The performing audience

The nature and role of the audience is at the crux of continuing controversies about the nature of theatre. In this essay I argue that an audience is necessary to the art of the theatre and that the necessary audience is real rather than abstract. My conclusions grow out of three demonstrations: (1) audiences are too diverse to be usefully described by an abstraction; (2) audiences do, in fact, affect performances, and (3) interchange almost certainly occurs between actors and audiences.