This new textbook edition of Audience Participation in Theatre: Evolutions of the Invitation situates the text in evolving theory, emerging practice, and changing contexts, re-establishing itself as the key reference point in its field. An updated review of the literature and a new chapter develops its original argument with respect to historical change in how audiences and their expectations are constituted, and changes to how participation is invited, mediated and valued.

Gareth White is Reader in Theatre and Performance at Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, UK. His publications include Applied Theatre: Aesthetics, exploring the idea of the aesthetic in performance practice with social aims, and Meaning in the Midst of Performance: Contradictions of Participation, examining how performance that situates the audience participant within difficult or impossible dilemmas creates complex embodied meaning.