Acting the part : audience participation in performance / E.B. Hunter.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Hunter, E. B., author.

Series:

Theater: Theory/Text/Performance Series

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Participatory theater.

Performing arts--Audiences--Social aspects.

Performing arts.

Theater audiences--Social aspects.

Theater audiences.

Spectators--Social aspects.

Spectators.

Audiences--Social aspects.

Audiences.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (288 pages) : illustrations

Edition:

1st ed.

Other Title:

Audience participation in performance

Place of Publication:

Ann Arbor : University of Michigan Press, 2025.

Summary:

Acting the Part offers a paradigm for understanding how audiences participate in immersive theater, from physical spaces like the Globe in London to digital spaces like social virtual reality. Reading across twenty-first century productions of ancient Greek tragedies and William Shakespeare's plays, E. B. Hunter proposes the concept of "enactivity" to describe the positionality audiences inhabit when their participation is critical to the narrative but cannot alter its intended course. This positionality is that of the archetype, the enactment of which is shaped by four production conditions: a historically resonant site, a canonical source, an immersive space, and a production-specific economy that incentivizes some behaviors and discourages others. At the heart of Acting the Part is a framework for identifying how a production's management of these conditions gives rise to a range of archetypes, such as worshiper, sleuth, cinematographer, and others. Against the backdrop of an ever-increasing push for audience participation, Acting the Part sheds new light on the many ways in which productions shape that participation in real time.

Contents:

Intro

Contents

List of Illustrations

Acknowledgments

Prologue

Introduction

Chapter 1. Worshipper: The New Globe Theatre in London

Chapter 2. Sleuth: The Open-World Theater of Sleep No More

Chapter 3. Patron at the Vanguard: Theater in Social VR

Chapter 4. From Cinematographer to Protagonist: Theater and Augmented Reality

Coda

Glossary

Bitter Wind Walkthrough

Notes

Bibliography

Index.

Notes:

Title from eBook information screen..

Includes bibliographical references.

Description based on information from the publisher.

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

0-472-90530-9

OCLC:

1511267169