Activating the Audience

HowlRound Theatre Commons: Across the many different kinds of theatrical work, the presence of a live audience is one of the few elements that remains constant. Historically, the positioning of the audience inside a performance has taken many forms. In Victorian-era melodrama, audiences determined the outcomes of plays by yelling and throwing food at the stage; in the less violent Commedia dell’arte, audiences gathered in their community spaces to watch groups of traveling players. When it comes to contemporary theatre, many artists—working with historical precedents like these in mind—craft unique and engaged performer-spectator relationships in order to tell their stories.