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 Greeks to the world of Zoom. He walks through the different types of audiences and the history of their responses, what science has to say about how our brains respond to what they see and the reactions of the people around them, and why, during COVID-19, people risked a deadly virus to be part of a crowd. Right This Way explores what the audience experience brings us and how it may evolve in the 21st century.