This essay draws on the contemporary aesthetic theories of four writers -Hans-Georg Gadamer, Paul Ricoeur, Paul Thom, and James O. Young-who represent both the continental and analytic contemporary philosophical schools of thought. Each writer offers valuable perspectives on issues in aesthetic education pertaining to a key question in my dissertation research project, that is: How may we better educate future audiences for the performing arts? Audience in the performing arts is distinct from general discussions of audience in aesthetics and thus requires a particular understanding. How does this type of audience take on the activities of spectatorship employing attention, interpretation and evaluation/criticism in the process of experiencing performance? Traditional aesthetic philosophy tends to focus on the primary work of art-the dramatic text, the musical score- and positions the performance of the work as secondary, an interpretation only, not a work of art in itself. Contemporary aesthetics provides some evidence of a shift in this downgrading of performance as art, and discussions of issues surrounding performance can be found in recent aesthetic and aesthetic education texts and journal articles. However, the performing arts remains an under-examined area of aesthetics and thus it becomes necessary to adapt more general aesthetic theories to fit an emerging curriculum model of audience education and aesthetics in performance.