By analysing interviews of contemporary theatre audience members, one can identify three ideal-types of audience : those for whom the theatre allows a deep change in their vision of the world ; those who, in studying theatre, are sensitive to the technical aspects of the production; those who, while accepting the perspectives of the contemporary theatre, are sensitive to the entertainment aspect of the theatre and want to have a nice evening. This paper is about idealtypes, though any actual audience will have some of the traits of each of the three types.