When you sit down at a play, movie, or concert—or even just watch TV or scroll on your phone—you are taking part in one of the oldest and most meaningful forms of behavior. Being part of an audience is a universal experience, one that has remained a constant feature of human societies even as it has evolved from colosseums to tiny glowing screens.Right This Way is a pop history of audiences through the ages. Delving into the distinctive aspects of what he calls “audiencing,” former ...

The editor of Playbill's At This Theatre and founding editor of the new Playbill Broadway Yearbook offers a collection of 26 essays on theatre by the top professionals in their fields. Includes contributions by two recently departed leading lights: playwright Wendy Wasserstein and songwriter Cy Coleman. Also, featured are Chita Rivera and Edward Albee; costume designer William Ivey Long; set designer Robin Wagner, and director and choreographer Susan Stroman.

Hamlet calls death "that undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns."But he's wrong. Some do return.Each night after the applause dies, the curtain falls, the audience vanishes, the cleaners dust, and the lights are killed, great theatres become dark and silent places. But not always quite empty.That's when the theatre ghosts make their entrance and strut and fret their hour upon the shadowed boards, illuminated only by the ghost light, the solitary l...

Hamlet calls death "that undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns."But he's wrong. Some do return.Each night after the applause dies, the curtain falls, the audience vanishes, the cleaners dust, and the lights are killed, great theatres become dark and silent places. But not always quite empty.That's when the theatre ghosts make their entrance and strut and fret their hour upon the shadowed boards, illuminated only by the ghost light, the solitary lamp...

When you sit down at a play, movie, or concert—or even in front of the TV or scrolling on your phone—you are taking part in one of the oldest and most mysterious forms of human behavior. Being part of an audience is an age-old experience that we all crave, one that has evolved from amphitheaters to screens. Right This Way is a pop history of audiences through the ages. Playbill editor Robert Viagas unfolds the unique aspects of what he calls “audiencing” with stories from the age of the Gr...