Starters: A Theatre Program and its Audience

Abstract

It is a truism in theatre studies that reading a play is fundamentally different from reading a poem or a work of prose because a play is not meant simply to be read but to be translated from the private realm of the reader’s imagination to the social forum of theatre. Although theatre scholars have long recognized theatre as a social form, and consequently have been interested in audiences, relatively little attention has been paid to the complex set of factors which draw people to the theatre and constitute them as an audience. The consequence of this evasion is that theatre programs are infrequently considered, except as sources of information. While an important feature of theatre programs is the information which they provide, it is also important that they direct an audience’s reception of the play, not only through notes, but through various graphic elements, as I hope to suggest in my consideration of the program for Theatre Plus’s 1991 production of Hamlet.