In Baltimore in 2015, Submersive Productions staged The Mesmeric Revelations! of Edgar Allan Poe , an immersive spectacle based on the women populating Poe’s fiction and personal life. Also in Baltimore in 2015, Freddie Gray, an African American man, was killed by Baltimore police, leading to mass protests and civil unrest. A striking coincidence between the two events suggests that immersive spectatorship intensifies our political experience of the social forces that make us subjects, indicating new ways for theatre to address a nation that has always been fractious and fractured.

During the same week in November 2012, hostilities erupted between Israel and the Gaza Strip and Toneelgroep Amsterdam brought Roman Tragedies to the stage in Brooklyn. As the conflict in the Middle East took on digital dimensions via Twitter, the play's own engagement with that technology staged contemporary geopolitical spectatorship.

International WOW Company's Surrender combines elements of avantgarde performance, dramatic karaoke, and audience participation to create an immersive portrait of urban combat and communicate the challenges soldiers face reintegrating into civilian life. Director Josh Fox reflects on making theatre out of the experience of being a soldier in 21st-century Iraq.