The origins of immersive theatre go all the way back to the beginnings of modern theatre in the 19th century. Call-and-response, when a leader puts out a call and an audience calls back a pre-ordained response, has long been a concept in music, adding a participatory element. In the centuries that followed, things like murder mystery theatres and haunted houses also put their intended audience into an environment and allowed them choice in how they viewed the story. Even traditional proscenium theatre started to adapt some immersive or interactive elements. In 1985, the Tony Award-winning Best Musical, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, required that the audience vote on who killed the titular character, spurring one of seven possible endings. https://space.org.uk/2014/08/04/what-is-immersive-theatre/

The media used are more experimental and bold; they are also usually cross media and may involve sensors, which plays on the reaction to the audiences' movement when looking at the installations. By using virtual reality as a medium, immersive virtual reality art is probably the most deeply interactive form of art.

Interactive theatre is a presentational or theatrical form or work that breaks the "fourth wall" that traditionally separates the performer from the audience both physically and verbally.

In traditional theatre, performance is limited to a designated stage area and the action of the play unfolds without any interplay with audience members, who function as passive observers.[citation needed] Conversely, in interactive theatre, the performance engages audience members directly, making them active participants in the piece. Interactive theatre often goes hand in hand with immersive theatre, which brings the audience into the same playing space as the performers, obliterating any walls that separate the audience from the performers. They may be asked to hold props, supply performance suggestions (as in improvisational theatre), share the action's real-world (non-theatrical) setting (as in Site specific theatre and immersive theatre), or become characters in the performance.

“ Immersive theatre, interactive theatre, site-specific theatre; call it whatever the hell you like, but London is bursting with plays and performances that defy stuffy conventions to offer you an experience that’s more like a real life adventure than an evening at the theatre. Walk through fantasy landscapes; eat and drink with actors; get chased by the bad guys; help commit a crime – screw virtual reality, you can do all these things and more in the flesh, in London town. ”