Audience Agency
When an audience member has a sense of agency it implies that “the audience have a purpose within the narrative”[1] and the feeling that they are making decisions that have an element of influence upon the narrative. The type of agency can vary from free roaming (Punchdrunk’s The Downed Man) or making decisions that have an immediate influence upon the narrative (Parabolic Theatre’s For King and Country).
No one is all seeing
A big aspect of creating a successful immersive experience is accepting that not all audience members will see everything or have the same experiences during the event. There may even be only one audience member who witnesses certain aspects of the experience.
The individual
Adam Curtis writes in The Punchdrunk Encyclopaedia “We live in an age where the individual is the central concern: what the individual wants and what the individual feels in the central dynamic.”[2] If audience members experience unique moments within an experience that feel specific to them they will engage better with it.
Carousel shows
A Carousel is where the audience is moved from room to room with no choice in their journey, the audience generally see everything.
​
In immersive theatre company Rift_’s recent production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream the audience made no decisions about their journey despite being immersed in an alternative world but you did witness the whole play. Whilst it was a very engaging production it wasn’t an immersive show and at no point did any audience members wonder off or move about and it would have felt disrespectful to the performers and the rest of the audience if they had.
Defined roles
Punchdrunk’s Charlie Timms suggests that if you “Cast the audience in a role, address them as something…they naturally become it”[3] whilst Owen Kingston of Parabolic Theatre says that “with immersive threatre you are not given a character, you are given a reason to be there. To be in the show.”[4]
​
By figuring out who or what the audience is and positioning them as such it will help to establish the rules by which they navigate the experience and what their goal within the experience might be. It also helps you the creator to establish points of interaction for the audience rather than leaving the audience as spectators.
​
Whilst many definitions of immersive theatre will say that “You are literally in the play, straddling the gap between audience and extra”[5] it is important that the audience from the second they enter your experience to the moment they leave has a clearly defined role. This role can change throughout the experience but they must always have a role.
​
In many large scale experiences the audience is positioned as ghostly spectres moving through the space as invisible witnesses whilst in others they have a more defined role, such as playing cards in Les Enfants Terrible's Alice's Adventures Underground.
Creating Boundaries
Establishing the audience’s position keeps overly confident participants under control and creates a safe space for shy or anxious visitors to grow in their confidence: “Once they…started making decisions the rest of the audience saw that their decisions got real consequences… they could see that not only was the direction of the show being altered by the audience around them but also maybe it wasn’t going the way they wanted it to.”[6]
These boundaries also tell an audience what behaviour will not be tolerated. For example when you visit The Great Gatsby you are told by an actor at the door that like with any party you will be thrown out if you get too drunk or rowdy which addresses the rules regarding alcohol consumption during the show.
What are the stakes?
Creating stakes or a goal for an audience can create an emotional or physical response from them that can be manipulated during the experience. For example in Punchdrunk’s And Darkness Descended the audience was told they could be tagged and thrown out of the production at any moment, the audience never was but it placed them on high alert which created a heightened atmosphere during the show.
Conventional behavior
The naming of your experience could also influence an audiences behavior, for example if you call it an exhibition or a gallery then there are established behavioral conventions about these spaces which an audience may fall into automatically.
This in itself could raise interesting questions about how you encourage or provide permission for an audience to break these established conventions and what this could bring to the overall experience.
Rules
Punchdrunk’s rule for their audience is: “If you see a door, be curious and open it. Access will either be denied, or it will be a portal to another world, a further layer of the story”[7] however if you really don’t want someone to go through a door make sure it is locked.
​
It is important to remember that “The audience member is automatically put in a place of vulnerability because they know nothing and they need to be guided and cared for”[8] because if they don’t know how to interact then they will not get the most out of your experience and they will miss opportunities to engage which could leave them confused. Depending on your experience you may not need a voiced guide, perhaps there are signs or a list of instructions or engaging visuals or sounds that draw you onwards.
​
Ross Chandler from Les Enfants Terribles says that "for an audience to have agency you need to have parameters" [9] suggesting that any experience can achieve audience agency so long as there are clear rules to follow. These rules provide the potential for agency.
[1] Lee, S. [2017] The Parallels Between Designing Immersive Theatre and User Experience [Online] Medium.com. Available at: https://medium.com/@sophiapglee/the-parallels-between-designing-immersive-theatre-and-user-experience-543f32e07b5d [Accessed 17th May 2019]
[2] Machon, J. 2019. The Punchdrunk Encyclopaedia. 1st edition, Routledge, Abingdon
[3] Tims, C. 2016 DOORWAYS a review of Punchdrunk Enrichment projects 2013- 2016. [Online] Available at: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5595a402e4b0d1b573e6d6e2/t/5825ad3a46c3c4a876b8df41/1478864193016/DOORWAYS.pdf [Accessed 3rd August 2019]
[4] Notes taken at SANDBOX [28th-29th September 2019] A Gunpowder Plot Symposium: Immersive worlds and playable spaces [Potemkin Theatre, London]
[5] Savory, A [2018] What is Immersive theatre? [online] Available at: https://www.theoldie.co.uk/article/what-is-immersive-theatre [Accessed June 3rd 2019]
[6] Notes taken at SANDBOX [28th-29th September 2019] A Gunpowder Plot Symposium: Immersive worlds and playable spaces [Potemkin Theatre, London]
[7] Machon, J. 2019. The Punchdrunk Encyclopaedia. 1st edition, Routledge, Abingdon.
[8] Machon, J. 2019. The Punchdrunk Encyclopaedia. 1st edition, Routledge, Abingdon.
[9] Lynch, E. Chandler, R & Engle, C [2019] Interview with Ross Chandler and Catherine Engle.