A framework for understanding audience participation in twenty-first century immersive theater
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, Elizabeth 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.
Review
“Acting the Part is an outstanding book. Hunter makes an important contribution to theater and performance studies by offering a new paradigm for understanding how audiences participate in theater. For scholars and artists of digital performance and anyone interested in spatial computing, the book is essential reading.”
– Gina Bloom, University of California, Davis
“This fantastic book, very well-written and deeply smart, offers a great deal to think about for performance makers, participants, and scholars alike. Alive with historical resonances and alert to contemporary iterations, the book offers not only critical resources regarding audience modes of mattering, but inspiration. Once more into the breach, indeed!”
– Rebecca Schneider, Brown University
“Acting the Part reveals the variety and nuance of participatory performance in the twenty-first century. Hunter’s lively, readable cases—ranging from the new Globe theater to virtual and augmented reality—show that the meaning and stakes of audience participation crucially depend both on what archetypes audiences are invited to embody (worshipper, sleuth, crusader, etc.) and on the production’s particular affordances.”
– John H. Muse, University of Chicago
About the author
Elizabeth Hunter is a critical theorist and digital maker exploring the future of live performance and emergent technologies. Her research asks what happens when we inhabit the space of a famous story, and the story seeps into our own.
Hunter is assistant professor in drama; director of Graduate Studies; and director of the Fabula(b) Theatre + New Media Lab, all in WashU’s Performing Arts Department in Arts & Sciences.