is a unique place which many go to for a different experience from everyday life. The environment changes as we enter a theatre space amongst other strangers, strangers who we don’t know yet but have an unspoken relationship with the moment we all sit in the same space to watch the same show. Suddenly there is a new world created within the room, a world in which new relationships are forms, everyone comes together as a community, and work together to exchange energy between each other and the actors on stage. It is a Utopia… to some. Through an analysis of the world created by the audiences in traditional Western theatre, it can be seen that this utopian world created within the audience community, which calls for pushing differences aside and emphasizing community and similarity, results in utopia for the dominant classes within the audience but the marginalization of those who are identified as different. 

The theatre space becomes a space for escapism for audiences, a place of leisure and get away from their every-day lives. As Luis Manuel Garcia-Mispireta discusses, "Nightlife worlds are meaningful to many [as] a "third sphere" separate from work and domestic life, where they strive to create a playful flow of employment in which everyday life seems to recede from view."1 He further discusses that places of leisure "offer a zone of escape from everyday societal control through an atmosphere of relaxed rules, suspended responsibilities, expanded possibilities, and pleasures unburdened by guilt or sanction. But these refuges are both socially fragile and vulnerable to violence, and so they often employ exclusionary practices that, under the guise of protection, run counter to the ethos of inclusivity and equality…"2 This perspective on theatre as a third space between worlds in which audiences escape into a more pleasurable and enjoyable environment has resulted in audiences attempting to create a utopian world within this space.  

Prevalent in this utopian world is the creation of a hegemonic audience community. As O'Sullivin argues, there are 3 essential characteristics that audience perform: shared consciousness, collective rituals and traditions, and a sense of moral responsibility.3 Further, looking at the unspoken theatre contract in which audiences and actors have a contract where they must uphold in order for a performance to be successful, the audience community also work together to benefit the performance as a whole which calls for a shared consciousness, a uniform community, and a removal of differences within the group. These characteristics reinforce this idea of a utopian world, a world in which audience members work together to reinforce the hegemonic ideals of the shared consciousness of the community. Caroline Heim discusses this idea of emotional contagion, a phenomenon we see within the audience which intensifies this feeling of being in a community. She explains that "in the entity called ‘audience’ an interesting phenomenon occurs: the individual audience members ‘catch’ each other’s emotions and mimic each other’s responses to the onstage performance… they catch each other’s emotions and behaviours through empathising or feeling with them. This intriguing mimicry is known as emotional contagion; a process during which 'as a consequence of mimicry and feedback, people tend, from moment to moment, to ‘catch’ other’s emotions'…It is often through emotional contagion that the individual audience member becomes part of the audience collective."4 It is when we become aware that the audience is reacting the same way as us and realize we also react the same way as them that we start to become part of this audience and turn into a community, further emphasizing this Utopian world, a world where we feel like we belong.  

As Jill Dolan's Utopia in Performance argues, "live performance provides a place where people come together, embodied and passionate, to share experiences of meaning making and imagination that can describe or capture fleeting intimations of a better world."5 Within these utopian worlds created in live performance and theatre spaces, at the foundation of the world is the maintenance of vagueness and stranger-intimacy where differences are pushed aside. Much like dance spaces Garcia-Mispireta discusses in his book, theatre audience communities emphasize inclusivity while downplaying exclusions and this is successfully done through maintaining vagueness between each other, pushing differences and differing identities aside and creating hegemonic ideals and one common identity, as fellow audience members. This creation of a community by having a common identity but maintaining vagueness through subverting the acknowledgement of differences within the theatre space creates this idea of a vague feeling of intimacy.6 Garcia-Mispireta discusses this concept which he calls Liquidarity which he defines as a “fluid togetherness that manages to hold the shape of a heterogeneous and unconnected crowd….Under conditions of liquidarity, participants maintain a vague sense of social belonging, recognition, and intimacy while also enjoying the benefits of anonymity, fluidity, and a certain lightness of social contact…it identifies the affective relationships that can arise between people who are not bound to one another by traditional ties of kinship and affinity."7 As such, due to the established vague feelings of intimacy as well as the creation of a uniform hegemonic community created between audiences by attempting to erase differences between each other, we can see how the audience community has created, or attempts to create, a utopian world within a theatre space. However, as Garcia-Mispireta discussed "this vague feeling of intimacy not only binds a crowd across social differences but also serves as cover for inequity, exclusion, and even forms of violence."8  While pushing differences aside can sound utopian to some, the some being those who have created this idea of what constitutes as different, it also silences and forgets to acknowledge the alienation that occurs to those who identify as “different” and when differences are acknowledged and overtly presented within this utopian world. 

This then begs to question, who and what gets to be labelled as "acceptable" and who and what gets labelled as "different"? And who makes these decisions? It is impossible to create a neutral world in which differences and differing identities are removed when theatre as an institution is one that is known to be ableist and classist. The architecture of most traditional western theatres themselves demonstrate this classist construct seen within traditional theatre space. With the most expensive seats within the theatre being the "best seats in the house" and the worst seats in the theatre being the most affordable. The rich upper class, those who can actually afford the best seats in the house, immediately demonstrate their identity and status within this Utopian world through where they sit within the theatre. The same applies to those in the lower classes, as those who cannot afford expensive seats make their differences and differing identities known through where they sit within the house. Within the theatre, it is these upper-class individuals who pay more and even afford to be a donor who are prioritized. As Kirsty Sedgman discusses, "We take their donor money and put them on boards, and we brush their microaggressions off as our old grandma or grandpa who might be a little racist and elitist but are otherwise harmless… It tells the upper-middle-class white audience that theatre is their home first and the rest of us are just guests."9 As such, it is impossible to enter a theatre which eliminates differences, rather, what we see in this utopian world is certain identities being prioritized and upheld while others are marginalized; experiencing microaggression but forced to be silent about this experience in efforts to maintain this utopian illusion and still be accepted within the audience community. 

These microaggressions towards certain communities are reinforced through the outdated practice of theatre etiquette, a practice in which forces individuals to act certain ways and not to perform certain actions within the theatre, a practice that can be considered inaccessible to certain communities. As Hannah Simpson explains, "today’s regulating of audience behavior has become primarily a matter of self-policing by the collective audience…most audience etiquette is now enforced by other spectators rather than through the theatre’s authority figures. Modern audiences self-regulate by shaming those who break the ordained quiet-spectatorial status."10 Sedgman further discusses that it has been argued by many that "in order to produce communal affinity between the audience as a newly constituted public, the distractions and disturbances of individual spectators must be banished",11 which is done by self-policing and policing others. However, this idea of being able to act "normal" or "reasonably" or according to theatre etiquette is what Sedgman calls a culturally normalized privilege.12  

As Boal argues, pulling from Marx, that "The dominating ideas in a given society are those of the dominating class"13 and theatre is no different with the elitist able-bodied individuals shaping the norms and ideas within the theatre space. As a result of this we see individuals who are overtly different, such as those with disabilities, become alienated from the community and highly policed within the theatre space. As Hannah Simpson discusses, "the demand for a quiet audience still frequently appears to outweigh the needs of individual disabled spectators…the cult of the quiet audience presents a sometimes insurmountable challenge to the neurodivergent spectator, whose cognitive and/or physical functioning may mean that she cannot guarantee that her body will remain quiet during the length of a performance… other audience noise that signals only an alternatively functioning body is often condemned as equally inappropriate or disrespectful in the theatre auditorium"14  

Through the experiences of those living with disabilities in the theatre as well as the different treatments of patrons depending on economic classes, it is evident to see that this utopian world created within the audience community is a mere illusion in which the privileged individuals who identify with the dominant groups can be blissfully ignorant to the true oppressive nature and power relationships that work within the audience community. To those in the dominant group, this world created is utopia as it has been created and shaped according to their image. However, for groups who are "different" from the dominant group, it further marginalizes them and silences their alienating experiences. Utopia is this idea of a perfect place or perfect society where everyone is happy, but at the same time it also translates to "no place". So, while this utopian world might feel like it exists to some, it does not exist, for a utopian world cannot be truly be utopian if only the dominant class is happy.  

Recorded Live Performance’s Disruption of the Audience Experience

By Jake Henderson

The budding trend of uploading recordings of live performances causes me to beg the question of whether or not these recordings could even be considered theatre. Citing the Hamilton Pro-Shot as the catalyst for this trend, the recording utilized multiple camera angles to capture different moments of the performance. Director Thomas Kail admitted further departure from live performance by noting that the recording is a culmination of multiple live performances with over-the-shoulder shots being recorded without an audience (Nepales). While the ‘is this theatre or film’ debate is vast and endless, my distinction boils down to directed focus—if the camera is used to tell me where to look, I consider the recording a film—which is what we see with the Hamilton Pro-Shot.  

Regardless of the status of their title, this type of ‘theatre’ exploded after the success of Hamilton, with large theatre companies like The Stratford Festival and The National Theatre creating streaming services (Stratfest@Home and National Theatre at Home) to supplement the lack of live performance during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, only these very large, very wealthy organizations were able to support the creation of this type of online streaming, as multiple stakeholders, interviewed for the Pandemic Preparedness in the Live Performing Arts report, acknowledged the widespread technological illiteracy within the sector regarding online streaming. Even with the funding and know-how of these large companies, creating an online streaming service brings regional theatres into competition with international names, pitting the likes of The Stratford Festival or The National Theatre against Netflix or Disney+. How can digital theatre compete with the massive industry of film and television when, as stakeholders explained, challenging these titans of industry is a real threat to the theatre industry, given that the Ontario Government was significantly more concerned with the well-being of film and television than that of theatre when discussing the survival of culture during the pandemic.  

The problem lies in the misrepresentation of what this medium of performance is providing. In response to her survey conducted after a live-streamed version of the Globe Theatre’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Erin Sullivan notes that the “respondents were very clear that the format did make a difference to them and that they would have preferred to attend in person, had that been possible… as well as [commenting on] the value of live, in-person theatre in general” (6). Theatregoers seek out co-presence to complete the experience of watching theatre, which exists in the physical space, and to a lesser degree with zoom performance, but the spectator and the performer have no relationship during a recorded theatre performance. This aspect of theatre disappears with productions that “audiences typically watch from their homes, very often alone” (Sullivan 1). Therefore, marketing streamed performances as “theatre” dissatisfies the audiences that go to the theatre for the experience of co-presence, while limiting their ability to compete with film and television streaming services due to their targeted demographic. Streamed performances become a Catch-22 of being too much like film for theatregoers, but too much like theatre for film viewers. A similar survey, conducted by Nesta, observed 1316 audience members who watched a streamed version of National Theatre’s Phedre in a movie theatre. The survey concluded that spectators valued “the ‘buzz’ of a live experience” and “84.3 percent of cinema audiences felt real excitement because they knew that the performance they were watching was taking place ‘live’ at the National Theatre” (Nesta 6). The audience’s need for co-presence is satiated by a connection to other spectators in the cinema and through their knowledge that they are watching a live performance. Due to the lack of scholarship surrounding audience response to recorded theatre, the response to live-streamed theatre is the best there is. However, the aspects of performance that audiences require to continue through the conversion of theatre to a digital medium involve the need to share the experience with other people. Thus, with streamable theatre’s ability to be watched from the comfort of one’s home, the feeling of sharing the experience of a performance is lost.  

I would suggest that the screening of recorded versions of theatrical productions should continue to be viewed at movie theatres, as the financial cost is significantly less than live performance, making it an easy way for theatre companies to supplement earnings. However, this would not be a viable alternative in the event of another lockdown. Suppose another lockdown should rear its ugly head. In that case, it is hard for me to recommend Zoom theatre—given my knowledge about the effects of Zoom burnout and the detriment to the performers—but this option would better preserve the audience experience by preserving co-presence with other spectators while limiting the company’s embarkment into international competition. Moreover, streaming recorded performances only works for theatre companies that have a large body of recorded material to draw from. For newer companies, this would only prove an option if they were recording new performances, in which case they may as well be live streaming these enclosed performances to maintain the co-presence necessary to the audience experience. Theatre continues to shift towards a direction that utilizes the luxuries of modern technology, but peddling off a poorly shot film as ‘theatre’ and throwing it to the hungry mouths of the internet is not a direction we should allow it to take as creatives or spectators.  

Works Cited 

“Beyond Live: Digital Innovations in the Performing Arts.” Nesta, 2010. Available at: https://media.nesta.org.uk/documents/beyond_live.pdf  

Nepales, Ruben V. “‘Hamilton’ Film Director Reveals Details-30 Cameras Used, Which Songs Were Shot with and without Audience.” INQUIRER.Net, 10 July 2020, entertainment.inquirer.net/382564/hamilton-film-director-reveals-details-30-cameras-used-which-songs-were-shot-with-and-without-audience.  

Sullivan, Erin. “Live to your living room: Streamed theatre, audience experience, and the Globe’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” Journal of Audience & Reception Studies, vol. 17, no. 1, 2017, pp. 92-119. Available at: https://www.participations.org/17-01-07-sullivan.pdf  

Heavy is the Hand that Holds the Funds: The Creative Class Under Capitalism and in the Post-COVID Era

By Ben Ma

In his 2005 monograph, Cities and the Creative Class, Richard Florida seeks out the value of the arts in a society that relies on technological advancement for economic development. He sees the creative sector as, “…the great leveler. It cannot be handed down, and it cannot be owned in the traditional sense. It defies gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and outward appearance” (Florida 2005, 5). In other words, he positions creativity and the creative impulse as something uniquely human: it defies the binary of capitalist production and social advancement through the artist’s ability to center culture. Interestingly, he sees creativity as something that “cannot be owned” by Western convention. Famously, the live performing arts, are live, ephemeral experiences which capitalize on co-presence and affect to shape and/or contradict the audiences’ mind. As of late, I have felt as though this industry is clearly not for everyone (which is reaffirmed by Florida). From arguing with my dad to entering spaces full of STEM thinkers, the arts are consistently the punchline, scapegoated for the shortcomings of culture.  

Florida’s work highlights the creativity theory’s recognition that, “…all growth is not created equal” (2005, 24). This principle is meant to comfort artists, but I am interested in Florida’s expansion which exposes the displacement of the artist due to gentrification that stems from the culture’s capitalist endeavours. I write this post in the dare I say “post-COVID” era, and I am riddled with questions surrounding arts culture and arts productivity and a redirection of arts creation through governmental funding methods. How does the notion of government funding impact arts creation (content-wise), especially when the arts are trying to be utilized as a framework for cultural (re)building? Is there a form of censorship in appealing to the granting bodies in times of crisis? Furthermore, I am curious about what role, if any, do the arts actually play in revitalizing community.  

To deconstruct these thoughts, I turn towards current funding models led by the government, to investigate the perceived role of the arts as culture. National conversations with stakeholders interviewed for the Pandemic Preparedness in the Live Performing Arts reveal that, on one hand, current funding models are quite out of practice for the people it is trying to support, and on the other, funding recipients may experience burnout due to consistent demographic-style reporting for granting bodies that quantifies the artist’s existence, rather than support the cause of their work. Interestingly, Meghan Lindsay exposes contemporary funding practices carefully align themselves with, “‘…evidence-based’ frameworks for evaluating the social and economic outcomes of engaging with the arts [… for] linking public benefit[s] to non-arts portfolios (health, education, economic development, social cohesion, etc.)” (2023). Such frameworks that jeopardize the “arts portfolios” tries to establish a universality to the art, ultimately exposing the, “…role of values, positionality, and beliefs, encouraging a self-conscious reflexivity that spells out how discourses of logic, legitimization, and rationale are not neutral, but rather complex sites for class and breed” (Lindsay 2023). In short, Canada’s arts funding models seem to operate in opposition to the creativity theory as it tries to recognize all growth as equal, without accounting for the community-specific needs or issues artists may try to stage.  

Non-population dense/hotspot locations such as the Northwest Territories compared to places like Toronto and Vancouver are of course expected to have different cultures due to the rich diversity across Canada. However, national arts funding processes remain quite similar. In 2021, the Canada Council for the Arts launched the Reimagine the Arts campaign to directly interact with artists. A major disparity was the experience of arts creation and consumption up North, “due to their remoteness and lack of adequate arts infrastructure” (Hill + Knowlton Strategies 16). I find this idea counterproductive in addressing a larger, systemic issue whose epicenter sits at the capitalist expectation that arts growth must be done to support the broader culture that it is immersed in. Moreover, this issue, in my opinion, requires a larger, interdisciplinary conversation that calls for an amendment of the treatment of Northern arts, culture, and society.  

It is true that one can simultaneously experience challenge and joy, yet should this be central to the theatremaker’s career? In my opinion, the arts hold much more value than simple economic re-building. Furthermore, I do not believe that there is a “national identity” that is worth upholding at this time, as each province, even municipality, holds significant cultural/social differences that problematize notions of cultural unity. Additionally, as we navigate away from COVID-19 social disruptions, different voices are finding different stories that demand and deserve stage time.  Overall, it seems as though the arts’ ephemerality is indicative of the zeitgeist in a post-COVID era: mass (over) production as a method to mask systemic and social issues.  

Furthermore, criticism of Florida’s work has identified two major gaps in the creativity theory and idea of the Creative Class: a) a lack of local talents and overreliance of external sourcing, and b) the aggregation of classes. Firstly, several economists have contested Florida’s demand for designing cities to attract artists. These major concerns are based on gentrification processes that raises costs of living in locations that were already inaccessible. Jamie Peck questions the validity of completely altering a city’s design through structural changes and district creation (2005, 741), while Andy C. Pratt builds off of Peck’s idea, clearly highlighting the issue where, “…cities and regions have lost the faith in generating their own wealth and have begun to believe that wealth could only come from elsewhere” (2008, 109). Both Peck and Pratt raise the issue that seems to be central to many arts funding models in contemporary practice: who gets funded? Florida certainly believes that attracting the external Creative Class is more beneficial.  

Funding priorities and precarity plague the artist’s creative process. Yes, we find ways to work around these constraints, but should it be our responsibility to constantly go rogue with the financial support we receive to rebuild a community/culture that undermines and/or undervalues our work due to the conflation between diverse economic prosperities? Stefan Kräte traces the lifecycle of the Creative Class: “[t]he original creative scene is then pushed to relocate in other lower-value locations, and a new cycle of the generation of the inner urban ‘scene districts’ is set in motion” (2010, 842). Evidently, there is a concerning feedback loop that is created which does not suggest a permanent, stable economic advancement for the impacted “inner urban ‘scene districts,’” rather, by participating in this cycle, one risks funding the external Creative Class – who holds less stakes in the overall experience of community wellbeing – ultimately signalling to potential local creatives that their work is insufficient for the community(ies) that one finds themselves to be part of. In my utopia, I suggest finding ways to detach arts from its ‘home’ in cultural and heritage (and even sports) sectors, to grant artists with full autonomy over the work. It is my hope that this dissolution will remove the social pressure from the content found in the live performing arts, thereby pressuring the other sectors to critically engage with socio-political issues offloaded to artists.   

Works Cited 

Florida, Richard. 2004. Cities and the Creative Class. New York: Taylor & Francis Group.  

Hill and Knowlton Strategies. “Reimagining the Arts 2021-26 Strategic Plan: What We Heard Report.” Canada Council for the Arts. Accessed April 22, 2024. https://www.reimaginethearts.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/CCA_EN.pdf.  

Kräte, Stefan. 2010. “‘Creative Cities’ and the Rise of the Dealer Class: A Critique of Richard Florida’s Approach to Urban Theory.” Urban and Regional Research 34, no 4: 835-853. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2427.2010.00939.x.  

Lindsay, Meghan. “Affect, Accountability, and the Social Impact of the Arts.” Philanthropy & the Arts (September 26, 2023). https://philab.uqam.ca/en/home-blog/affect-accountability-and-the-social-impact-of-the-arts/.  

Peck, Jamie. 2005. “Struggling With the Creative Class.” Urban and Regional Research 29, vol 4:740-770. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2427.2005.00620.x.  

Pratt, Andy C. 2008. “Creative Cities: The Cultural Industries and the Creative Class.” Series B, Human Geography 90, no 2:107-117. https://www.jstor.org/stable/40205039.  

The Need for Audience Pedagogy

By Chanel Sheridan

Much of the available research on pedagogy within the study of theatre focuses on applying theatre to the classroom or on the pedagogy that comes from theatre creation. Expanding outward, even within the realm of fan studies, pedagogy still focuses on what the field can offer students and classrooms. While this is important, there is evidence of a unique form of pedagogy that exists amongst fans and audience members that has been omitted from academia. This blog post will attempt to highlight the instances of audience pedagogy found within our research and argue for the need for more research into how audiences and fans teach and learn from each other on a larger scale than what is currently available. 

Nancy Baym’s chapter in Tune In, Log On: Soaps, Fandom, and Online Community begins to hint at audience pedagogy by looking at the ways in which soap opera audiences interact and interpret the material. Baym showcases the different methods in which audiences interact with the material, thus teaching other fans through personalized interpretation, speculation, and informative practices such as updates and spoilers (Baym 2000). Specifically, Baym argues that “for new viewers, this collaborative interpretation can serve as training, helping them to become more sophisticated interpreters of the genre” (Baym 2000: 93). This kind of teaching and learning is also present within theatre audiences through the sharing of etiquette, the best practices for seeing theatre, and even missed details within shows themselves.  

Multiple interviewees described being taught audience etiquette or had stories describing teaching audience etiquette to other audience members. For example, Michael describes how a friend turned around at a show to quiet audience members who were talking “and their response was ‘we paid good money for these seats, we can do what we want’ and she immediately ‘oh no, no, no, no’, and she explained it to them” (24Sept20217pm-Individual-RM-Transcript). Here, we can see audience members passing along the knowledge of proper audience etiquette to other audience members. While this example occurred in the theatre, there are countless examples online within blog posts detailing what to do at the theatre, such as Glen Sumi’s article “Theatre etiquette 101: Nine things that make this critic cringe” or Lakshmi Menon’s “First timer’s guide to Broadway | All you need to know” (Glenn 2023; Menon 2024). 

More reflective of Baym’s ideas on speculation and interpretation are blog posts and articles which offer insights into show themselves and reflect the audiences’ method of interpretation through personalization. For example, one blog post outlines what to expect at Punkdrunk’s show The Burnt City, acting as both a guide and an interpretation of the show in which the author outlines basic information such as buying tickets and finding the venue before explaining the stories by analyzing them in connection to the Greek poems on which they are based (‘A Guide to Punchdrunk’). The author alludes to the post as an interpretation based on their personal experience, mentioning that “even as I give away everything I encountered, it would still be markedly different from what you’ll experience” (‘A Guide to Punchdrunk’). This is only one example of the interpretations of audiences, though there are countless others, many which also draw on speculation. For example, the video “Hamilton: 20 Background Details To Look For When You Rewatch” outlines small details audience members may have missed, speculating on what these small details mean. The comment section adds to this as audience members and fans add more speculative details they personally noticed, thus reflecting the same method of community interpretation Baym outlines in their article.  

These examples showcase how theatre fan communities and audiences teach each other about the medium, yet there is no evidence of research into this aspect of theatre communities. What can we gain from understanding how theatre audiences teach other? What aspects of theatre and audience behaviour shift when we understand how information passes within the theatre community? The interactions amongst fans and audience members are a site of community building and warrant deeper research. It is not simply the understanding of how audiences teach one another that offers something of interest, but the ways in which pedagogy amongst these groups shapes and informs the very nature of the work itself.  

Accessibility for All: Audience safety and Influences in the Audience World

By Jenylle Rufin

"There's lots of experiences where I've seen shows that are like oh crap this person did not read this trigger warning or like this trigger warning did not make it to this person and I'm watching them [pointing at camera] from across the room and I'm like [covers eyes as if blocking something from view] 'oh God, end the play, get this out'." As Audience member, Tracy Harris, explains their reactions to witnessing other audience members sit through uncomfortable and possibly even harmful moments within a show, one can't help but think, why do audiences endure sitting through and watching something they don't enjoy and may even be harmful for themselves? One of the biggest factors influencing this decision is the fact that, when we are in the theatre, we are sharing the same space with many others, including both fellow audience members and the actors on stage. This is what we come to the theatre for, to have this collective experience.  As audience member, Mason Fader, explains, "the communal experience of it is huge for me and yeah just being able to be there and feel and feel the energy in the presence of everyone else in the room, even if you don't, you know, strictly speaking, interact with them." As Terry O'Sullivan argues, the audience becomes a community through three ways; having shared consciousness, performing collective rituals and traditions, and a having a sense of moral responsibility. As such, this suggest that deviating from these practices and acting against the shared group consciousness, traditions, and responsibilities alienate and outcast you from the community, and everyone wants to be a part of the community. This is seen through audience member, Tracy Harries, who describes this need for validation between audience members to ensure that what their reactions and feelings are is accepted and reciprocated through the community: "He also had no idea what he was doing, and we were beside each other, so I think there was also that kind of camaraderie of like what's going on." Therefore, if the other audience members feels fine, there is a pressure within an individual to also feel the same way as everyone else. If an audience member is triggered and realize no one else around them feel the same, they become alienated from the community. As such, to prevent this alienation, they sit through shows and scenes that are unenjoyable or even triggering to them.

Further, Audiences are also very aware of their presence with actors and audience that they will do anything to be, or at least appear to be, a good audience member, even if it means sitting through something that may not be good for their well-being or they simply don't enjoy. The rising number of articles posted about "poor audience behaviour" in recent years has also helped in creating this almost underlying fear of being seen as one of those bad audience members that are often written about by fellow audience member or publicly complained about by actors. "Patti LuPone famously snatched a phone out of one person in the audience's hand during her performance of Shows for Days in 2015 after they were caught texting", "‘Hadestown’ & Jujamcyn Theaters Apologize And Reaffirm “Commitment To Accessibility” After Actor Calls Out Audience Member With Hearing Loss Using Captioning Device", "Easy way out: why it's weak to walk out on theatre." Headlines and articles such as these have increasingly made audiences hyperaware of their actions and if their actions will be perceived as poor theatre etiquette. The last thing audience member want to do is make a scene that will distract from the show by being a bad audience member, or worse, be publicly shamed for doing something wrong. As such, many continue to sit through shows despite its content possibly being triggering.

This becomes very problematic and concerning as one should not have to sit through something that would harm or trigger them. The root of this issue are the traditional theatre norms and etiquette present within traditional western theatres. The shedding of one’s individuality in order to become a part of the audience community calls for following these norms and traditional etiquette. However, this is not an easy task to simply call for generations of normalized practices to be removed which many consider a tradition. So, what can we as theatre creators and practitioners do to prevent audiences from feeling forced to sit through harmful and possibly traumatic scenes? How can we make them feel comfortable enough to leave when they need to? How can we ensure that trigger warnings get to those who need it?

I would argue that the answer to this is to consider everyone in accessibility. Accessibility is not only to consider those who are hard of hearing, in a wheelchair, or physically disabled. Accessibility should also include those who may have triggers, those who may need to enter and leave the show to use the washroom, etc. As such, considerations for these individuals to feel comfortable leaving the theatre space must be made. Further, accessibility should also be considered in each and every performance not just relaxed and sensory friendly performances. As creators, it is difficult to influence the audience community as a show occurs since we are not a part of the world they have created. We must then look to the resources we have prior to the show starting. The Front of house is essential in this as each audience member will go through this area prior to sitting in the audience. Trigger warnings and audience expectations should be communicated with audience members in this area, whether through a sign or QR code. Further, they should also be accessible in programs if there are any. These were incorporated in the DAN school’s production of Paradise Lost in early 2024, and yet there were still people who left at intermission because they didn’t realize it included topics that were triggering to them. Despite the accessibility coordinator creating trigger warnings and an access package for an audience, they somehow still didn’t reach certain audiences. What else can we do? I look towards the use of pre-show announcements. Pre-show announcements have often been used to enforce certain theatre etiquette guidelines: turn off cellphones, no video or photography, unwrap any candy wrappers now before the show starts, no food or drink in the theatre. However, it also has the potential to be used as a way to communicate audience expectations and trigger warnings to anyone it didn’t reach. The use of pre-show announcements has the potential to set the scene for the audience as well as set the world and environment within the audience community, forcing audiences to create safe spaces for each other rather than simply expecting them to do so for each other. While the audiences have the power to create a world between themselves, we as creators also have the power to force them to create their world within our own set of guidelines and rules before the show starts. Theatre creators and practitioners forget they still have power within the theatre space once the house opens, we should use this power to force the creation safe spaces for those who need it and are forgotten once the show starts.

The Theatre of Live Streaming

By Kiera Watson

Recently, I read the article "A whole theater of others": Amateur Acting and Immersive Spectatorship in the Digital Shakespear Game Play the Knave by Gina Bloom, Sawyer Kemp, Nicholas Toothman, and Evan Buswell. This article introduced me to the concept of video game theatre and got me thinking about how video game spectatorship has evolved drastically in the last decade. I would argue that, due to the popularization of livestreaming websites such as Twitch and YouTube, video game audiences have developed to become more like what we would consider traditional theatre audiences, particularly audiences of interactive theatre.  

My first point to consider is the role of the player in video game settings. In 2009, Clara Fernández-Vara describes how the player plays both the role of interactor with the software as well as audience to the game's aesthetics and experience (6). As the player experiences and explores the software, they discover and witness how their actions result in a reaction in the narrative environment. Fernández-Vara also provides a perspective on video game spectatorship from external parties. She describes how games that have connections to real life live events such as Street Fighter and Dance Dance Revolution lend themselves to audiences as well as video game competitions and e-sports tournaments. Further, players with unique skills and knowledge of games can foster audiences but she stipulates that distribution to these audience is most often through prerecorded sessions and that spectators of video games must have some sort of foundational knowledge of the game mechanics to enjoy watching any form of video game content (7). I would argue that this perspective no longer applies to the current presence of video game spectatorship.  

First, let’s consider the relationship between spectator and player during sessions of Play the Knave. Bloom et al. noted that spectators of these sessions were active participants in the gameplay and often gave advice and directions to the player. While they themselves were not interacting with or able control the software, by watching they established an understanding of the mechanic to a point where they felt confident enough to advise those in control. To me, this is reminiscent of a livestream audience and the “chat” function on streaming sites. During livestreams, audiences can advise and comment on the live streamer's “performance” both within the chat and, in some cases, using text to speech mechanics. Viewers can also interact with polls and in some cases gamble non-monetary points furthering their interaction with the stream. This allows for a more immersed and fully interactive experience for spectators. Play the Knave also shows how audiences can learn game mechanics from a spectator perspective. In the world of livestream, streamers often play newly released games and thus the audience learns with them how the game is played. This in turn makes video gaming more approachable to inexperienced players and spectators. Finally, I would rebuttal the notion that for video games to be an immersive and entertaining experience the game should be competitive or reminiscent of a “real life” live event. As I write this the most popular game on Twitch is Grand Theft Auto V, a game that is played in either narrative form or as an open world, followed by games such as Minecraft and Valorant. This demonstrates that video game audiences find entertainment and immersion from a wide array of video game genres, not only those they feel reflect other audiences they have experienced. 

In conclusion, since Fernández-Vara’s article in 2009 there have been extreme changes to the video game landscape and how spectators interact with gaming. The explosion of online live streaming has helped to cultivate a wider and more interactive online audience for video gaming that is reminiscent of the audiences seen at Play the Knave sessions recorded by Bloom et al. As online streaming continues to grow in popularity, I expect that we will continue to see significant changes in how audiences engage with video gaming and more research into their behavior.  

Works Cited 

Bloom, Gina et. al. “A Whole Theater of Others: Amateur Acting and Immersive Spectatorship in the Digital Shakespear Game Play the Knave.” Shakespeare Quarterly, vol. 67, 2016, pp. 408-430. 

Fernandez-Vara, Clara. "Play's the Thing: A Framework to Study Videogames as Performance." 2009 DiGRA International Conference: Breaking New Ground: Innovation in Games, Play, Practice and Theory (September 2009). 

Mason, David. “Video Games, Theater, and the Paradox of Fiction.” The Journal of Popular Culture, vol. 47, no. 6, 19 Jan. 2015, pp. 1109–1121., https://doi.org/10.1111/jpcu.12200. 

The Performer’s In-Group: A Discussion of Social Identity Theory in Audience Studies

By Kiera Watson

When reflecting on the relationships and groups that form my identity, I think of three things: Student, Camper and most importantly, Performer. These experiences shaped and developed my personality, my self-esteem, and my overall image of myself. So, it is easy for me to understand the notion of reliance and defense of these groups that helped build my foundation. In reading and investing interviews taken at the 2022 Kick and Push Festival, I noticed a trend that interviewees with substantial experience in performance, self-identified performers, were challenged to separate this aspect of their identity from their understanding of their relationships within an audience. In other words, they often isolated themselves from the audience with whom they sat in preference for their experiences onstage. Here I will attempt to examine and offer suggestions to explain this trend through the lens of Social Identity Theory and in-group favoritism.  

To begin, it is important to establish a definition of Social Identity Theory, hereafter referred to as SIT. SIT describes the phenomenon of individual identity and self-understanding being influenced by group and intergroup relationships. It suggests that individuals favor the ingroup to which they feel strongly connected over outgroups due to the ingroups influence on their self-identity. This favoritism can be described as a self-defense response. Henri Tajfel and John Turner suggested that this favoritism stems from a desire to protect one's own self-image by setting it in competition with relevant outgroups. This is referred to as social comparison and can be applied to our understanding of performer identity within an audience.  

I would suggest that the in-group of the performer is so frequently set in contrast or in relation to that of the audience that it is challenging for performers to feel that they belong to a collective audience. Tajfel and Tuner suggest that there is an aspect of competition between in-groups and their relative out-groups and that in-groups themselves can only exist when set in comparison with other groups. Further, in-groups often engage in downward comparisons towards relative out-groups to establish themselves as high status within the social hierarchy. I suggest that individuals who identify as performers have spent extensive amounts of time placed in contrast with those of the audience resulting in a favoritism towards those onstage even when asked about their perceptions of the audience and their experience within one. Thus, they tend to isolate themselves and disconnect from the audience they have spent so long being in competition with. A trend I unearthed within the Kick and Push interviews was the tendency for performers to approach questions from two separate points of view, that of an audience member and that of a performer. In one such interview, when asked to consider what makes a piece of theatre more or less live and real, a participant responded “The realness I think comes from like an acting perspective, like doing like the work and stuff. And then it's like, wow, they're acting so good, that's so real. Um, and then I think like from a participatory perspective, it's like you're getting real reactions from the audience and everything.” (26-28, 15Sept2022530pm-B-Individual-Transcript). The participant separated the question into two perspectives of realness and even so, it could be argued that these points of view both align more strongly with the performer’s perspective than that of the audience.  

SIT also brings into question the performer's opinion of the audience. If we presume that the performer in-group does attempt to establish themselves as higher status than the audience, what does that imply about the relationship between individual performers and the audience they engage with? Do they believe themselves to be more valuable than the audience? These are questions that I cannot answer at this moment but are worthy of larger consideration when discussing theatre-maker/audience respect.  

In conclusion, the connection between SIT and performer identity may help to explain the trend of performers isolating themselves from the audience group when discussing their experiences in theatre. Moving forward, these discussions can help to explain audience intergroup relationships and bring awareness to our own ingroup biases when attending theatre. I know I have been guilty in the past of performer favoritism and this exploration has helped me to recognize my own partiality in audience settings. To further this discussion, I would like to investigate the hierarchy within the theatre, especially as it applies to respect between theatre makers and their audiences.  

Works Cited 

Hornsey, M.J. (2008), Social Identity Theory and Self-categorization Theory: A Historical Review. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 2: 204-222. https://doi-org.proxy.queensu.ca/10.1111/j.1751-9004.2007.00066.x 

Park, S., Kryston, K., & Eden, A. (2021). Social norms and social identity explain the selection and anticipated enjoyment of in-group versus out-group films. Psychology of Popular Media, 10(3), 382–392. https://doi-org.proxy.queensu.ca/10.1037/ppm0000331 

If they will not accept us, we will create a space where we are accepted: The creation of a safe theatre space for BIPOC.

By Jenylle Rufin

Theatre access and creating a safe space for audiences is important to consider for any performance. But who does one think of when they imagine a theatre audience member? It is often a white able-bodied individual. There have been more discussions on starting to consider a more accessible and diverse audience when it comes to creating performance spaces and options for accessibility, and these discussions often surround accessibility for those with disabilities and the creation of safe theatre spaces for neurodivergent individuals. Discussions surrounding the ways in which audiences are forced to act and how theatre etiquette is based off of white able-bodied ideals are rising within the theatre space in recent years. As a result, it has open up ideas to create safe performance spaces within theatre, such as spaces for those who are disabled and neurodivergent through the inclusion of relaxed performances within productions. While it is great that the ableist structure of theatre and theatre etiquette is often discussed, what is often forgotten, however, is how theatre etiquette is rooted in white supremacist ideals and these behaviours that are enforced are based off of white ideas of respect and etiquette. As such, theatre etiquette and theatre norms are not only ableist but also extremely racist.  

As Kirsty Sedgman discusses: "these are spaces which for centuries have overwhelmingly prioritised the experiential preferences of privileged whiteness, and as such often work to make people of colour feel ‘uncomfortable’, ‘inferior’, and ‘out of place’".1 As a result, Black people, and I would extend to people of colour as well, are then forced to "adhere to white codes rather than their own cultural principles in order to be seen as appropriately respectful, and they also need to perform this version of respect in a much more exaggerated and consistent manner than white people".2 The practices of Black people and POC within their own communities differ from how white people act. As a Filipino immigrant, I have experienced this first-hand. When we laugh as a group, we get called out for laughing so loud: "why are you clapping while you laugh?”, “Why are you so loud?" But this is how we show that we are engaged and enjoying what is being discussed. This is also the case in many other cultural groups, but when these actions that people of colour see as displaying that you are being respectful and engaged in the show is brought into the theatre space along with our bodies, it is seen as inappropriate, unruly, and is often policed by fellow white audience members. As American playwright Dominique Morisseau observes, this policing "further marginalize audiences of color and tell them they are not fully welcome in the theatre, except by permission of the white audience.”3 As a result, in order to attempt to feel accepted within theatre spaces, coloured bodies, which are already highly policed in any institution to begin with, are forced to further self-police themselves into acting in a way that is accepted by white audiences.4 But at the end of the day, coloured people never win, since "in order to fit into these overwhelmingly white structures, Amadasun suggests, Black people risk being criticised within their own communities for performing their identity inauthentically, adopting the value systems and languages of whiteness in order to gain access to (and value from) the arts experience."5 While on the one hand coloured people want to be accepted into the theatre space, they must lose parts of their identity and adopt the values of whiteness in order to achieve being accepted into the space.  

This then brings to light the question of who is cast in the audience. Audience casting is done by looking at who the show is often promoted to and who is welcomed6. Since BIPOC individuals' actions are not seen as adhering to proper theatre etiquette, while disabled and neurodivergent individuals having special needs that may be seen as "distracting" to the "normal" theatre goer. It is often white able-bodied individuals who are "cast" into the audience, are seen as the perfect target audience, and given the easiest access these performances. As a result, we see the majority demographic of theatre audiences as white abled individuals who are considered individuals who follow and can enforce proper theatre etiquette. Fortunately, we are seeing more efforts to open up a safe theatre space for disabled and neurodivergent people through the practice of relaxed performance, but how can we also create this same safe space for BIPOC audiences? 

Playwright Jeremy O. Harris brought to life the idea of "Black Out Night" in 2019 for his Broadway show Slave Play. Black out nights were "evenings of a theatrical performance designated for Black-identified audience members only."7 This idea came to life as many Black playwrights realized that many of their shows were very political and "sometimes it’s hard to experience work like that with audiences that don’t look like you. Sometimes you might feel uncomfortable.”8 As a result, Black out nights allowed Black audiences to watch plays by Black playwrights about Black experiences in a safe space to laugh, react, and express themselves with fellow Black audience members without the fear of being judged or policed by white audience members. This practice then not only made audience members aware of who is in the space also who was not in the space; it allowed for them to consider how their experience differs compared to being in a theatre space with white individuals. “Theatre has a white privilege and elitism problem”, as American playwright Dominique Morisseau argues.9 As Kirsty Sedgman discusses, theatres are hesitant to challenge and educate older theatre patrons: "We take their donor money and put them on boards, and we brush their microaggressions off as our old grandma or grandpa who might be a little racist and elitist but are otherwise harmless… It tells the upper-middle-class white audience that theatre is their home first and the rest of us are just guests."10 As a result, BIPOC audiences are further marginalized and are unwelcomed into the theatre space, unless we are given permission by white audiences.11 This is why spaces such as the Black out night become important safe spaces for Black people within theatre. It becomes a space that challenges and rejects white supremacist ideals within theatre and creates a space where Black individuals don't have to can engage, act, and move under the white gaze.  

  The creation of the Black out nights sparks ideas of the different possibilities of creating safe theatre spaces for BIPOC. While relaxed performances create a safe space for disabled and neurodivergent individuals, the experiences within Black out nights poses the questions: should we normalize creating show nights specifically for Black individuals and POC? Just like relaxed performances attempt to create a safe space for those who are disabled, neurodivergent, etc., should we also create a safe space for Black or POC individuals by creating shows specifically for audiences who identify with these racial groups? While this topic will certainly create some debates within the theatre world, it is an important topic to discuss and consider. In the end of the day, everyone deserves a safe space within the theatre. The question is, are we willing to challenge the status quo and create these spaces?  

Audience Power, Jesus Christ Superstar, and Catholic High Schools

By Jenylle Rufin

As audiences watched Jesus' supporters proudly wave a pride flag, fight against police and the government, and witness the death of their radical leader during a production of Jesus Christ Superstar in a Catholic high school, All Saints Catholic Secondary School's production of Jesus Christ Superstar was an interesting audience environment for observation and analysis.  

This past month, I went to watch two performances of Jesus Christ Superstar at my previous high school, All Saints Catholic secondary school in Whitby, Ontario. This modern adaptation of Jesus' death presented the audience with a emotional and radical view on a religious and conservative story. It stirred up many discussions among the audience, some even while the performance was happening. The first performance I went to was the production's opening night. Energies were high, people were excited. Lights dimmed. The show is starting. "Welcome to All Saints catholic secondary school's production of Jesus Christ Superstar…recording and flash photography are strictly prohibited" director and producer Johnny Soln states during his pre-show announcement. Already, restrictions and rules have already been placed on the audience before the curtains even open. I look around the audience as the show starts, everyone looks uniform in the semi-darkness; sitting still, feet away from the isles, no phone in sight. "wow, how much power did we as an audience just unknowingly and unwillingly give to these performers and the producer of this show just by sitting in these seats?", I ask to myself. But as I watched the show I start to question: "did we really give them this power unknowingly and unwillingly?".  

By the third number of the show, I notice an audience member a few seats down from me, practically standing and dancing on the spot as the performers sang and danced. "You're not supposed to be doing that" I said to myself. But then I caught myself, "according to who? Why have we normalized certain actions within the theatre and rejected others?" I wondered. There were never any rules explicitly stating that audiences can't dance on the spot, if anything, as the show went on this audience member started all the cheering and claps and created a great audience atmosphere. This demonstrates how aware we as audiences are about co-presence. We are aware that we are watching this performance with other people and allow each others presence, actions, and energy towards the show also affect our energies and how we act towards the show. As the show progressed, came the torture and death of Jesus. As the characters started to become emotional during their songs, I noticed a long pause then a slowly growing applause. You could practically hear the audiences thinking "am I supposed to clap?" after every emotional scene.  

The second time I watched the show was closing night, one again the show was full, sold out, and started the same way: pre-show announcement, uniform looking audience. However, the audience environment was different this time. Practically all audience members followed proper audience etiquette the whole time, that is, until a controversial image was depicted on stage. As Jesus' supporters had a big number on stage full of singing and dancing in support for Jesus, a large pride flag was waved on stage by one of the actors. I looked around and saw people started talking to each other, pointing at the flag, whispering, shaking their head. Seeing Jesus' supporters on stage proudly waving a pride flag in a catholic high school production caused quite the stir to say the least. But not long after people started to whisper, many started shushing them. And quickly, the audiences snapped back into acting in proper audience etiquette. This is what Baz Kershaw points out in his observation on western audiences in his article "Oh for Unruly Audiences!", "despite[a] play's shocking determination to provoke a riven response, it was largely neutered by the disciplines to which audiences currently submit… audiences have increasingly been prevented from becoming unruly." They explain that "this may be a measure of the disempowerment of both audiences and the communities they may represent." Despite the fact that audiences may have disagreed with what they saw on stage, most still applauded after the number. This expectation of audiences to act a certain way and create a "good" audience rather than an "unruly" audience diminishes any differences within audiences and enforce the audience to be passive and conform to the hegemonic ideals and actions surrounding audiences. This is what Kershaw also expands on as he states that: "communities that are constituted through applause and the other protocols of theatre - however liberal or revolutionary they may be - may rely more on an elimination of difference than on a recognition of legitimate debate, even when the onstage representations celebrate difference and debate." This is not me arguing that those who had an issue with seeing the pride flag on stage should have caused problems within the auditorium, rather I find it quite interesting that many aren't be afraid to speak their mind and discuss their rather controversial beliefs outside of the auditorium, whether it's in person or especially on social media, but once they enter a performance space, with performers on stage and fellow audiences around them, these actions displaying differences and beliefs, which may conflict with what they see one stage and what the majority of audiences believe, suddenly diminish in the attempt to be "proper" audience members. 

Going back to the question that I posed earlier: "how much power did we as an audience just unknowingly and unwillingly give to these performers and the producer of this show just by sitting in these seats? Did we really give them this power unknowingly and unwillingly?". As I observed all of these audience interactions in these show, I realized that rather than the creator and performers imposing their power over us as an audience, we are the ones who are willingly giving them power. Audiences feel the obligation to act a certain way as a form of respect to the performers who work so hard on the performance. Performers are viewed by the audiences to be the professional, and put on a pedestal by audiences. As Kershaw explains, "[audiences] succumbed, probably unwittingly, to the dubious power of the professional; and as they were further transmuted from clients to customers in the past twenty years or so[,] they submitted, maybe even happily, to the dehumanizing dominance of the market." The performers are seen as the "professional expert" and the audiences are the "the subservience of the supplicant-client," as such, audiences became "better behaved." Everything we do as an audience, the way we respond, act, and even sit is done in a way that we are submitting to the performers and done in a way that will benefit the performers the best. This is what Darko Suvin defines as the “unspoken theatre contract.” As the performers put in time and hard labour to entertain the audiences through this performance, in return, the audiences have unspokenly agreed to support the performance and performers in any way they can, and this is usually done by behaving “appropriately.” Audiences were hesitant to clap during emotional scenes because they didn't know if they were supposed to clap, fellow audiences told others to be quiet because the talking would distract the performers and be seen as "unruly", and audiences always ended each performance with a standing ovation. As such, the way we act as audiences is not imposed or forced onto us by the creators or performers, rather it is something we as audiences willingly do. We are willingly giving the performers the power, acting in the way we think the performers would want us to, and correcting fellow audiences who don't act accordingly. While this demonstrates the power relationships in a performance between the performer/creators vs. audience it also demonstrates the power relationship of audience vs. audience. While audiences continuously maintain a power relationship between themselves and the performers that is constantly shifting, we often forget about the power relationships we as audiences have on each other. Audience not only influence each other and the energy within the room but also police each other in order to maintain proper audience etiquette. 

A New Shift in Audience Behaviour

By Chanel Sheridan

A quick scan of theatre news highlights that there is clearly something going on with audiences since lockdowns ended and returning to theatre with few restrictions. From the horrid stories of misbehaving audience members, such as the singing that cancelled a Manchester production of The Bodyguard, to endless Twitter and Reddit users posting their experiences online, it feels as though there has been a major shift in audiences since returning from the pandemic (Bland 2023). Yet, looking further back, we can see some of the same discussions appearing in 2015 after an audience member attempt to charge their phone from an outlet on stage (“Man climbs onto Broadway stage” 2015). This blog post will explore the trends in audience misbehavior, focusing specifically on the surge in discussion in both 2015 and post-pandemic, highlighting the patterns I have witnessed within my research on audience etiquette. I hope to build on this topic and its discoveries throughout future blog posts, using this first one to lay a foundation through which I can build on with greater analysis. 

With headlines such as “Story of the Week: Is Theatre Etiquette Dead?”, “Has Covid-19 affected Theatre etiquette?”, and “Theatre etiquette: Do you sing-along at musicals? Are we becoming ruder? And what to do about drunk patrons? Toronto Ushers weigh in”, it seems as though we are experiencing a crisis with audience etiquette (Stweart 2023; Cudzikova 2023; Sumi 2023). There are ample news articles that highlight how audience members are not only no longer adhering to audience etiquette, but also abusing staff members and causing shows to stop. Bywater (2023), Healy (2023) and Hujl (2023) are among some of the authors which describe how things have changed, citing how “complaints were up to 150 percent on pre-pandemic" and surveys which describe 70% of respondents reporting an increase in “bad audience behaviour” that has increased since reopening after the pandemic.  

Speculations on why we’re seeing this increase in bad etiquette vary from increased alcohol consumption, audience expectations not matching with advertising and desired audience behaviour, to audience members becoming more narcissistic and entitled. The entitlement is possibly due to the increase in ticket costs as “people who pay ridiculous sums to see a West End production feel entitled to do what they like” paired with “disputes between audience members who feel entitled to warble along to their favourite songs, and those who expect to watch the shows in silence” (Hjul 2023; Saville 2022). Yet, as Sedgman outlines in their book, published before the pandemic, they “have found a tendency to assume that breaches [in audience etiquette] can be put down to a rise in audience ‘entitlement’” (Sedgman 2018:125). While they go on to say that they had noticed a change in audience behaviour at the time, this ultimately reveals that audience etiquette seems to be frequently sounding the alarm on the entitlement of audience members.  

Looking back to the conversation on audience etiquette that occurred in 2015 also reveals some interesting similarities to ongoing conversations currently. Despite the conversation being smaller and seemingly less urgent, there is still the notion of audience entitlement and narcissism present in the articles from 2015. An article from the CBC highlights how “inconsideration isn’t new, or particular to theatres. But as technology and social media blur lines between personal and public, ‘there’s been an erosion in people’s norms of public space’” (Associated Press 2015). Both instances put the blame of audience misbehaviour onto a lack of knowing how to engage with others, often further blamed on some force that is separating people from each other socially; In 2015, it was the rise of technology and phone use in theatres that sparked the discussion, while in 2023, the isolation and lockdowns forcing people to stay home seems to be the focus.  

Yet, despite the similarities and constant discussions surrounding the end of theatre etiquette, there is no mention of the surge in conversation from 2015 in articles being written today. As Bland (2023) puts it straightforwardly, it seems strange that “the good old days of polite theatregoing always seems to have just finished”, almost seeming to erase or forget previous conversations surrounding theatre etiquette. However, one major difference to highlight between the discussion in 2015 and today is that the conversation post-pandemic is heightened with urgent calls for action. The tone of news articles is more dramatic, angry, and patronizing with a focus on the more serious of issues such as verbal and physical assault, disrupting shows, and vomiting in the aisles rather than the smaller disruptions of eating and phone calls seen in the 2015 articles.  

While more research and analysis needs to be conducted, there is clearly some kind of shift that is occurring, having escalated from 2015 after the pandemic, though what exactly is happening still remains to be seen. As Lueger speculated in 2015, “perhaps the rules promulgated by Wagner and his contemporaries are finally starting to show their age”. Whether theatre etiquette as we know it breaking down, the pandemic’s isolation made us forget how to be around each other, or something else altogether, whatever has been brewing since 2015 is shifting audience behaviour.  

Bibliography 

Associated Press. “Broadway audience boorishness, smartphone fauz pas get spotlight.” CBC News, July 20, 2015. https://www.cbc.ca/news/entertainment/broadway-audience-boorishness-smartphone-faux-pas-get-spotlight-1.3160011. 

Bland, Archie. “Tuesday briefing: Is there really a crisis in theatre audience behaviour – or is this all overdramatic?” The Guardian, April 11, 2023. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/apr/11/first-edition-theatre-audience-behaviour. 

Bywater, Thomas. “Bodyguard musical performance halted by singing audience, theatre etiquette is split.” NzHerald, April 12, 2023. https://www.nzherald.co.nz/travel/bodyguard-musical-performance-halted-by-singing-audience-theatre-etiquette-is-split/T3QVRICISZGDJCJDJMCMLWW6OE/. 

Cudzikova, Amelia. “Has Covid-19 affected Theatre etiquette? Amelia Cudzikova, Heathside.” This is Local London, April 25, 2023. https://www.thisislocallondon.co.uk/news/23480968.covid-19-affected-theatre-etiquette/. 

Healy, Rachel. “’We’ve had to stop people fighting and urinating in their seats’: the ugly new side of theatre audiences.” The Guardian, April 10, 2023. https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2023/apr/10/bodyguard-police-fighting-urinating-seats-ugly-new-side-of-theatre-audiences. 

Hjul, Jenny. “Mamma Mia! Poor audience behaviour is taking the sheen off the theatre.” Reaction, April 8, 2023. https://reaction.life/mamma-mia-poor-audience-behaviour-is-taking-the-sheen-off-the-theatre/. 

“Man climbs onto Broadway stage to charge his cell phone.” CBC News, July 8, 2015. https://www.cbc.ca/news/trending/charge-phone-on-stage-broadway-1.3143699. 

Saville, Alice. “Trouble in the stalls: when audience drama upstages the show.” The Guardian, March 5, 2022. https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2022/mar/05/trouble-in-the-stalls-audience-theatre-disruptive-behaviour-noisy. 

Sedgman, Kristy. The Reasonable Audience: theatre etiquette, behaviour, policing, and the live performance experience. Palgrave Macmillian, 2018. 

Stewart, Zachary. “Story of the Week: Is Theater Etiquette Dead?” Theatremania, April 14, 2023. https://www.theatermania.com/news/story-of-the-week-is-theater-etiquette-dead_1697971/. 

Sumi, Glenn. “Theatre etiquette: Do you sing-along at musicals? Are we becoming ruder? And what to do about drunk patrons? Toronto ushers weigh in.” Toronto Star, April 14, 2023. https://www.thestar.com/entertainment/stage/2023/04/14/theatre-etiquette-do-you-sing-along-at-musicals-are-we-becoming-ruder-and-what-to-do-about-drunk-patrons-toronto-ushers-weigh-in.html. 

Contradiction and Audience Affect

By Bethany Schaufler-Biback and Chanel Sheridan

Throughout both rounds of data analysis for the Being Together project, there has been a reoccurring trend of audiences contradicting their wants, needs, and understandings of their experiences in theatre. During the first year of the project, Bethany wrote a preliminary blog post pointing towards this trend. These contradictions include but aren’t limited to how audience members define their role, identify the sorts of theatre they enjoy seeing, and how they wish to be affected by a production. As discussed in the preliminary blog post, many of these contributions can likely be attributed to a complex relationship to theatre and its various forms and unique asks.  

A contradiction that we found to be particularly intriguing in both rounds of analysis pertains to affect. We have often found that audience members will describe their experience, detailing the event with a consistent tone, whether it be positive, negative, or neutral, and then recount their overall feeling towards the show as an affect that is strikingly different than that of which they described the show with. For instance, an audience member might only share negative aspects of the show when discussing their experience, and then assign the overall encounter as positive. When explaining these shifts, we noticed a reoccurring theme where the difference in overall affect appeared to be linked to those people shared space with during the given theatre experience. Through applying works from Sara Ahmed and Jordan Tannahill alongside Being Together audience data, we aim to investigate the ways in which co-presence is one factor that can lead to one affect having dominance over another affect within the same encounter.   

To illustrate how co-presence can work as the tipping point in determining which affective response has dominance in a theatre experience, let’s imagine theatre as having the ability to be both a “happy object” and not a “happy object”. In her work, “Happy Objects”, Sara Ahmed explains that humans create attachments to “objects”, that they deem to be a source or cause of happiness (29). If the participant in question views theatre as a happy object, sharing space in the theatre with their friends, or even strangers (especially after covid), may be able to satisfy the audience member regardless of the favourability of the show. 

 The first example occurs within Zoe Gordon’s individual interview within the 5Oct20217pm-Individual-RM-Transcript file. The contradiction of affects arises from answering a question pertaining to whether they felt as though the shared excitement of attending theatre with other people has changed post covid for them. They specifically address how they have an increased appreciation for attending shows with others and speculates that people are “craving any sort of like…connection with with others, so I think like, and I think the answer is such an underrated connection with others” (Gordon, line 147). The contradiction with their affect experience arises through an example in which they describe attending a show over the summer that was terrible yet “there was so much joy in that like we left and you’re like K, that was bad, but how much fun did we have together, like if I had watched that on my laptop at home, I would have been miserable” (Gordon, line 148-150). In this instance, the production itself creates a negative affective response, yet, there is also a positive affective response because of the connection created with others through this shared negative affect.  

On the contrary, if a person does not view theatre as a “happy object”, or in other words, theatre is not viewed as a source of happiness, inspiration or aspiration, and therefore do not anticipate or hold positive expectations towards attending theatre, elements of co-presence could actually lead to the audience member’s experiential detriment. In Tannahill’s essay, “Boredom: The Boring Play”, he discusses how unlike other art forms where a disliked song or book won’t lead audiences to “writ[e] off [the] entire form”, the communal elements of theatre can have this impact on its consumers. While in Zoe’s example, the negative show was neutralized with the positive collective experience, Tannahill argues that for those who don’t identify as a “theatre person”, the experience of watching unfavorable show doesn’t read as a positive communal ingroup, but rather an uncomfortable or negative experience.   

The second example occurs within the 15Sept2022630pm-MB-Individual-Transcript file and the second round of interviews. This example comes from a response to the question of which moments stand out to them as an audience member. They describe how it “was a super cool project” yet it was also “super emotionally devastating at times though too” (David, lines 137-138). They highlight a moment in which the actors had just finished an intense fight and someone started playing Mad World on the guitar, describing it as “very sad but also like hilarious because it’s fucking Mad World” (David, line 145). This element was further highlighted when later, an audience member laughs at this moment of the production (David, line 147). In this instance, the negative affective response is shifted to positive through the audience member’s laughter. 

  These observations of affective contradiction within audience member’s experiences have raised many questions warranting further attention. While we have specifically focused on highlighting how co-presence works alongside these affective contradictions, are there other factors, such as audience reward, show content, or audience comfort, which also impact the affective contradictions? Furthermore, we question what the tilting point is that allows one affective response to be the “dominant” one of an audience member’s experience of a show. Do other factors change this point and does it change over time? How, if at all, does the dominant affective response shift as audience members reflect on and create new meanings from past show experiences? Finally, we question what potential arises from these understandings of contradictory audience affective experiences. Does this present an argument for the potential productiveness of negative affect? How can community building arise from the potential negative affects and what is the implication of that within theatre creation? In conclusion, while the scope of exploring the contradictory affective experiences of audience members is beyond the scope of this blog post, we have attempted to highlight the potential of inquiring into these contradictions. The untapped potential of understanding the affect contradictions of audience members can lead to a deeper understanding of the ways in which audience members create meaning from theatre experiences.  

Works Cited 

Ahmed, Sara. “Happy Objects.” The Affect Theory Reader, Duke University Press, 2010, pp. 29-51. 

Tannahill, Jordan. “Boredom: The Boring Play.” Theatre of the Unimpressed: In Search of Vital Drama, Coach House Books, 2015, pp. 21-27. 

Audience Participation within New Societies

By Chanel Sheridan

There is a clear notion within the theatre world of good audiences versus bad. With the voice of the Stage Manager in my ear, I have held doors open for actors returning from the stage, echoing disappointments of the “bad” audience occupying the theatre tonight. Oftentimes, this comes from a lack of response or engagement that deflates the energy actors seem to feed off. This calls attention to the apparent importance of participation within audiences, yet as Matthew reason argues, it goes beyond a simple binary of a passive versus active audience. This blog post will highlight Matthew Reason’s and Astrid Breel’s writings surrounding audience participation and the aesthetic experience within the Being Together research.  

Both Breel and Reason highlight the importance of audience participation as it is integral to the aesthetic creation and structure of the work itself (Breel 2015: 369; Reason 2015: 271). This is easily identifiable within New Societies as audience members directly impact the show, seen through one interviewee who describes how “the piece does not go on without me. Um I am not only participating, but I am influencing the course of this show” (3Aug2022730pm-B2-NS-Group-Transcript, line 101). Yet, the interviewee takes a step further, acknowledging their participation within New Societies as beyond simply participating, but influencing. This in turn reflects upon Breel’s notion of the audience member’s aesthetic experience in which “the responses and actions of the participants become part of the fabric of the show” (Breel 2015: 358).  

Reflecting upon Bourriaud’s argument, Reason also highlights the contribution of the audience through describing how “the purpose of the artwork becomes ‘to invent possible encounters’” (Reason Citing Bourriaud 2015: 273). Within New Societies, this invention of possibilities is seen through an understanding of the rules of the show and a desire to push those boundaries. Interviewee Stacey Carter outlines this through their experience at the show, participating with family who were playing at another table. They describe a desire to create “chaos” and “fun”, not just for themselves but for the other audience members they knew personally, specifically trying to “add some little fun for them” (4Aug2022730pm-K1-Group-NS-Transcript, line 13). They however also emphasized the importance of the experiences of author audience members, only wishing to create chaos if the others at their table also agreed, stating that “in my mind when I’m doing participatory theatre like this I wanna have a good time, but I also want to make sure the people I’m participating with are having a good time” (4Aug2022730pm-K1-Group-NS-Transcript, line 15). This reflects not only the invention of different possible encounters thus shaping the experience of the show, but also reflects the individuality of each audience member within their form of participation.  

Finally, I would like to take a moment to ponder the show’s connection to both Biggins’ and Ranciere’s fears. Within the audience participatory experience, they describe a fear of missing a key “intrinsic” insight to the experience or only focusing on the consumption of the experience instead of reflection (Reason citing Biggins and Ranciere 2015: 276). Specifically, I would like to raise some questions in relation to our research. Firstly, if the experiences of audience members are completely individualized and present within the very fabric of the show, how can specific insights be missing? If the participation of the audience comes in so varied forms as described by Reason and Breel, then does not the implication of something “missing”, of only “consuming” the experience not discredit those individual forms of participation from which the fabric of the show is built? In building the show, does the experience then not become something inherently more than participating and consuming through the co-creation of the audience?  

In conclusion, this blog post has attempted to highlight the different forms of audience participation within New Societies. Touching on arguments and reflections from Breel and Reason, these connections reveal a need for constantly repositioning our findings through the lens of individual audience member experiences. There is clearly a well of information to be tapped into concerning participation within this show, of which I have begun to only draw the simplest of connections.  

Breel, Astrid. "Audience agency in participatory performance: A methodology for examining aesthetic experience." Participations: Journal of Audience & Reception Studies 12, no. 1 (2015): 368-387

Reason, Matthew. "Participations on Participation. Research the “active” theatre audience." Participations: Journal of Audience and Reception Studies 12, no. 1 (2015): 271-280.

Safety?

By Bethany Schaufler-Biback 

“Um being in an audience is safe. There’s a safety in numbers, um there's something comforting about being a part- about being a part of this collective together” (Maeve, 15 Aug 2022) mentions an audience member while reflecting on the importance of being a part of a collective. The sentiment of feeling comfort and safety within a group of people gathering for a common experience is not unfamiliar to discussions of theatre audiences. As noted by Jill Dolan, performance has the potential to “temporary communities” amongst those congregating to share the experience together. In this blog post, I’d like to investigate methods that audience members employ with the goal of preserving the sought after safe communal experience that many desire when attending theatre.  

Let’s consider a few ways in which audiences experience feelings of safety as a result of being a part of a theatre collective. As described by Erin Hurley, theatre is an ‘affective machine’ (2007), and such affects produced by theatre contribute to the temporal community of audience members. In coming together to share space and time, visible and recognizable affects serve as a reminder that audience members are sharing a unique moment with one another. There is pleasure in taking notice that a stranger had a similar response to a specific instance as yourself, and in turn these shared affects connect audience members together and in turn may reinforce feelings of safety. Especially when considering more vulnerable feelings in a social setting such as crying, seeing strangers around you taking part in the same vulnerable emotion leads to reassurance and validation which contribute to a feeling of safety. Take this audience quote for instance: 

“In there in the theatre there are other people feeling this. One very specific memory of like that experience in a theatre was like when I saw Dear Evan Hansen in Toronto, there was um the song “So Big, So Small”. Somebody in the audience like loud sobbing and we were like, I feel you. I’ve been there, done that. Um, I wanted to like find them and be like it's gonna be okay I promise, but they were like, on the other side of the theatre and you know, theatre rules you're not supposed to do that.” (Olivia, 27 Sept 2021).  

Here, Olivia recalls feeling a greater connection to the other audience member due to their audible and recognizable affect despite being across the theatre. She goes onto say “Um, but like when I’m there, supported by other people I’m like: Ah yes, I am here to experience emotions with other people exciting times. Um, and that's when I like feel very free to go on the emotional journey. Mhm” (ibid). In these memories recounted by Olivia, sharing affects with those around her led to feelings of connectedness as well as freeness in the experience.  

From a psychology perspective, similar sentiments of feeling safety in numbers can be connected to concepts such as emotional baseline theory and situation selection. Emotional baseline theory suggests that when gathering in a collective, specifically in predictable social environments, those within the collective’s are cognitively encouraged to return to their “emotional baseline state of relative calm” (Beckes & Coan, 2011). Beckes & Coan go on to write “When proximity is maintained or re-established, the brain is simply less vigilant for potential threats, because it is embedded within the social environment to which it is adapted (n.p. 2011). As for situation selection, it is the act of choosing to be a part of environments that one deems to maintain their desired emotional impact (Webb et al., 2017). Both of these concepts involve perception of surroundings with particular attention to the people they are sharing space with. Further, they involve having a desired emotional impact accompanied by a desire to act in ways that maintain the sought after emotional impact. What I find particularly interesting about these two concepts in conversations with feelings of collective safety in theatre are the conditions which allow these theories to be successful in influencing feelings of safety. Both concepts continually attribute the positive benefits of sharing space with one another such as feeling “less vigilant” or a sense of calm to the “understood and adapted social environment”. In the case of theatre, these positive benefits assume that all who are a part of the collective have had engagement in a theatrical social environment, and therefore have adapted to the social expectations in place at theatre performance. This points to questions of who in theatre audiences’ feelings of safety serve, and who the desired feelings are being maintained for.  

Beckes, Lane and Coan, James. “Social Baseline Theory: The Role of Social Proximity in Emotion and Economy of Action.” Social and Personality Psychology Compass, vol. 5, no. 12, 2011, pp. 976-988.  

Hurley, Erin. Theatre & Feeling. Palgrave Macmillan, 2017.  

Thomas L. Webb, Kristen A. Lindquist, Katelyn Jones, Aya Avishai & Paschal Sheeran (2018) Situation selection is a particularly effective emotion regulation strategy for people who need help regulating their emotions, Cognition and Emotion, 32:2, 231-248, DOI: 10.1080/02699931.2017.1295922 

Performative Exchange as Conducive to Theatrical Sense-Making

By Jacob Pittini

Through our tiered audience research method, we used prompts to probe audiences for a variety of different information relating to their experiences as audience members. A key goal of this process is accumulating empirical audience data from audience members themselves in order to examine how audiences perceive, understand and produce co-presence. These prompts represent an ask for audiences to re-collect their histories, re-examine their role and re-evaluate their understandings but also cumulatively contribute to a unique sense-making process.  

The overall procedure of our research methodology invites audiences to put to words feelings and beliefs which they may not be familiar with expressing. This act, of audience members externalizing their internal governing principles which subconsciously influence their behaviour as an audience member during an interview necessitates them developing consciousness of these principals which they may not have previously held. This consciousness affords our participants the opportunity to consider the nature of these principles, their origins and impact on their participation within the realm of theatre. Our methodology is therefore a bilaterally beneficial learning experience wherein our research simultaneously enhances the understandings of both interviewer and interviewee. Audiences perform a unique sense-making process where form follows function, exploring copresence while consciously experiencing copresence.  

The bilateral impact of the Being Together methodology is of particular significance as it partially replicates the conditions of the very performances we survey audiences after. Paralleling the particular ontology of participatory theatre, which the show Roll Models in our data represents, we generate boundaries and then empower participants to play within them as per their individual identities, experiences and ensuing insights. Through inviting audiences to vocalize their conceptions and essentially perform their understandings of audience role we rely on a similar autopoietic exchange to that which we ask them to make sense of by asking them about co-presence and to define the role of the audience. Audiences and performers exist in a feedback loop of perception and participation which our interviews simulate as we create a frame for our interviewees to participate within.  

Audience research uniquely exists at a junction between perspectives, where the researcher prompts specific performative participation, yet the subjects exert ultimate control over which experiences they share and how. The information this methodological exchange therefore provides reveals insight into a complex sense-making process on an individual basis, and “how people from different subject positions and social locations actively make sense of things by drawing on varying ‘cultural reference points, political beliefs, sexual preferences, personal histories, and immediate preoccupations’” (Sedgman p. 318, quoting Helen Freshwater p. 6). Questions about the identity and history of participants during individual interviews or emergent distinct viewpoints in group interviews emphasize the individualistic nature of audience members. This nature is clear even as they view themselves as part of a collective audience, and greater theatre community as opinions and understandings on how audience members should behave and what role they fulfill differ.  

The methodological approach of our audience research is crucial to circumventing the reality that finding universal meaning is impossible through data which we characterize as deeply personal, individualized experiences. Our goal lies in the inherent ephemerality of audiences and their shifting perceptions and realities as they juxtapose to the constant experience of copresence. The experience and consciousness of copresence is a universal reality of theatre. The return to in person performances amidst pandemic necessitates a revaluation of copresence at this crucial zeitgeist while also ensuring a generally heightened awareness by all in the realm of theatre and theatre studies which we’ve sought to grasp. There is no one way to be an audience member, and there is no universal answer to our query of what the role of the audience is, but asking these questions remains worthwhile as our examination of perceptions and awareness of copresence as a fundamental aspect of theatre through the audience initiates a mutually informative sense-making process.  

Our methodology found instances of audiences believing that there were right or wrong answers to our open-ended questions or noting a lack of certainty in terms of specific terminology or definitions. This points to a lack of consciousness, as in our interviews audience members gradually define and experience conceptions of audiencing subconsciously. This participation, in response to our prompts leads to a performative sense-making. This sense-making can beneficially foster a consciousness within the audience members we interview but also reveals how they may feel hyper critical of their own abilities to express their understandings or believe us to valuate them.  

“This will not be the correct definition of liveness but…”  

“I don’t know how to describe this…”  

“A bit hard to describe I’m sorry” 

“I don’t know if it’s valuable, but it’s just something I want to say”  

(18Oct20217pm-Individual-RM-RH-Transcript) 

“I’m trying to formulate what my answer is…”  

“I meant to say something else… forget that.” 

(18Oct20218pm-Individual-RM-Transcript) 

“I don’t know if this is what you’re looking for”  

“I just wanted to make sure I’m understanding the question”  

(5Oct20218pm(J)-Individual-RM-Transcript) 

“I hadn’t thought about that very much”  

“I’m sorry to be so general”  

“it might just be a useless thought”  

(7Oct20217pm-Individual-RM-Transcript) 

Erika Fischer Lichte speaks of ‘transformative aesthetics,’ how exposure to performance impacts an individual in an emergent way, as art “can change the ideas, attitudes, habits of a single, singular person” (Peric). Instead of devaluing the singular participation of an audience member because they exist as part of a greater audience, and only one part of a feedback loop, we must empower them to make sense of their own participation and value their findings. Participants may not possess a scholarly vocabulary and extensive awareness of their own perceptions of copresence but they are familiar with theatrical copresence, and audience research can replicate this copresence in order to prompt an informative and performative consciousness of individual experience. In line with Fischer Lichte’s concept of ‘transformative aesthetics’ the impact of copresence at an individual level is essential to uncovering the overall impact of any performance. Moving away from seeking to assume and define a universal impact of a performance, as we are unavoidably aware of the inherent differences within audience members, we can instead examine how audiences experience of copresence reveals fundamental realities of theatre.  

Peric, Tina. “Understanding vs Experiencing: An Interview with Erika Fischer Lichte” Critical Stages issue 14, December 2016. https://www.critical-stages.org/14/understanding-versus-experiencing-interview-with-erika-fischer-lichte/ 

Sedgman, Kirsty. "Audience experience in an anti-expert age: A survey of theatre audience research." Theatre Research International 42, no. 3 (2017): 307-322.  

Risk vs Reward: Balancing Desire and Apprehension Through Audience-Performer Dichotomy

By Jacob Pittini

What risks do audiences take? Why do they take them? What contexts and structures inherent to performance perpetuate this balancing act and empower audiences to participate as they do? How do audiences perceive and describe this reality?  

In our data set we have found evidence that supports the intuitive notion that audiences are generally aware and drawn to theatre for its liveness, and the perception that a theatrical experience is a constructed moment representing shared time and space.  

“If it was like filmed and live streamed or something or like recorded and shown after I don’t think it would have the same impact as seeing it being created right in front of you” (24Aug2021630pm-Group-RM-Transcript, 36) 

In light of our questions focusing specifically on the Kick and Push Festival as it represents a return to in-person theatre, this physical dimension is especially important to consider. Within this shared theatrical space audiences experience their surroundings through their senses constituting perception, which, to put it colloquially, is a two-way street. These surroundings include the physical environment of the theatre experience as well as all who occupy it, including other audience members and performers and other categories of creators who perceive them in turn. This perception is of course key to theatre and a part of the autopoietic feedback loop of performance. My particular focus at this junction is the notion of risk, associated with participating in a performance and how it is offset by reward in a codependent relationship characterized by the audience-performer dichotomy. I also understand participatory theatre to operate within this same risk vs reward relationship while deconstructing the audience-performer dichotomy, to an extent.  

Primarily, the risk of embodied participation as strictly an audience member appears inherently perceived by our participants as less than the reward. Although audiences have an embodied presence in all live in-person performance events, there are cues that they are not the ‘focus’ so to speak and therefore less at risk of unwanted perception. These include preconceived notions about western theatre and conventions such as audiences being seated in the dark or in spatial organizations to primarily view the performers rather than each other. The role of audiences is often seen as fixed and static, requiring their presence but assessing the perception as mostly one-sided; “My view of theatre is always oh you sit in a row, and like you’re there and watch them” (22Aug2021830pm-Group-RM-Transcript2, 196). Audiences are aware that they are perceived by others and have a responsibility to receive the performance in a perceivable way. Audience members flag this awareness as key to motivating their perceivable expression of reactions such as laughing or clapping, often supplementing natural occurrences and sometimes outright replacing them; “if someone says like a joke or something, and I get the sense that something is supposed to be funny, but it doesn’t really feel funny I still like laugh” (29Aug20215pm-Group-RM-Transcript, 149). These decisions are influenced by the space and collective they are immersed in, with audience’s preconceived expectations or similar behaviour from the collective reducing the risk of enacting this presence.  

Audience members thus feel protected to an extent by the audience-performer dichotomy. Despite being able to acknowledge their capacity to have an impactful embodied presence, audience members typically feel empowered and rewarded by this sense of purpose rather than at risk. Instead of risk, audience members safe in their role within the dichotomy may feel a sense of responsibility to act in a certain way; “it should be rigorous to be an audience member, to not just like sit there and kind of like only receive like they’re also um, in a way, like motivating the action on stage to kind of keep going.” (24August2021830pm-Group-RM-Transcript, 101-104).  

Participatory theatre however complicates this dichotomy while not entirely deconstructing the risk vs reward relationship. For example, the existence of audience participation in the case of volunteers or pre-selected participants from the audience can actually heighten confidence and comfort in the role of audience members in contrast to their explicitly participating fellow members. One audience member recalled witnessing audience participation as; “watching the players who are part of the audience and thanking God I wasn’t one of them” (26Aug20216pm-Group-RM-Transcript, 31).  

In one example, an audience member had an opportunity to participate as an audience player in the participatory Roll Models show during a tech run, after which they attended the production as an audience member. This participant found themselves “wishing that I had some sort of say” (26Aug20216pm-Group-RM-Transcript, 105) and said, “I felt like I wanted more participation” (26Aug20216pm-Group-RM-Transcript, 107) showing a desire to exert control within the performance. My consideration, and what I believe to warrant further, deeper analysis is whether an aversion to participatory theatre is due to the nature of participating, or an inherent belief that the risk has shifted to outweigh the reward in such theatrical contexts. Audiences are thrilled by risks, feeling excited by unexpected interruptions or things they perceive to go awry which actually enhance their experience as they are integrated into the performance.  

“And there is also something very special and happy about having it set in a park in a very public space, open to all the elements. In the end of our show, it began to rain, and you started to see stage managers come running and taking out the speaker and being like “oh sorry to bother you can I just because I just grab this?” So, you're seeing all the mechanics at work and there's just like something beautiful about all these people coming together, and yet the audience still transfixed on the players and even if we are kind of, um, distracted it doesn't take away from the show, it adds to it.” (30Aug20215pm-Group-RM-Transcript, 237-241).  

These moments serve to enhance the liveness of a theatrical event and empower the audience member as a conscious participant of a specific event in a shared time and space. The reward for this is that they get something special and unique which they enjoy being a part of. The risk is part of the appeal, it relates to the inherent, desirable theatrical elements of liveness and co-presence. The risk, however, can also be a deterrent, and needs to be shouldered by the facilitators for most theatre-goers, though not all. This shouldering may occur through maintaining the dichotomy, other audience members stepping up to participate, or performers/creators establishing clear expectations for audience participants.  

Participatory theatre gradually affords more power to the audience members and with-it greater risk and responsibility which has the potential to lead to a greater reward. Audiences thus necessitate a complex duality of fixed expectations and room for experimentation in their participation, so they may enjoy the empowering process of becoming a similar subject of perception as performer/creators without being restrained by the risks they perceive as they construct their understandings of their role as audience members.    

The Performer as Caregiver

By Bethany Schaufler-Biback

Since the events of Travis Scott’s Astroworld concert on November 5th, 2021, which led to 10* deaths and numerous injuries, great attention has been brought to the safety of attendees and the role in which the performer plays in their audience’s safety (CBC News, 2021). After the concert, many Astroworld attendees were enraged claiming that Travis chose to ignore the calls for help from the audience. Despite Scott expressing that he couldn’t hear the calls for help while performing, these claims led to much uproar across social media platforms such as Twitter and TikTok (ET Canada, 2021). People began sharing videos of times artists assisted fans when noticing they needed help as means to prove that something could have been done to prevent or lessen the casualties of Astroworld. Following suit of those on social media, media outlets such as Buzzfeed and PopSugar leapt to producing lists of instances when artists stopped shows to help fans. From November 5th – November 30, 2021 alone, at least 15** articles were published bringing attention to artists in the past who have helped their audience when in need (do I need to cite every one?). As described in these articles, performers stopping performance to assist fans isn’t a novel occurrence. However, the incident that occurred at Astroworld has undoubtedly sparked interest in the performer’s role in audience safety amongst the general public, calling into question what exactly the performer’s responsibility is to the audience during live performance.  

In early June I attended my first concert since the beginning of the pandemic. Here I saw Phoebe Bridgers in Toronto at Echo Beach: an outdoor venue that neighbours the water. Despite the excitement of returning to concerts, what was especially notable about this experience was the mere number of times the performance was called to a halt by the performer on account of audience members requiring medical attention for reasons such as fainting. In this single concert, the performance was stopped 5 times.  

With each pause of the performance, it was clear where the audience drew the line of acceptable reasons to stop the performance and inexcusable disturbances. The first audience member that needed help was close to the area where I was located, meaning that myself and those around me could visibly conceptualize the person who needed assistance and see them receive aid. During this instance, I could hear those around me expressing concern and hopes that the person needing help was ok. Each member that needed help afterwards was nowhere near where I was standing. As the second, third, fourth, and fifth person needed the medics causing the show to cease for a few moments, the concerned comments faded into mutterings amongst those around me. Comments of care turned to sighs of discontent and frustration of those requesting help. Comments included but weren’t limited to assumptions of people seeking help from the performer for attention to complaints of patrons not properly taking care of themselves prior to the concert resulting in dehydration and fainting. For the last few occurrences, I overheard a group of 3 people in front of me displeasingly express that the dehydration of someone who didn’t take care of themselves shouldn’t be Phoebe’s responsibility while she is trying to perform1. 

This question of performer responsibility and safety has relevance across all forms of live performance. When considering my experience at Phoebe Bridgers in relation to the Travis Scott incidents, I was reminded of the safety and responsibility conversation that is occurring regarding participatory and immersive theatre. Companies known for their immersive experiences such as Punchdrunk have reported multiple instances of assault during their performances. Given their anonymized “go and explore” audience model, audience members and performers alike find themselves in situations where much of their safety is at the expense of those, they are sharing space with. When considering safety and responsibility in each of these modes of live performance, what is the performer’s job when considering audience safety? And where is the line drawn that leaves audiences ultimately responsible for their own wellbeing? I think these two questions call attention to perhaps a contract between the audience and performers during a live performance. What would the responsibilities of a performer as a care giver entail? And if the performer is to take on a caregiver role over the audience, what is the audience’s responsibility to the performer (i.e., in the case of the Phoebe Bridgers concert, should audience members be queueing over 12 hours without proper food and water prior to performance? While I have no finite answers or insights for these plentiful questions right now, they are ones that that I will to continue to investigate while I research audience safety in theatre, and hope to respond to these questions in the mode of a subsequent blog post.  

Works Cited 

ET Canada. Travis Scott Says He 'Didn't Hear' Cries For Help At Astroworld Festival. YouTube, YouTube, 9 Dec. 2021, www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1zg8yU1U18&ab_channel=ETCanada.  

Sloss, Morgan. “17 Times Musicians Stopped Their Shows to Prioritize the Safety of Their Fans.” BuzzFeed, BuzzFeed, 11 Nov. 2021, www.buzzfeed.com/morgansloss1/musicians-stopped-shows-safety-travis-scott-astroworld.  

“Travis Scott Concert Deaths Were Caused by Compression Asphyxia, Officials Say | CBC News.” CBCnews, CBC/Radio Canada, 16 Dec. 2021, www.cbc.ca/news/entertainment/travis-scott-concert-deaths-compression-asphyxia-1.6288786.  

Vargas, Chanel. “Harry Styles, Lady Gaga, and More Singers Who Stopped Performing Midshow to Help Fans.” POPSUGAR Entertainment, 13 Nov. 2021, www.popsugar.com/entertainment/celebrities-who-stopped-concerts-to-help-fans-48596888.  

The Contradicting Audience

By Bethany Schaufler-Biback

Context 

When answering what the role of the audience is, participants were often hesitant to answer, signifying the demanding nature of the question. After some pauses, the participants shared their definition. As the interviews continued, on numerous occasions the participants’ responses to following questions began to challenge their original definition of the audience role. Similar to contradictions about audience role, there were also many notable contradictions when discussing what audiences look for/want in a performance. For instance, some audience members would state that they want a dark and silent theatre, feeling as though the show is solely for them, but they also didn’t want to feel singled out, alone, and hoped to feel the energy from having company in the theatre.  

Implications 

I posit that these contradictions are a product of the complex theatrical relationship that is created during a performance. In the theatrical contract, the audience role is everchanging, facing variation dependent upon production structure, audience preparedness, and past experience. Acknowledging the various contradictions made by audience members brings attention to potential challenges faced by theatre creators when considering how their performances will be received. Witnessing such frequent contradictions calls into question whether or not audiences are able to isolate their specific wants across so many genres of theatre. Of course, even if audiences were able to determine what they specifically want from theatre, including what their role would be (i.e., seeking out a more participatory role), many patrons may not have access to theatre that fulfils their preferred audience experience.  

I also think this greatly ties into how shows are advertised, and what sorts of audiences are being drawn to different performances. Knowing that many audience members are frequently unaware of what they exactly want from a theatre performance, this begs the question of whether or not audiences are attending the best performances suited for them. Many theatre companies fail to clearly advertise their performances, leaving many audience members in the dark about what to expect from the theatre they are attending. How are audiences able to find performances that contain the elements that they wish to see in a performance? How does the potential discrepancies of this issue reflect on the reception and reviews of these performances? 

Conclusion 

Overall, I think acknowledging the ways in which audiences contradict themselves offers a lot of insight and potential applications to theatre reception, theatre creation, arts criticism, and theatre marketing

Care Contracts in Kick and Push’s Roll Models

By Bethany Schaufler-Biback

Introduction 

The 2021 Kingston Kick and Push Festival welcomed a participatory piece, Roll Models, to the summer season. Roll Models is an interactive improvisational show that invites audience members to participate and be a part of the story being performed. After interviewing numerous audience members who attended a Roll Models performance, both audience spectators and audience participants expressed an overwhelming positive recount of the show and experience. Seemingly, this appears to be a result of the care contract established by the actors and production as a whole, before, during, and after the performance was complete. Drawing on Nel Noddings’ Theory of Care, I will examine the care contract found within the Roll Models performance by looking at instances of reversibility, reciprocity, and receptivity.  

Reversibility 

For Roll Models, there were two possible roles an audience member could take on: the audience spectator or the audience participant. The audience participant’s responsibilities diverged from the “typical” theatrical experience that may be expected when attending a Western theatre piece. In this position, the audience participant arrived early, constructed a character, and actively engaged in the performance by taking on a character and offering suggestions to the performers. The choice of whether or not the audience member was taking on the participant role was decided by the member when purchasing their ticket. This logistical choice is notable when considering reversibility and audience care during performance. Having members make the choice before entering the space increases the likelihood that audience members would make the choice that is best suited for them, opposed to their choice being influenced by the environment with the actors present. Additionally, if the audience member decides later on that they rather not take on the participant role, they have the option to make that choice in a non-pressuring environment before they attend the performance. In one interview, a participant stated “like you, don't have to be a performer, but like as they said to me, I get like the first like five seconds of being there and they're just like oh, do you do theatre and I’m like yeah. And they're just like oh, because basically everyone here who like who likes to participate does theatre” (Davies, 30Aug20215pm-Group-RM-Transcript). Observing a consistent demographic of audience participants, specifically those consider themselves “theatre people” can indicate that allowing participants to select how involved they’d like to be in the performance effectively attracted the those who are comfortable in more active roles, instead of having the participant roles filled with those who truly did not want to be in the participant position.  

Reciprocity 

When considering care, reciprocity refers to both parties caring for each other whilst also feeling cared for themselves. In Roll Models, those who chose to take on the audience participant role were invited to arrive at the venue at least half an hour early. Here, they had the opportunity to meet with their actor, get to know each other briefly, and have any questions answered. These short thirty minutes had a substantial impact on how the audience participants entered the performance. In this time, rapport and trust between the actors and participants. One interviewee stated “you really got to interact with the cast members and get to know them on like a kind of personal level. Like, they asked your name, you ask their names, um, and they really seemed like invested in like a forming like a creative partnership with you during the piece, and that was something I found really interesting and really fun.” (Garnier, 29Aug20225pm-RM-Group-Transcript). Evidently, during the pre-performance there was mutual connection formed between both the actor and participant. This allowed for a foundation of trust to be formed prior to entering a situation that risks vulnerability and anxiety, setting a precedent of care before the performance. 

Receptivity 

During the actual performance, the actors upheld reciprocity and did not neglect the show’s audience participants. Throughout the play, the actors remained observant of their player and consistently check-in with them as they made their way through the performance. Receptivity was monitored by the actors, acknowledging when the participants seemed hesitant or unsure with what they were to do next. When noticing moments of in confidence or confusion, the actors were sure to kindly encourage or guide the audience participant to make their next move. When recalling their experience as during the show, an interviewee mentioned “and [the actors] would kind of wink at me at times like, oh yes, do it Stella speak up, I can see you want to talk. So, just that stepping in and out of the world made me feel much more comfortable” (Doyle, 30Aug20215pm-Group-RM-Transcript). Here, the actors’ ability to attend to their participants’ body language in response to the progression of the show allowed for a more comfortable and positive affect in an environment that risks causing anxiety or situations of discomfort. This added comfort within the performance was likely to increase the audience participant’s reception of the show as a whole. When people are comfortable, they frequently will feel more security that promotes participation even if there is risk of failure or embarrassment, because they feel at ease and trust the people they are with.  

Conclusion 

Overall, Roll Models’ implementation of a care contract fostered a confident and positive environment for the audience participants. The success of this structure can be found in interviewee remarks, reporting feeling positively affected after the performance, expressing eased comfort levels, and new interest in participatory performance. One participant even expressed “I think it opened my eyes to that participatory theatre isn’t necessarily anxiety inducing…yeah I just thought it was really fun” (Garnier, 29Aug20225pm-RM-Group-Transcript). Moving forward, the response from participants in the Roll Models can have applications when further investigating access and ethics within participatory theatre, demonstrating how through attentiveness to audience care and actual application to performance structure, unique theatre experiences such as participatory theatre has greater potential to be enjoyed by more audience members.  

Works Cited 

Noddings, Nel. Caring: A Feminine Approach to Ethics & Moral Education. University of California Press, 2013.