How To Be An Audience Member

Obviously a big part of being an actor is acting, but another big part is a love of theatre. This love is usually satisfied by being an audience member at other people’s shows. We’ve all seen millions of shows, whether they are professional theatre, community theatre, or school theatre. Because of this, we know that there are three rules on how to be the perfect audience member:

1. Laugh at the funny parts.
2. Clap at the parts when it’s appropriate.
3. Stay seated and quiet for all the other parts.

I know you know this, because you are a tried and true theatre patron, and as an actor you know how you would want an audience to act. So the real question is: Why does it seem like audience members have been having an especially difficult time with these rules recently? Over the past few months, the theatre world has been in a frenzy over audience members who can’t behave. First, the guy who went onstage during a performance of Hand To God, so that he could use a (fake) outlet to charge his phone (read about it). Then, Patti LuPone took an audience member’s phone as she was exiting stage, because he was using it while she was performing (Patti is the queen). And most recently, an audience member stormed the stage during a performance of The Fix at the Signature Theatre looking for a bathroom (ok seriously?). This has apparently become a really big issue.

Personally, I think that being able to experience live theatre is one of the most amazing things in the world, and I think part of being an audience member is having the utmost respect for the performers. Every person on the stage in front of you has put in so much work to be there and to do their best, and that’s the case for any type of show you go to see. They’re there for us just as much as we’re there for them, and we all have to respect each other in the theatre.

Having said that, I want to know if you have any bad audience member stories! Let me know in the comments or on twitter, I would love to hear them.

-Alex Bosworth

Twitter: @alex_bozzie

Instagram: alex_boz