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Theatergoer

A theatergoer can be defined by an individual who attends a performance at a theater, or someone who goes to a theater.

Multiple theatergoers together might make up an audience. An audience is a group of people who participate in a show or encounter a work of art, literature, theater, music, video games or academics in any medium. Theater, being a live media of art leans on its audiences heavily in order to create the complete, well rounded, theatrical experience. From the dawn of time story telling began as a way to pass time. This medium is astringent upon the fact that there is someone to tell the story to. Both the storyteller (actor) and theatergoer (audience) play essential roles in creating this medium of art. Without audiences, we could not have theater.

Audiences help to create a new experience for every performance, making each one unique. A painting, for example stays static and the same no matter how many people view it. The theatrical experience is alive due to its audiences and the theatergoers who make up these audiences. Without the live aspect of this medium, it does not exist.

The Theatergoer's Effect on Theater

The theatergoer has a direct effect on theater both in life performance and in the long term. While watching a show or production there is a constant cycle of energy being exchanged as the audience reacts to the preformer and the performer reacts to the audience. This feedback and energy is seen most commonly in tears, applause, cheering, or laughing. For many performers this energy and 'feeding off of it' is essential to a successful performance and often performances will vary slightly based off the response the performer is getting from the theatergoer. This means that night to night no performance will be the same because no audience will very be exactly the same. Feedback from theatergoers can also very depending on audience size. A larger audience is more likely to act in a bolder way due to anonymity in a crowd. In a smaller, more intimate crowd this is less likely. Also, audiences reactions in general will be affected by the other reactions of audience members around them.

In the long term, plays and musicals will often go through rounds and rounds of audience approval before making it a final production stage. Songs, scenes or lines might be cut or added depending on the initial reaction to it.

The relationship between theatergoer and performer is essential in all forms of theater. This demographic has certainly shifted and changed over our history.

Classical Theatergoers

Much of what we know today about theater and theatergoers spawns from theatrical festivals in Ancient Greece. In Ancient Greece, drama was an important part of everyday culture, politics, and religious practices. The Dionysia was a large festival in ancient Athens in honor of the god Dionysus where theater shows were regularly preformed.

Audiences in these times would often consist of over 15,000 theatergoers and were often talkative and unruly. If they disliked a play, they would drum their heels on their benches, jeer loudly and throw fruit. However, who made up these audience?

It is hard to know who actually attended these productions. Rarely any texts survived this period and the same is true for information regarding audience demographics. It can be assumed that anyone holding a citizen status would've been permitted to attend, but in Ancient Greece this is a title given to not just anyone. It is no question that during this time women had barley any rights and were not even thought of as citizens. Writing, preforming in and producing the plays of The Dionysia was seen as a great honor, so those who did not hold a citizenship status were certainly excluded from preforming. During some parts of the Dionysia, salves and servants were able to participate as a sort of 'break' before returning back to their daily duties. For the most part, however, the demographics of these theatergoers would've been abundantly male and of higher classes. Women were likely allowed to attend, as long as their husband was present.

Some scholars believe that perhaps women were allowed to attend the tragedies and not the comedies. This is because often comedic plays were explicit or would've been a 'bad influence' to the 'susceptible' woman. This is quite ironic; however, considering the amount of Greek tragedies like Medea or Agamemnon in which women kill their children/ parents/ husbands. Messages directly to female audience members in plays like Medea, Agamemnon, Lysistrata, or Assemblywomen might suggest a female audience present, but as not much information exists on this topic, it is hard to know for sure.

Medieval Theatergoers

During the 10th - 16th century the way in which theater was presented began to shift from traditional stages to movable stages on a wagon and wheels. This shift is mainly to do with the content switch in theater during this time. Most of these works, mystery and miracle plays centered around and were developed from biblical texts. Thus, plays were presented on pageant wagons paraded from town to town in order to expose as many people as possible to biblical texts and teachings.

This marks a very important moment in theater history and theater accessibility as the amount of individuals experiencing theater during this time soared. Unlike classical theater, you did not have to be a rich, high class, male citizen to experience a play. Anyone could witness these plays and this is exactly what was intended. The more accessible these performances, the more audiences would be influenced and hopefully convert to Christianity. As these plays grew in recognition, they were often presented in Church or as apart of religious holidays and festivals. Soon, entire towns and communities became involved in the production and viewing of these works.

Early Modern Theatergoers

Shakespearean Theatergoers

Theatergoers viewed Shakespeare's plays outdoors much like classical theater. While these theaters were not as big as classical venues, they compare to the ones we have today seating around 3,000. With shows playing most days, 10,000-20,000 individuals could see a show a week. Shakespeare wrote plays for all types of different people and intended to have his shows as accessible to as many theatergoers as possible. However, much like today, only those who could afford this leisure would be able to participate. Shakespeare's audiences ranged from the royal and nobility to lower-middle class individuals. This made for an interesting showtime experience as in the same performance where the queen was present, middle class indiduslas would be as well. Theater thus becomes a space where social class boundaries begin to blur.

The rich paid three pennies to sit higher up, and the best seats in the lords' rooms were reserved for private, high status guests while lower middle class individuals, known as groundlings paid a penny for admittance into shows and stood on the ground during shows. Groundlings behaved very differently from the way theater audiences would today. The arrangements of audiences in this era is very much flipped from what it would be today. The most expensive tickets today are those closest to the stage while ones higher up and further away are least expensive. Audiences were arranged this way highly due to status. Being seen at the theater was a prideful thing, thus theatergoers wanted to be high up and seen by as many as possible.

Much like classical audiences these people were loud, rowdy and directly involved in the action of the play through asides, soliloquies, and breaking of the fourth wall. Just like greek audiences, if these individuals did not enjoy the play, they would make it obvious. Shakespeare used many elements to keep his audiences attention such as incorporating audience participation, prologues and epilogues, a clown/ fool character, and sexual innuendos.

Women in particular play an interesting role in the Shakespearean era. Much like Classical Greek theater, women were not allowed to act, but participated in the production in many other ways. Aristrocratic, royal, and high class women were devout patrons of the theater while lower class women assisted in other ways. Scholars figure that "Women supplied costumes for theatrical productions, lent money to the players, and owned shares in the companies. They stood at the entrances of playhouses to collect admission fees. Women also constituted a sizable portion of the playgoers—perhaps more than half—and on a few occasions, they even appeared onstage."

American Theatergoers

The beginnings of American theater goes back to the colonial era before the country was even fully established. Most of the productions were revivals of popular British and French pieces that would be popular with the audiences of the time. As waves of independence surfaced, however, this began to change.

Theater struggled during the 17th and18th century due to political, social and religious tensions. Some colonies such as Massachusetts and Pennsylvania passed laws where the production and performance of plays was forbidden. Theater was frowned upon by puritans and quakers for religious reason and also because of its ties to British culture for political and social reasons. Due to all of this theater was not popular in America until well into the 1800s.

With the beginnings of true American theater, audiences were abundantly white. A majority of early American plays were racist minstrel shows preformed by white actors in blackface. These shows were very much at the expense of enslaved African Americans so their audiences reflected this demographic.

By the 20th century, vaudeville shows became very popular and audience demographics widened from predominantly male working-class spectators to include middle-class men, women and sometimes children. A wide array of acts from trained animals to one-act plays and magicians provided something that all members of a family could enjoy. These shows were generally lighthearted and fun and attracted large crowds and large audiences. This trend wavered throughout WWI, the Great Depression and WWII. During this time live theater stars gained an immense amount of fame due to the abundance of theatergoers seeing new shows as well as the popularization of radio, cinema, and tv. These mediums caused many live performers to struggle as not as many people wanted to go into a theater to see a live show when it was so expensive. The cinema was much cheeper and had more stars and spectacle. Due to this, less common forms of theater emerged, such as musical theater. The musical theater golden age in the mid 1900s brought millions of theatergoers back into the theater. These productions were so popular in fact that musical theater songs were often heard on the radio and were regularly in the top 100 songs.

As Theater flourished however, some attention must be brought to the deeply systematic racism happening during these current time in America. Along with many other business, restaurants, and theaters were segregated and did not allow black patrons to enter. When talking about the demographics of audiences during this time it is imperative to note that people of color are regularly absent both in the audience and on stage.

Contemporary Theatergoers

Following WWII, American theater saw international success and audiences. Plays by Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams attracted theatergoers from all over the world. Many of these productions were also taken over season to London for even more audiences and productions. Musical theater thrived as well, adopting a new agenda of civil rights. Productions such as "Hair and West Side Story referenced subjects such as drug culture, racism, and cultural divides. As a result, drama has historically become a way for playwrights to address social rights issues, personal experiences, and pass their own judgment on society". This begun to bring individuals into the theater who were previously not represented. Theatergoers desperately wanted to see individuals who looked like them on stage so as under-resprented groups were shown on stage, it brought these individuals into the theater. Again however, the popularization and cheapness of cinema made it hard for live theaters to turn a profit.

This issue was combatted as theater began to borrow from cinema and literature in productions during the mid-20th and turn of the 21st century. Disney is a huge contributor to this and has been massively successful in reaching untapped audiences and bringing hundreds of millions into the theater. Tourists will travel thousands of miles to experience a Broadway production.

National Endowment of The Arts Survey

The National Endowment of The Arts began doing studies in the early 80's to study theater demographics and American participation in theater. Their research found that overall, participation in theater is increasing.

The National Endowment of The Arts focuses exclusively on participation in stage plays. Based on an adult population (18+) of 185.8 million, an estimated 25.1 million U.S. adults attended live stage plays in 1992, compared to 20 million in 1982 when the adult population was 164 million. Education remains the single most important predictor of stage play participation. While 35 percent of those with graduate school education reported theatre attendance, only 4 percent of those with high school education did so. With respect to age, theatre participation is somewhat more constant across age groups compared to other benchmark activities. The highest theatre participation rate (17.2 percent) was observed among respondents aged 45-54 compared to a rate of just 6.7 percent for those aged 75 and over.

As of 2017, over half of U.S. adults (54 percent, or approximately 133 million adults) attended a artistic, creative, or cultural activities in the past 12 months. Nearly a quarter of adults attended a live play or musical (24 percent). By gender, a larger percentage of women than men attended any event by 6 percentage points, and larger percentages of women than men attended many particular types of events in the past 12 months as well. Regarding race and ethnicity, a larger percentage of White adults (61%) attended an artistic event in the past 12 months as compared with Black adults (39%), Hispanic adults (41%) and asian adults (45%).

The Future of Theatergoers

So where do we go from here?

It is impossible to ignore the impact that the COVID-19 Pandemic has had on live theater. The years 2020-2021 will be fundamental in our history as well as analyzing how theater will proceed from here.

It is very possible that we might see a return to our earlier roots with outdoor productions, radio plays, or private performances. Overall, online is becoming the new normal. With everything moving to this format, now more than even Theater is accessible. Artists, especially those who are not located in large theater hubs have seen bright sides as auditioning online is becoming a new reality for all artists. We no longer have to travel thousands of miles to have master classes with Broadway professionals or go to see a Broadway production as pro-shoots are becoming a normal occurrence. The recent successes of Hamilton on Disney+, American Utopia on HBO Max, and What the Constitution Means to Me on Amazon Prime proves that a new norm is being established. These productions also open up professional productions to millions of people who could not access it in the past. As recently as 2012 the boundaries between TV and Film blurring resulted in the merging of the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) and the American Federation of Television & Radio Artists (AFTRA). This pandemic will likely present a similar situation with the Actors’ Equity Association (AEA) and SAG/AFTRA when it comes to filmed and live-streamed theater.

No one can predict the future, but the theater community has confronted disruption in the past and have overcome them. We have survived prior pandemics dating back to Shakespeare as well as the AIDS epidemic. This industry has "mourned, innovated, and emerged stronger".