Artists serving audiences?

In the first episode, our six directors discussed how they begin their process, usually with living writers. In the second episode, they explained how they approach dead writers of old plays differently. In this episode, they begin to ask each other about the more common situation--where they are hired to do the second or third production of a play. How does a director make that play work? Is the question no longer "Whose story is it?" and has it become "Who is it for?" What happens when you become an artist serving an audience instead of just "an Artist with a capital A."