ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of some of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of the second part of this book. It was not until 2005 with the opening of Jersey Boys and The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee that audience invitations from the stage began to really gain momentum. While this was most prevalent in musicals, by the time we reach the second decade of the twenty-first century, plays are also including invitations to the audience to play a more performative role in the theatrical experience. It is difficult to understand precisely why the audience were told to curtail their expressive performances in the late nineteenth century. Over the next decade and a half of the twenty-first century, expressive audience performance was progressively sanctioned from the stage. Part II of the book documents how this permission is granted and what kind of performance the audience are invited to give or co-perform with the onstage actors.
