Understanding audience participation in an interactive theater performance

Abstract

This article presents an empirical study investigating audience participation in an interactive theater performance. During the performance, audience members were enticed to act upon and contribute to the performance by sharing their opinions, emotions, values and other thoughts, by means of text messages that were integrated into the performance itself. The study aimed at understanding the main characteristics of audience participation in the interactive performance, as well as the role of communication technology as a medium enabling social participation. The results draw attention to the immediate and reflective facets of audience participation, both unfolding at two different but interrelated levels of interactions: an individual and collective one.