<p>In order for the audience to believe in and be engaged by a Shakespearean character, they have to come across as a real person on the stage.</p>
<p>The answer is they have. Does that means audience is singular?</p>
<p>no, they have is referring to the Shakespearean character. As you can see they is wrong because it does not match the singular real person</p>
<p>The ‘they’ is referring to “a Shakespearean character”. Audience, while it may appear to be the subject because of the positional nature of the english language, is actually the object of the passive verb “engage”. In other words, you could rewrite the sentence</p>
<p>In order for a Shakespearean character to be [believable] and engage the audience, they have to come across as a real person on the stage. </p>
<p>In this INCORRECT form, the error is evident. “a Shakespearean character” is singular, so the correct sentence would would require “they have” to be “she/he has”.</p>
<p>Hope that was clear.</p>
<p>yeah that was clear
Thanks!!</p>