UNIT 3 Flashcards
AUDIENCE
In this context, audience refers to those who watch a performance, e.g. an excerpt from a play script, a monologue, or the production of a whole play). When a performance is being presented (i.e. in the presentation stage), there will always be an intended audience of some sort. An audience can be as small as one person or as large as hundreds of people. When the performance is being planned, developed, and presented the intended audience should be considered. In other words, the desig, direction and acting of a performance should be planned for a specific impact on the intended audience. The presentation of a performance involves the response and reactions of the audience.
However, different audiences may have varied responses and reactions to the same play.
In VCE Theatre Studies students are asked to create and present performances for an intended audience. At times students are also asked to be audience members for performances from professional theatre companies. When analysing or evaluating a theatre performance it’s important to consider the effect the interpretation has on the audience, including the actor-audience relationship that is developed and maintained (see also, ‘actor-audience relationship’).
AUDIENCE CULTURE
This refers to what the members of an audience bring with them to the performance of a play (such as their values, beliefs, and behaviours). When a playwright writes a play and when a theatre production team interprets the play script, they each have an intended audience in mind. If the play is produced around the time the playwright wrote it, then the production team may have a similar audience in mind. However, if many years (or even centuries) have passed since the play was written then the intended audience for a modern-day production may be quite different to that which the playwright intended. The theatre style of a play script and its production can affect the intended audience and vice versa.
The ways in which audience members react to, and interact with, a performance is often based on their understanding of what the production might require of them (e.g. to be spectators, to interact with the actors/characters, to be immersed in the action of the play as participants) and also how they connect with the performance as it unfolds.
