Research On Immersive Theater Production From The Perspective Of Audience Experience

With the rapid development of economy,science and technology,the concept of consumption has been gradually changed,providing a new direction for the performing arts market.As a new type of performance,immersive theatre breaks the boundary between audience and performers,which fundamentally changes the audience's role from passively watching to actively participating,thus giving the audience a unique experience.Due to a short history and an incomplete producing system,immersive theatre is still hard to be defined and its localized production needs to be constantly polished.Moreover,as it is practice-premised on the production of experiences,its different aspects will have different effects on the audience's experience and immersion.Therefore,the author hopes to study the production strategy of immersive theatre from the perspective of audience experience based on the audience's experience of Sleep No More in Shanghai.This paper conducted the research based on Sleep No More in Shanghai,a well-known immersive theatre with highly commercial reputation by means of various methods such as literature research,case analysis,field investigation and in-depth interview,in conjunction with reference to many multi-disciplinary fields including drama,audience psychology,narratology and ludology.Firstly,by analyzing the different ways of the audience's participation of representative immersive theatre works at home and abroad,the paper elaborated the origin and development process of immersive theatre and discussed its characteristics from three aspects: narrative method,theater space and audience participation;Secondly,by analyzing the content and audience experience of Sleep No More in Shanghai,the paper provided a new strategy for China's immersive theatre production;thirdly,the paper pointed out the problems of immersive theatre in China and put forward the conception of immersive theatre production from the perspective of audience experience.Through plenty of theoretical research and on-the-spot investigation,this paper aims to provide a strong reference for China's immersive theatre production and make contributions to the local development of immersive theatre.