Hierarchy of Needs in Immersive Theater [INTRO]

Before a performance begins in the traditional proscenium theater, there is an understood language and grammar for how the audience should behave. When an audience member arrives to the theater, they pick up their ticket at the box office and they are scanned to gain entry. Depending on the length of the first act, if there is even a second act, or if they threw back quite a few cocktails at dinner, they know to go to the bathroom before the show starts because leaving in the middle of the performance is rude to those around them as it will disrupt the experience. They show their ticket to the usher, who directs them to their assigned seat and gives them a program. The audience is directed to silence their phones and “unwrap their candies”, (although there are always the few who choose to ignore this directive). When the lights go down, it means the show is going to start, and the audience’s conversations dissolve from murmurs to silence.

There are social cues learned and established in the tradition of theater, and if someone doesn’t know them, they learn them very quickly.

But what happens when you take those audience members out of their seats and into an unfamiliar space with unfamiliar rules like in immersive theater? Now, they can move around, they can touch the set, and for the bravest of them all, even engage directly to the characters. The audience is invited inside the world of the story. The “immersive theater phenomenon” has been taking the theater world by storm, and when it is done well, people are willing to pay more and come back again and again because they experienced what some might call transcendent storytelling. It is something a person can only understand when they themselves have experienced it, and even then, every single audience member’s experience is unique.

Instead of the typical and expected performance, immersive theater offers an experience that activates the senses on a much more intimate and intense level that it’s no wonder everyone is flocking to see the next immersive experience. But what happens when the audience doesn’t know what to do? They no longer know where to go or what could happen, and while mystery intrigues our curious self, it leaves an exponential amount of fear and doubt. When we don’t know what to expect, we are left to assume, and assumptions ultimately lead to fear. And unless the goal is to instill fear in your audience like you would in a Haunted House, it is safe to say that fear is not the way to invite your audience into an experience. (And in a Haunted House, the audience’s expectation is to feel fear, so long as they aren’t being physically harmed.)

If we look at human psychology (which is simply manifested through storytelling), we can get clues into what we would need on our checklist for our audience so that they enter the space with an open mind, begin the experience in the palm of our hand, and lead them on a journey to true transcendent storytelling, where they leave impacted beyond their imagination.

We will explore Abraham Maslow’s “A Theory of Human Motivation”, looking at the Hierarchy of Needs to illustrate how to give our audience the best experience possible. For the context of immersive theater, these needs are not necessarily hierarchal in that each audience member has different needs at different times, and we do not necessarily need to satisfy a lower need to graduate to a higher one as originally assumed in the pyramid below. Instead, we will be looking at these needs based on the stages of the experience, while understanding that these needs can and should be satisfied at every stage of the experience.

One classification to point out is the difference between deficiency needs (D-needs) and growth needs (G-needs). In support of this, D-needs represent the needs of the our audience to satisfy in order to best immerse them in the experience and narrative. Without these needs being met, your audience members will be driven by fear, doubt, assumptions, and ego, which are all qualities that make it harder for us to connect with our audience and harder for them to connect to the experience and story.

G-needs represent qualities in your experience that will enhance the story and engage your audience into the deepest levels of the narrative so that your experience can have the deepest effect possible. These traditionally are found throughout the history of storytelling within the design of a narrative, but here we can argue that without satisfying the audience’s D-needs, they are unable to fully appreciate and understand the story, design, and ultimately, the experience.

First, we will look at physiological and safety needs and how they can be satisfied before you begin the audience on their journey through the story.