This article studies the practices of theatre spectators who stood in the parterre, or pit,of Parisian playhouses in the eighteenth century. It also analyzes representations of these spectators in the literature of the day. Eighteenth-century parterre spectators, almost exclusively male, stood for the entire three to four hours of each evening’s performance; during this time, they milled about, engaged with each, and interacted with women and others in the loges. In important ways, however, the chaotic situation of the parterre appears to have enhanced the spectator’s engagement with the spectacle onstage. Debates over disciplining the pit’s turbulent behavior, increasingly frequent in the last two decades of the Old Regime, provide surprising insight into the larger political and cultural questions that arose on the eve of the French Revolution.