Steppenwolf Theatre Company Blog – Chicago Theater, World-Class Ensemble

(Leslie is the understudy for Kate Arrington in Fake)

I love being part of an audience almost (I say almost) as much as I love being on the stage. It is therefore lucky for me that I am understudying, and have been a member of several dozen audiences over the past two months or so. It has allowed me the luxury of time in which to observe (and reinforce) my pet theory that each audience is a very definite, varied and extremely vivid personality.

It’s very common for an actor to come offstage and think to themselves about the mood of the audience that evening. It’s much as if that audience were a brand new person to the actor, sort of a first date. At least I think this is a common thing.

To those readers who have not experienced it, imagine how much energy and information the performing actor receives from the several hundred people in the audience on any given evening (or matinee, although not as much in the latter case). You certainly know how much, as an observer, you receive from the actor. And while the audience is neither speaking lines nor executing action, they are laughing, sighing, whispering, shifting around and very definitely speaking to the actor (for a more sobering assessment of how much an actor is aware of what transpires in the audience, do read 1% of You by Tracy Letts).

It is elementary that an actor processes audience reaction and adjusts accordingly, but the layman would be shocked to know how much the actor can sense. Sometimes an audience is corny. Sometimes they’re flirtatious. Sometimes they’re needy, and sometime they’re biased. They are always curious, and the presence is always right there on the stage with you. Like a silent character.

The audience is certainly greater than the sum of its parts. To be sure, every blessed audience member at the Steppenwolf is, individually, a very fine and worthy person. But each night that I take my seat, I am always curious to see who we will be, together.

This entry was posted by Leslie Frame on Wednesday, October 28th, 2009 at 3:56 pm and is filed under Fake. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.