Co-present and remote audience experiences: Intensity and cohesion

This article presents the results of modelling audience response to new types of networked theatre plays. As the main contribution of the work we introduce two types of metrics: intensity, relating to how intensively co-present and remote aspects of a performance are rated, and cohesion, relating to how a performance as a whole, the combination of co-present and remote aspects, affects an audience. In particular, we model audience response based on two in the wild evaluations, staged by a low budget theatre company, a streamed and a distributed performance. The streamed performance is similar to NT Live, where a theatre play is delivered to other theatres with an audience. The distributed performance, on the other hand, connects actors in two different theatres (with audiences) creating one single play. The streamed performance was experienced as less intense as well as less cohesive by the remote audience, whilst the distributed performance integrated co-present and remote aspects tightly. Remote aspects of the distributed performance were still experienced as less intense, but the performance as a whole was highly cohesive. Apart from the identification of these two new metrics (intensity and cohesion), based on our experiences we argue that an innovative way of bundling relevant emerging technologies is needed to give a voice to the, as yet silent, remote audience.