The audience from Hell

Hi Gordon Over the past few years I have often taken students of mine to the theatre and we often sit in the front row or very close. These students are well behaved, they are attentive, they are very appreciative of not being shoved in the back row where they cant see or hear anything. They show their appreciation by being often a better audience than many of the loud and rude adults who decry the fact that young people are sitting in front of them. I agree , some school kids will pull faces , make gestures at the actors and do the same things that many adults will do. Please dont assume that all students are the same, just as all adult audiences are not the same. If we could also remember, that students will often model the same type of behaviour that they see their elders doing. I went to a theatre show last night and the behaviour of the three or four "gentlemen' sitting behind me ( all of whom were aged at least 50 ) was appalling. Kerri

Having done children's theatre, I would say schools can be both the best and worst of audiences... 100 children screaming at Snow White to not eat the apple whilst the actor playing the Evil Queen gestures helplessly at them to shush... Or alternatively, 100 children sitting through your show with their gazes firmly fixed on the screen of their mobile phones... But same could be said for adult audiences too... Both good and bad depending on the day... :P

I'm actually thinking of organising a mobile phone cloak room for Galileo... that or I'm going to patrol the aisles with a big stick... I think i'll have less of a chance of getting arrested if I choose the first option. Alternatively we could just stop mid show and wait and staree at whoever is using their phone until they stop... LOL Verfremdungseffekt does not work so well when all 12 actors are really pissed off and staring at you!

I agree! Coming from a teaching background myself I have often seen students "behave" far better than adults. Just last week a friend of mine spent the entire night having the back of her seat continuously rocked while she was trying to watch a play and it was not a student sitting behind her! I would be very careful about alienating students in my theatre because let's face it an audience is an audience and without an audience there is no play! Also if they are trying to throw the actors off course the actors should suck it up and deal with it. For me, an actor bitching about someone in the audience throwing them off by pulling a face is like a person in a swimming pool bitching about the rain getting them wet. If we start not letting students sit in the front rows of our theatre. Where does it stop? Perhaps they shouldn't be allowed on public transport either... Perhaps we shouldn't even allow them to walk the streets at will. Perhaps we should start to lock our youth in cages when they are nto locked inside their schools. Perhaps I should discriminate against old people as we like to do against the young. How would you feel if I said I want no old men in my front row because their "Old man smell" is throwing off my actors... Or perhaps the faces they pull, that "here I am, impress me" attitude and look that many people like to attatch to the older generation. If we don't want our kids using mobile phones in the theatre, then we need to show them there is a consequence for doing so. If they are caught, take away their phones at intermission. If it happens again, all mobile phones are handed in before each performance to me the teacher and each phone is placed in an envelope with the students name on it. We have to find other solutions to our problems than simply pointing fingers and pushing people into corners where they can be ignored. Having said all this and despite my tongue-in-cheek comments below, 98% of the student audiences I have performed to have been absolutely delightful and I would welcome them back again and again.

You see it all comes down to experience. On one or at most two occasions mass school audiences have behaved when at shows I have been involved with, usually I find them intolerable and the teachers sent with them powerless to exert any control. The school audience that came to my last Fringe show were a glorious exception paying attention and then actively and intelligently involved in a Q & A afterwards. I agree there is a serious problem with adults as well. We simply do not sell any noisy sweets at our shows. In fact we don't sell any. Is that all there is? Well if that's all there is my friend, then let's keep dancing. www.tonymoore.id.au

Hello Gordon, Interesting topic that you raised. The use of mobile phones and i-pods by audience members in theatres and cinemas seems to be an increasing occurance along with conducting conversations with friends or wrangling with snack wrappers. I personally find it intriguing and sad that modern audiences seem to struggle with maintaining concentration or focus for an extended period of time without the need to be eating, texting, talking or wriggling about. Student audiences at the theatre. I will assume you are referring to secondary level students. I wonder how often the average secondary school student has attended a live theatre performance these days - not including Theatre In Education which occurs at school. Is it sadly possible that many young audiences simply don't know how to conduct themselves in a theatre environment? Pulling faces, calling out or being disruptive and distracting may, unfortunately, be the symptoms of an audience who is 'feeling something' from the performance but just don't know how to appropriately express or deal with their emotions. Kind of like when kids attend their first grade 6 'sex education' night and end up giggling or laughing a lot to conceal their embarrassment. Being disruptive, dismissive and silly is easier than responding in a more profound way. In the stand up comedy world audience distractions done purposely is known as heckling. Interestingly, most hecklers(apart from the blindly drunk)don't actually heckle to purposely bring down the performer. They do it to draw attention to themselves and to attract the notice of the comedian so that, for a brief moment they are 'part of the act'. Quite a few people who watch stand up secretly wish they had the guts to get up there themselves. I wonder if young audiences who try to elicit the attention of the actors are behaving in a similar vein? My thoughts? I would love for a pro manners and anti technology revolution to sweep our cinemas and theatres. Eager minds in, electronic distractions out. As frustrating as it is, I also hope that young audiences keep getting brought to live shows - the younger the better. Electronic and virtual entertainment can never usurp the experience of a live show. Young audiences need experiences that engage their minds and enhance their experience of being 'human'. Real humans. Actors of Australia - we have a precious and vital role ahead of us. Tulipa.

The same can be said for Adults, as well you know! In my most recent performance, which I try to aim at people more my age, the front row was filled with adults that were definitely 40+ The whole time they squirmed and talked and texted... They didn't have to pay to be there, so why make it so uncomfortable for everyone there? But in a sense, I can see where you are coming from- my entire High School grade was a nightmare to go anywhere with- they were incredibly raucous and generally went out of their way to make any performance incredibly annoying.. I swear there were about 3 students who were ever actually enthusiastic towards theatre, which the majority had a habit of wrecking for us.

Last night at Merchant of Venice, we had around 50 school students attending the show. Having been an observer of this thread, I was curious to see what would happen. The verdict: Well behaved, attentive, no tell-tale glows from mobile phone usage, and the only unwelcome distraction was a bit of chip packet rustling when the second half opened, which quickly subsided. Oh yes, and there was a bit of righteous murmuring when Shylock got his come-uppance. But I think that just added to the performance. Personally speaking,I think these kids and others like them should be welcome at anybody's show. freddie the rocking jedi badger

The worst audience I have ever witnessed was for a performance by Swinburne students. Naturally 9/10 audience members were friends or family of students, and FOH does actually serve alcohol. This meant that large groups of young (ie. 18-mid 20s) people are both drinking and laughing obnoxiously - often at stuff that is only funny because they happen to know the person onstage. Usually it's not too bad, but this last show was horrendous. I was at some points tempted to turn around and smack the people over the head, and it got so bad that my sister actually did say something; neither of us ever confront people like that. Turtle shadow puppet for sale at Puppets in Melbourne

You might have a point there. However, what's even more curious is the fact that I saw Romeo and Juliet done by Grads in the New Fortune theatre some years ago, sitting amidst a school audience that was, putting not too fine a point on it, the most atrociously behaved gathering of little pricks to ever emerge from puberty with all their chromosomes intact. So I'm disinclined to agree with your theory at this point in time... apart from the peacocks. :) UPDATE- We had another well behaved school crowd again tonight. Mmm, peacocks. freddie the rocking jedi badger (theatre bum and proud of it)

Ye Gods forbid that high school students should enjoy themselves at a theatre! Or more to the point that they should have the audacity to do something as madcap as pay attention to the play and enjoy the show...

One of the funniest moments during GRADS' Hamlet occurred at Polonius's death. It obviously unexpected to the, mainly, schoolie audience - as Polonius's body fell through the arras and hit the floor there was a stunned silence and then, "Oh bullshit!" It was testament to Collin O'Brien's portrayal of Pol that his death caused apparent distress to a young audience. You're only young once, but anyone can be immature.

I sadly remember a performance of R&J from days of yore.... it had the school audience from h@ll... well, the front row at least. The rows behind were great! Well done you lot!! and the teachers !!! A young madam sat in the front and proceeded to show off her new white boots to all her friends up and down the row, to the extent of putting her legs out onto the stage area and loudly exhorting them all to look and admire. She kept this up for at least ten minutes and then decided to start contributing to the play by making snide comments on the action. The climax came when, as Lady C., I swept onstage to do the whole "weeping over Tybalt's dead body" bit and the train of my skirt flipped onto the actor's face. He held it together, the young madam snorted loudly and encouraged her friends to laugh too..which of course they did. I turned it all into a "wiping the dead one's face tenderly thing" rose to my feet to confront the Prince and managed, oh dear...what a pity...to tread on the young lady's foot as I did so. She yelped and then subsided for the rest of the play, glaring at me if I got near her. When occasion allowed I merely smiled sweetly and got on with it. The poor bloke playing the Prince got a real start because I was particularly venomous and a bit scary as I stalked towards him. I explained it all afterwards and we all had a good laugh. Front row beware, you may not be as safe as you think! Flip side, have since had several brilliant school audiences...but really wish they would all acknowledge the need to turn the flipping mobiles off, there's nearly always one or two tell tale "blue glow" faces out there. Sigh! "Life is too short to stuff a mushroom"

I've been on the door every night of Merchant's run, so I've only seen the school kids before they took their seats but they seemed, for the most part, to be excited and happy to be there. It's the adults who rock up at 8pm and then expect you to wait for them to finish their cigarette, drink, trip to the toilet, etc etc that every so slightly peeve me. You're only young once, but anyone can be immature.

Can we? Thanks for the permission!

Permission would have been granted had Pamelas said 'anyone MAY be immature'. Saying 'anyone CAN be immature' is simply a statement of capability. No permission (or lack thereof) implied. Finicky, I know, but if you really WERE an old codger you probably would have known this. Cheers, Craig ~<8>-/====\---------

Gordon wrote "This week I heard of the latest nightmare to hit the theatre – school kids in the front row." For some of us, this is nothing latest or new, really. Most of my performances have school kids in EVERY row. I've had kids who've been abysmal throughout the performance, and others who have been absolutely delightful to perform to. Yet often it's the 'nightmare' kids who've been my 'best' audiences, and the 'perfect' kids who've been the worst... For an audience's behaviour to be described as a 'nightmare' implies that there is a single approved 'non-nightmare' way to react when seeing theatre. I'm of the opinion that that is a vague and nebulous concept and if your hopes for a good theatre experience pin on getting this approved reaction from your audience, then you're setting yourself up to fail. If you are, rather, willing to see a multitude of reactions as 'right', and interesting, and something that your performance ought to respond to (theatre is a live interaction between performer and audience, after all), then it becomes much easier to deal with as you realise there are all sorts of situations across the spectrum and they are all unique and therefore can't be 'wrong'. I take it by 'schoolkids' you generally meant 'highschool age kids'. There are concessions to be made when the audience is really young schoolkids. They are often learning how to experience theatre, and boisterous or 'inappropriate' behaviour from young kids can often simply mean they're enjoying themselves immensely. So let's look at highschool examples: There are teachers who announce to their students that they 'expect' a particular standard of behaviour, that talking or giggling won't be tolerated, that they need to sit quietly and pay attention, etc. They want their students to demonstrate 'perfect' behaviour....and these are often audiences that feel DEAD to perform to. It's no longer an interaction between performer and audience, it's an interaction between teacher and students, who just happen to be watching performers. Any chance I get to prevent this little 'teacher talk' from happening before I do a performance, I always take and never regret. I always want to observe the audience's natural reaction, good or bad - not their fear of detention. And I want the opportunity to influence that reaction through my performance, not have it taken from me for the sake of 'our school's reputation for good behaviour'. Please, teachers, give them permission to react! If you have to judge their behaviour, do it afterwards. But in the vast majority of cases, they'll not be anywhere as disruptive to us as you imply they'll be. And then there are audiences who come in not intending to cooperate. They are probably there under duress, or simply because it's a chance to skip a maths class. They sit there with arms folded, sneering faces saying 'you can't impress me, this is going to be a waste of time'. Now, if I've come in with the wrong play for them, then I probably AM wasting their time. And that's our fault. But when we've chosen the right play, and produced and performed it with that audience in mind, then they suddenly become the absolute BEST audiences to perform to, because they are a challenge that we rise to. Starting with an audience that appears negative, and finishing with them enthused, attentive and impressed, is why I do theatre! There's a false sense of security given to performers by an audience that behaves 'politely'. An adult audience will usually sit quietly and pleasantly, even if they really don't like the show. The most you might get is a yawn or a fidget. It's not generally acceptable for them to express any disapproval, and because they've invested their own money in a ticket, there's an element of pride in not admitting they've possibly made a mistake of judgement...so they will hide any adverse reaction until they return to the anonymous security of their computer that night before you can discover what they really thought. An audience of schoolkids often has made no investment in the show whatsoever...it's been paid for by parents directly, or indirectly through school fees. And they don't care to hide any disapproval simply to be 'polite'. They'll talk amongst themselves, look out the window, play with mobile phones...and be the most honest audience you can perform to. Unlike adults who know 'how to behave', with kids you'll be immediately informed if you are engaging them, or if you're not. And if you're not engaging your audience as a performer, you have a bit to learn. Oh, and lastly - everything I've read in above posts, about good/bad behaviour from schoolkids (being disruptive, sending text messages, calling out, pulling faces, etc) I can apply to an exact same instance regarding an audience of adults. Admittedly, many of these performances have been in a pub or outdoor environment, meaning alcohol is often a factor...but not all. It means that 'poor' behaviour isn't a schoolkid trait. It's a human trait. Cheers, Craig ~<8>-/====\---------

Ah yes, of course you can . . . but whether or not you may is another thing entirely! Per Ardua Ad Astra