Introduction

Engagement with embodied face-to-face conversations is diminishing in the twenty-first century. Theatre has become one of the few sanctuaries that offer opportunities for live, emotion conversations. This chapter explores how conversations in the theatre between actors and audiences are relational and work to create electric air experiences. While Theatre and Performance Studies research has considered “liveness” and “affect” in theatre, there is little research on the psychological conversations that occur across the footlights, or the atmosphere that creates what is posited as electric air. Conversations and electric air are defined and overviews of processes for interviewing actors and audiences on both sides of productions are outlined.