Audiences like to imagine that performance travels in one direction.

It does not.

Performers receive information constantly

A room tells you whether it is with you. It tells you when laughter has released tension, when silence is attention rather than confusion, when an audience wants more time and when it desperately needs the next thing to happen.

Good attention creates permission

This does not mean an audience must cheer on command. Quiet attention can be powerful. What matters is presence: the sense that the room is actually participating in the exchange rather than treating live performance as background content with drinks.

The exchange is why the room matters

This is especially visible in cabaret, burlesque and other intimate forms. The performer changes the audience; the audience changes the performer; the night becomes something neither side could have produced alone.

For the practical version of being a good audience, read Cabaret Etiquette or Burlesque Show Etiquette.