Theatre and Audience – Comprehensive Study Notes

Focus: The relationship between theatre and its audience; how audiences experience, interpret, and influence live performance.
The live encounter creates a unique energy flow: performer affects audience and audience affects performer.
The environment and the theatre space contribute to the mood and expectations with which an audience approaches a performance.

ART (overall concept): a broad inquiry into beauty, expression, and imaginative creation.
ART (as a noun, general): the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form or performance, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power.
ART (in the arts as a field): the various branches of creative activity, such as painting, music, literature, and dance.

Theatre is an art form that mirrors or reflects life.
- Imitation or “mimesis”
- Selectivity: what is chosen to be included/omitted
The medium of theatre is storytelling.
The story (or event) is enacted by performers.
Performers are characters within the story.
Theatre is shaped by: dramatists, directors, performers, and the creators of spectacle.

Core concerns: human experiences and themes universal to a human audience.
Includes humans in any form: human, animal, inanimate objects, abstract concepts, or even gods.
deus ex machina: “god from a machine” (a reference to a plot device).
Humanity is inextricably linked to theatre.

Quote by Robert Edmond Jones (The Dramatic Imagination):
- “All that has ever been is in this moment; all that will be is in this moment. Both are meeting in one living flame in this unique instant of time.”
- This captures the ephemeral nature of theatre.
Visual and literary art (fixed objects) vs. performing art (constant change).
Theatre exists only in the moment it happens.
Elements include costumes, set, lights, acting, direction, and script, but the art of theatre lies in their union presented before an audience.

Mediated Arts: radio, film, television, digital “live” streaming, and video games.
Live performance is captured and presented through other media, creating a mediated experience.
Film and television are not the same as theatre because they are fixed objects, whereas live theatre is dynamic and moment-based.

Theatre shares elements with ritual and ceremonial practices:
- Acting out established, prescribed procedures (rituals) before a waiting audience.
- Specialized clothing (costumes) to distinguish performers.
- Storytelling with a shared knowledge between performer and audience.
These elements illustrate the impulse toward theatre within ritual and ceremony.

Spectators assess the environment as they arrive:
- The atmosphere of the theatre building influences the audience’s mood.
- It helps create expectations about the event.
- It conditions the experience once the performance begins.
The environment dictates the dynamic of the performer–audience relationship.

Proscenium Stage
Thrust Stage
Arena Stage
Black Box
These configurations shape how the audience views the action and how performers stage movement and sightlines.

Theatre is an event in which performers are in the presence of the audience.
There is a circular flow of energy: performer affects audience and audience affects performer.
There is always a possibility that something unique will happen during a performance:
- A moment of inspiration raising the performance to new heights
- A mistake or accident that becomes part of the experience

Theatre is a communal experience: the group reinforces the emotions experienced by the individual.
The “collective mind” forms when a group responds together to what is onstage.
The audience’s shared reaction reinforces and strengthens social bonds among members.

Audience composition can affect the actor–audience relationship:
- Homogeneous group: shares a common ground, tends to be more at ease.
- Heterogeneous group: implies diversity; can lead to a sense of estrangement or heightened self-awareness.

The theatre experience is:
- Initiated by the creators of theatre (the company, writers, directors, designers)
- Completed by the audience through the use of the dramatic imagination
The experience relies on convention such as:
- Symbol and metaphor
- Flashbacks
- Soliloquy
- Songs in musical theatre
- The “willing suspension of disbelief”

Definition: An unspoken agreement between the production and the audience that the audience will accept (believe) the reality presented by the production, provided it does not violate the audience’s understood reality.
Example: Audiences accept actors as characters and the actions onstage as real within the play's universe, while understanding the actors are not the characters offstage.

The roles of the performer and the observer remain distinct; theatre involves imitation of life, not life itself.
Observed theatre is passive: the audience uses imagination to participate vicariously while separated from the action.
Immersive or participatory theatre exists where the audience is directly engaged in the play (by changing the story, moving viewing location, sensory experiences, etc.).

Realism: attempts to represent onstage people, places, things, and events that resemble real life; dominant form of Western drama in the late 19th century.
Nonrealism: departs from observable reality; seeks to convey emotion, inner thoughts, imagination to present a more complete and truthful experience.
Most theatre performances contain a mixture of realism and nonrealism.

Theatre of fact: reenactments of material from actual events
Docudramas, reality television, and “staged” events such as professional wrestling blur the line between life and art
Political demonstrations and “photo opportunities” illustrate the interaction between life and art.

Theatre is a transitory, collective art form that depends on live presence and the energy exchange between performers and audience.
It blends ritual, storytelling, and spectacle, and can be realized in various stage configurations.
Realism vs. nonrealism, and the use of devices like the willing suspension of disbelief and aesthetic distance, shape how audiences engage with the performance.
The environment, audience makeup, and mediating media all influence the experience and interpretation of theatre.