NOV
16

Watch It!  Being a Good Audience Member

By Margaret F. Johnson 

Margaret F. Johnson directed over 190 productions and served as the Montana State Thespian Director from 1972 to 1992.  Margaret is also the author of The Drama Teacher’s Survival Guide and its sequel. 

No doubt you work diligently to develop your students’ acting skills.  You coach, you practice, you direct your young actors to build their understanding of the craft.  Still, we all know that performing the play is only part of the experience.  Being an audience member watching a live performance is also a critical part of learning about theatre.  Live theatre is not like a TV show or a movie that you can rewind or watch later if you miss something.  It is not a recording of something that happened some other time and some other place.  It is happening right now, in the moment, making it an art form that depends on the performers, the crew, and the audience.

I never forget that my productions may offer children or other members of the community their first opportunity to watch a live theatre performance.  Perhaps they’ve attended a sporting event or a concert, but there’s something unique about live theatre.  How the audience behaves and responds becomes part of the experience.  Attending a play gives the audience a great deal of power to help make each performance a success...  or a failure.  That is a responsibility that should not be taken lightly.

Likewise, your young actors can greatly broaden their own theatre experience by attending other shows.  Seeing a performance help brings together everything they are doing in the classroom, which is one reason I make attending a live show a class requirement for my drama students.  It doesn’t matter where they go.  It can be at a school or a local university.  It can be a traveling production or at a church or community theatre.  I even work to find free productions in our town or arrange tickets for students who cannot afford them.  Everyone deserves the benefits that come from watching a live performance.

It’s no wonder that responding to and analyzing artistic work is part of the National Core Art Standards.  Having my students watch a live production performed by a different group gives me multiple teaching opportunities.  The first lesson is obvious.  My students can see many of the same production elements that they are working on for their own show.  They observe everything from the technical (sound, lights, sets, costuming, etc.) to the acting (how did the characters interpret their characters and interact, how did the actor deliver the line, etc.)  and bring back valuable do’s and don’t’s for their own program.

There’s another lesson I make sure to teach my students before they attend a show:  theatre etiquette.  Just because they are taking my theatre class, I can’t assume they’ve ever been to a live stage performance or know the appropriate way to behave.  My students are learning the amount of commitment producing a show requires.  They understand now the time and effort required.  So it’s important they learn that whether or not they like a show, the cast and crew’s efforts deserve a respectful, appreciative audience.  While not every audience member sees a performance the same way, each show deserves the audience’s full attention.

I expect my drama students to set an example in our community by being exemplary audience members.  In turn, they now expect the same courtesy from their peers at their performances.  To help ensure this, we post “Theatre Etiquette” rules (provided below and in this printable pdf) in our theatre lobby and include them as a page in our program.  After all, the goal is to make sure that everyone — cast, crew, and audience — has a positive experience!

Below are the basic rules I give my students.  Of course, feel free to modify these according to the needs of your theatre.

• Arrive at least ten minutes before curtain time.  Should you arrive late to a performance, expect to miss the first scene and enter only with an usher to escort to your seat.
• Wear proper attire and remove all hats in the auditorium.
• Keep your feet off the seats and the seatbacks in front of you. 
• Do not bring any food into the auditorium.  Any beverage must be in a closed container.
• Do not unwrap candy or cough drops during a performance.  If you expect you might have a cough, unwrap your lozenge in advance.
• Silence all watch alarms, cell phones, and electronic devices. 
• Do not text, “check in,” or even look at your phone once the performance has begun.  The light is distracting to those around you as soon as the house lights go down.
• Do not take flash photographs during performances.  Photography without flash and videography of a show is on a show-to-show basis due to varying copyright laws, so check your program or ask an usher before the show to find out what’s allowed. 
• Remain for the entire performance.  If you must leave the theatre during a show, leave quietly during a blackout or a scene change.  The only exceptions to this are crying babies and talking young children, who should be immediately taken out of the auditorium.  If you do have to leave for any reason, do not expect to re-enter until intermission or curtain call. 
• Do not talk, whisper, hum, or sing along during a performance.  It distracts the actors since they can hear the audience and also detracts from the experience for other audience members.  The time to discuss the performance is during intermission and after it’s over.
• Please laugh during a comedy, clap after a song during a musical, and applaud at the end of a scene.  Applause — not yelling, whooping, whistling, or stomping your feet — is the acceptable way for an audience to show appreciation to the performers.
• Reserve standing ovations, the ultimate compliment you can give a show, for the best.  When standing ovations become routine, they become meaningless.