Encore!

One of the worst experiences I have ever had on stage was being in a large cast play that was very well received... To the point where certain members of the cast would insist we take yet another curtain call because the audience were still clapping, only to have the applause give out before we'd left the satge the last time...

My Personal Golden Rule... Always leave yourself enough applause to get yourself off stage.
I would rather miss an opportunity for yet another encore than suffer the aweful feeling of exiting the stage in silence!

"The guy/gal pulling the curtain back decides..."

From memory, in Broadway at Roley encores were done on the consensus of three people: The MD, the SM and the Producer (who at the end of the show was acting as the guy who pulls the curtains back and forth).
The decision was up to the MD, after all, she's the only one who's not actually backstage and can accurately judge the audience reaction, but both the SM and the Producer had the ability to veto a curtain call (especially if we didn't think the cast DESERVED it)

Don't ever expect a curtain call, but always have it ready.
I think every night that we had an encore, we didn't tell the cast there was an encore until after the curtain call proper!
It's a lot better on an actor's ego to have them not expect it and then get, than it is for them to expect and not get it, or expect it and have it go flat...

Then again, there is that old story of the tenor in Il Trovatore at La Scala, who after his big aria was showered from the gods with the cries of encore... he repeated the aria and again was treated with a thunderous encore... a third repeat, again cries of encore, he turns to the gods and pleads with them to stop crying encore so that they can get on with the opera, at which point the entire gods shout as in one voice "You'll keep singing it until you get it right!"

Lots of Love People and see you at 'Fantasticks'!
Paul Treasure