Topic started by Jacob Corn Assistant Director/Designer for a series of site-specific, promenade/immersive productions with http://www.immer-city.com/ When audience members come to our productions, they are up for being pulled into the action. On odd occasions however people just close up, why could this be? How can we remedy this? Do we need to remedy this? Can we use a degree of shyness in performance?

Points Raised

Atmosphere will contribute to an audiences comfort and willingness to participate, though shyness can be replaced with another priority, or fear.

Energy and mood dampners can be physical, tiredness.

Prepare the audience with positive expectations - keep it fun.

Collective empowerment - a group acting as one will be less shy than an isolated audience member

Comments

Phelim McDermott, 9 March 2013

We talked about how there is as much skill involved in how the invitational context is created as there is In constructing a work with sets and location. That how someone is invited in is an essential ingredient to the real theatrical quality of the event.

This also has an effect in an event which could have the appearance of choice for the audience but doesn't genuinely have an authenticity to it and consequent empowerment for the audience.