What do Audiences Do? Negotiating the Possible Worlds of Participatory Theatre

Abstract

Questions around what audiences do are becoming ever more complex as innovative modes of participation are developed in contemporary immersive, interactive and intermedial theatre. Drawing on examples from Uninvited Guests, Void Projects, Punchdrunk, Blast Theory and other contemporary theatre practitioners, this article suggests that new models are needed in order to reason about the experience of the contemporary theatre audience. It proposes that the philosophical framework of Possible Worlds Theory, as used by digital theorists to elucidate the reader’s experience of hypertext fiction, can also provide tools and a language which recognise and validate the complexities of spectatorial practices in participatory theatre. The article uses digital theory and several applications of Possible Worlds Theory to reveal some implications of active spectating as it explores what it means to manoeuvre between successive states of immersion and interaction through an aesthetic process.