An overview of the historical constitution of theater audiences in Classical Athens and the implications of this assessment. I first sketch out the dominant ways in which modern scholars have defined ancient audiences. I argue that attention to (male) citizenship or Greek identity has effaced the presence and role of other groups in the audience. In the second section I discuss the evidence for audiences in ancient Athens. Available space for spectators and the various barriers to these spaces shaped the diverse constitution of audiences; from the Classical to early Hellenistic period (ca. 480–300 BC), theaters did not merely expand and proliferate but redefined the make-up of audiences. The third section explores the discourse of audiences in ancient sources. As I briefly elaborate in the conclusion, this chapter aims to unsettle and provincialize the idea of citizen audiences
