Professor Cohen’s Guide to Audiencing
from my scratch pad
Having read Ralph Cohen’s essay on the joy of audiencing — working with actors to make a play — you may be wondering how to get in on the action. Summer is peak audiencing season, with shows popping up in parks and other outdoor venues around the country. So grab your chance, bearing my father’s advice in mind.
Audience Is a Verb
My father and your guest columnist, Ralph Alan Cohen, taught English at James Madison University for most of his career; Shakespeare was his specialty. He founded JMU’s study abroad program, cofounded a Shakespeare company that became the American Shakespeare Center
Professor Cohen’s Guide to Audiencing
If you have the chance, go to a show at a theater that always leaves the house lights on, so the audience and actors can see one another. The Globe Theatre in London and (my own) Blackfriars Playhouse in Staunton, Virginia, are the two examples I shared, but there are others. Seek them out.
Seek out interactive, immersive, participatory shows that depend on audience involvement. Yes, it may be more work. But that just means you’ll get more out of it.
Look for outdoor matinees or evening shows that use natural light, or shows at small theaters where the “spill” from the lights on stage makes you visible to the actors.
Daniel Radcliffe performing with an audience in Every Brilliant Thing at the Hudson Theater in New York City Never avoid going to a play because it’s outside and you have to sit on the ground. Take a blanket or a folding chair. Inconvenience is an investment.
Bring a waterproof hooded poncho in case of rain, and try not to call it quits until the actors do.
Try sitting near the end of a row and away from the middle of the audience so you can watch both the actors and your fellow playgoers.
If the audience is darkened, get tickets as close to the front as you can so that you are visible in the light spill from the stage.
If something touches or amuses you, remember that a smile is as good as a laugh — sometimes better.
When actors make eye contact with you, don’t look away; listen even more closely to what they have to say.
Theatergoers audiencing at the Blackfriars Playhouse in Staunton, Va.
I could've used this advice earlier in my life. I was raised (indoctrinated?) to attend to performances politely and quietly. So imagine my surprise when I attended an August Wilson play in Atlanta in the 1980s, in which the audience was majority Black. So much vocal reaction to what was happening on stage! Not words so much as crowd murmurs of approval or rebuke to the characters' actions. In the moment, I sat in confusion; since then, I've pondered this cultural difference. Your post helps!
Also applicable to live music going .. come and give back the energy performers are sending out. We are deeply connected in live experiences. Lean into the reciprocity of the artful exchange!