The Holiday Purge

Written by TMS Director of Creative Development & Mentor, Eric Webb

I hope you all survived the holidays. I know folks often have a love / hate relationship with that time of year… I for one love it. It’s the time to suffer through awkward dinners with your weird Uncle Steve, share a cozy moment with someone you love, and raise a glass with your chosen family. Because, after all, it is one of the few times of the year where people gather together on purpose. Together, in person… for a shared experience.

Sound like anything you know?

Forgive me while I dissect your holiday proceedings for the sake of dramaturgical reflection…

During holiday gatherings we get the chance to observe social dynamics that parallel the theatrical audience experience in the most fascinating of ways. We get to see people:

• Anticipate a shared event,
• Negotiate unspoken rules,
• React collectively,
• And carry private subtext into public moments.

This is the audience experience in a nutshell! In both circumstances, people come together to co-author an experience through their attention, laughter, tears, and silence. An unspoken pact is drawn up and abided by as participants take on their roles and play them to the hilt. And our shared reactions to the experience become as essential to anything that actually “happens.”

During the holidays we laugh a little bit louder, cry a little easier, indulge in our discomfort and annoyances - and we find partners in this experience. We are seen, often with less judgment (though sometimes with GREAT judgment…), and made to feel as though we are not alone in our reactions.

This is the great joy of being in a theatrical audience. This is theatrical catharsis. It’s not just venting the fears and anxieties we hold onto, it’s the shared experience of that venting. We come together precisely so that we can allow others the chance to react and share in the reaction. It’s not just the effect of the text - it is PART OF the text.

So as we meander our way into 2026, take a moment to reflect on the social dynamics you saw splayed out before you and consider your own work’s relationship with the audience. Where do you want to comfort them, and where do you want them to sit in their discomfort? Where do you wish to evoke their voice, and when do you want to thrust them into silence?

And most importantly, what are you writing that DEMANDS the presence of an audience?

Because, like the proverbial tree falling in the forest, if an actor recites Hamlet without an audience… is it actually theater?