Alice greets the reader on the front cover, seated on a bench with her legs crossed and a tea cup raised to her lips, wearing her tell-tale blue dress and white apron. The March Hare in his royal blue coat glances away from the camera, though the Mad Hatter gazes boldly at the audience with a wide grin, welcoming the reader in to the audience guide. Executive Analyst Christine Sajweski says that the purpose of the audience guide is to educate patrons about a performance, including general information about the art form and specifics to the performance like set design or choreography. The audience guide is one of the most important documents the PBT has to engage with its audience and complete their goal of educating the public on ballet. As…show more content… The audience members not only get to see the performance but can learn about ballet beforehand. Thus, the exigence of the rhetorical situation rests on the audience’s desire to be informed about the upcoming performance. According to Sajewski, the website data reveal audiences interacting with this section of the website most, showing the audience wants to be educated about the performance as well as viewing it. Because the audience guides are made for every performance, the PBT anticipates this exigence and can craft the message accordingly based on what sort of audience they anticipate. Sajewsi noted their audience base, although diverse, tends to skew toward older patrons, usually between the ages of 50’s to 70’s, for traditional ballets. This contrasts with the younger college-aged and middle-aged audiences who attend more innovative and progressive performances. Since audience guides are most useful to audience members before a performance, the education department must work on an urgent time schedule to get the guide out as fast as…show more content… The audience guide gave the PBT the opportunity to present themselves as an innovative dance company with the whimsical production, capable of attracting a younger audience, while also catering to the desires of the older audience with the guide’s section connected to the ballet’s literary and choreographic heritage. A reader is supposed to read the section on the costume designs, learn that the tutus are square shaped and look like a deck of cards, and become enchanted by the whimsy and creativity shown by the company. The reader should ideally work through the synopsis of the ballet, sparking their imagination on what they could see in the performance, from the infamous crying a sea of tears scene to that of the court dance at the Queen of Hearts’
