Role play...audience participation in the show

Acting the Part: Audience Participation in Performance is a pioneering work of research published in October 2025, exploring how the viewer transforms from passive recipient to active participant in modern and digital theatrical performances. An overview of the book's content, presented by author E. with me. E.B. Hunter provides a new theoretical framework for understanding audience participation in “immersive theatre,” starting from traditional theaters all the way to virtual reality. The most prominent themes of the book are summarized in: The concept of “Enactivity”: coining a new term to describe the audience’s situation when their participation is crucial to the narrative, but does not have the ability to change the final course of the story. Patterns of Participation: The book analyzes how shows place their audiences into specific molds (archetypes) such as: “Worshiper,” “Sleuth,” or “Cinematographer.” Evolution of technology: studying interactivity in performances based on spatial computing and augmented reality, and how these tools affect the audience’s relationship with the classical text (such as Shakespeare and Greek tragedy).