the performer and the audience

yesterday, thursday, in several ways, a similar question kept coming up-

who is the performer in this kind of show?
If they function, at times, as guide, as actor, as conversational partner, and sometimes as facilitator, how do we decide on all the details that clarify their function for the audience, for them as performers, for the design team...

what is the contract we seek to create between the event and the audience/participant?
The performers are the heart of that contract, and it is negotiated from the moment people enter the building...actually, from the moment they hear about the show and begin to imagine what their experience might be...what might be expected of them.

the costumes- what should folks wear?
we have a core cast of 7
and about 10 other people who, myself included, will be helping execute the event

who wears what that communicates their role, allows them to function as they need to, and that brings a theatricality to the space that doesn't overwhelm audience members, but doesn't flatten any chance for transformation either.

Judith Mowry, a local facilitator and founder of the restorative listening project in NE Portland, was our interviewee last night, and that conversation also got at these issues-
How do you, in public events, swiftly get a group of strangers to agree to invest in an experience, feel heard, feel safe, and listen to other people with different values, needs, and desires? How do you lead that experience in a way that is playful, meaningful, surprising and equitable? How do you not prioritize 'expertise' over experience? And, different than Judith's work, how do you do this without personal story as the core of the process?