Here’s a new word for you: claquer. It comes from the French word, meaning “to clap.” A claquer is a professional applauder.
In ancient Athens, Greek playwrights participating in comedy competitions tried to sway the judges by hiring claquers to laugh at their plays and to deride those of their competitors.
Beginning in 18th century France and lasting well into the 19th century, most theater managers, bowing to pressure, permitted claquers into their theaters–people paid to respond to the drama and influence the audience. The rieurs laughed loudly. The bisseurs shouted for encores. And the pleureuses wept loudly at the sad parts. The claquers were often paid by the actors and issued free tickets by the management, and, according to this Encyclopedia Brittanica article, were highly influential to a play’s success.
The practice spread to Italy, Vienna, London, and New York, and in some circumstances became a form of extortion, when singers were obliged to pay a fee to the claques before a debut to ensure they weren’t booed.
The author of Peter Pan, J.M. Barrie, is believed to have planted claquers in the audience when the play was first staged, to respond when Peter turns to the audience and asks people to clap if they believe in fairies.
I suppose the modern-day equivalent would be the author who pays people to write starred reviews of his books on Amazon.
images: By 4028mdk09 (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
Les “claqueurs” du théâtre aux XVIII° et XIX° siècle : “Les Chevaliers du Lustre” deuxième partie