Library
The lineage, so we do not start from zero.
The genre is older than we are. This is where we start.
The Theatre and Its Double (1938)
The first manifesto-level call to end audience passivity through direct physical and sensory involvement.
Verfremdung, the thinking spectator
The spectator should judge and act, not be lulled.
Theatre of the Oppressed (1970s)
The spect-actor: the audience member becomes an actor who can change the outcome.
The Emancipated Spectator (2008)
Even watching is active. Also the sharpest warning that participation can become “consumerist hyper-activism”.
Relational Aesthetics (1998)
Art as the production of human relations and encounters rather than objects.
Artificial Hells (2012)
A rigorous, critical history of participatory art and “the social turn”.
Audience Participation in Theatre (2013)
The craft and ethics of inviting participation: consent, safety, agency.
A living practice built on “invitation not obligation”.
Text-based participation
The audience as co-author: the script needs them to be complete.
Immersive and one-to-one work at scale
Proof that the audience as witness and document can fill houses.
Meaningful agency in participatory performance: a contextual approach (2024)
Recent research on what real agency means for participants.
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