A great audience

Joyce seemed to decide that having a “good” audience was more important than having “good” storytellers:

I think that having a great storyteller--

not even a great storyteller

but having a good audience

you got to have a good audience.

It'll help a lot.

This connects with the creation of a safe space for storytelling. In some ways what the audience is asked to do is harder than what the storytellers are asked to do. The audience agrees to be uncomfortable and supportive. Perhaps that does make their role more essential.