Re-learning how to be an audience member

by Ashley Griffin

In addition to being a contributing writer for OnStage Blog, Ashley Griffin has appeared on and off-Broadway, as well as in T.V. and film in New York, L.A., London, Stratford, and Chicago. As a writer, Ashley's work has been developed at New World Stages, Broadway's Manhattan Theater Club, Playwrights Horizons, and more. Ashley has taught at NYU and is a member of AEA & the Dramatists Guild.

The other day I happened to glance over some early work I did as a theater journalist and one piece caught my attention. In the wake of recent conversations about audience/actor interaction this article made me revisit a lot ruminations I’ve had about the nature of the audience/performer relationship.

There have been a lot of discussions in various spaces about the responsibility of the artist to the audience. But what about addressing the responsibility of the audience to the artist? How do we even begin to examine and address that? With stories filling the news about audience members refusing to wear masks, abusing front of house staff, sneaking nude photos/videos of cast members in the middle of a performance and posting them online…it seems like we need to.

There’s a lot of training that goes into being a performer. Some of it may seem silly from the outside (hey, a lot of it feels silly on the inside too sometimes.) Theater games, exercises, etc. are actually fantastic ways of learning to do something that requires immense skill and going against our natural human instincts of fight/flight/freeze. It becomes abundantly apparent when you see a 100% non-performer trying to do something performer-esque. Repeating memorized lines while acting natural and having random people watching you while you do it is actually spectacularly difficult – and something we take for granted until we see a non-actor attempt it.

But that’s just it. We learn how to do it. We study. We train. And not just how to say lines naturally. We learn how to uphold our end of the audience/actor agreement. I might phrase that unspoken agreement something like this:

Actor to Audience: This is a safe space. You will not physically be harmed in any way. Your boundaries may be pushed and it is possible you will be triggered mentally and emotionally, but we have done our due diligence to advertise what you will be walking into and if you are uncomfortable you may leave at any time. You will be taken on a carefully crafted journey meant to create an emotional and intellectual experience. Our primary concern is the care and edification of you and the people who have put their trust in us. You are safe, and anything that happens is by design. You can trust us.

Audience to Actor: I am willingly walking into this space in order to be taken on a journey. I will respect the rules of the space. I trust that what is happening is crafted for my benefit and I will not do anything to endanger you or your work. You are safe. I will not walk up onstage and begin interacting with what is happening. I will not injure the performers or anyone in the space. You can trust that you are safe to proceed with your work and we trust that you will keep us safe.

The article I found that I wrote once upon a time was actually centered on a performance experience where this agreement was broken from the performer’s end. In what was advertised as a relatively traditional production of a Shakespeare play, actors came into the audience and, regarding me specifically, sat on my lap (while in full body makeup) and proceeded to bite my neck. We’re talking wrapping their mouth around my neck, biting, and holding for an extended moment.

I stayed calm, and I trusted the essence of our “agreement” – as inappropriate as this moment might have been I chose to continue to trust that this was a part of the show and that the actor was not trying to actually hurt me. I chose not to assume that this actor was going rogue and was about to put me in the hospital. In that moment I chose to stay calm and let the moment play out, because I felt that if I didn’t some serious injuries (namely to myself) might occur.

That’s how strong the audience/actor contract is. I’m not saying everyone would react the same in that situation, I’m not even saying the way I reacted was necessarily the best choice. But the underlying root of “I’m safe in the theater and I trust the performers” is so intrinsic to our understanding of theatrical performance it’s the default we tend to go to. There have been a lot of experimental pieces with the aim to force audiences to question when their responsibility to what’s happening onstage begins – at what point do they have a moral responsibility to intervene? But through seeing several of these pieces, and discussing them with their teams, I’ve come to the conclusion that it is an interesting but ultimately futile experiment – because the only way theater can really exist in the first place is if this agreement is in place – and trusting that what is happening onstage is carefully crafted and ultimately safe (despite possible appearances) is what allows theater to function at all.

But performers train for this. We train in stage combat. We train in improv. We train in audience interaction. We have safeties in place. We prepare for the unexpected.

But, as far as the audience’s side of things, that unspoken agreement usually stays just that – unspoken. Most often audiences aren’t “trained” in how to be audience members and many may argue that, theoretically, they shouldn’t need to be. But examples especially from the past several years would disagree. And it’s affecting performers ability to do their jobs.

I’m probably a rare case where I actually did have training in how to be an audience member. When I was VERY little (we’re talking under six years old) I was part of a great kid’s acting program that was associated with a local theater. Part of our curriculum was to go see a professional (child friendly) production at this theater during our time there.

But we were prepped for it.

This basic agreement – that the actors would keep us safe and we needed to keep the actors safe, was explained to us. What did it mean for us to keep the actors safe? It meant that:

-       We needed to be aware that these were live people in front of us who, unlike characters on T.V. could see and hear us. If we made noise in the theater, if we got up and walked around, if we walked up on stage, etc. it would affect their work and the show. It could also put us (and them) in danger if we walked onstage during a musical number, or when a set piece was moving. We needed to be quiet and stay in our seats (unless there was an emergency in which case we could notify an adult) and be respectful of the real live people who were in front of us.

-       We needed to keep the actor’s playing space clean and safe. That meant no programs or feet on the stage or hanging in the aisles. We planted our feet on the floor and put any belongings under our seat.

-       We needed to use the restroom before the show and during intermission so as not to disrupt the show or those around us.

-       If we had to bring any electronic devices with us they must be turned off and under our seat.

-       Within respectful bounds we could (and should!) show our appreciation for what we were experiencing. If we enjoyed something we were encouraged to clap. If something was funny we were encouraged to laugh. But talking and shouting things out was not appropriate.

-       We needed to be respectful and aware that we were walking into a sacred space where real live people had worked very hard to give us a gift and the experience needed to be treated as such.

And, you know, those lessons have held me in very good stead.

But having an audience education like that is far from the norm.

And, frankly, I don’t really feel safe with a lot of audiences anymore – nor do many of my collogues.

Lately there is not a performance that goes by where one or more of the following doesn’t happen:

-       Someone refuses to follow the rules of the theater (including wearing a mask, bringing certain food and drink to their seat, leaving things in the aisles, etc.) And when staff try to step in they get yelled at. This is a great triple whammy of putting other’s safety at risk, abusing a staff member and just flat out being disruptive to the show. This has also more and more become linked to a sense of entitlement – they shelled out X dollars to be here, they can do whatever they want.

-       Phones, playbills or feet being left on stage which has in many instances injured a performer who didn’t know something was there, or directly interfered with scenery being moved.

-       Audience members flat out walking onstage for various reasons – I’ve heard everything from someone wanting to plug their phone in to charge in a (fake) outlet on the set, to trying to find a bathroom, to just flat out being disruptive.

-       People being drunk (note – this has nothing to do with the wonderful bar staff at Broadway theaters who are great about their service and do everything to keep everyone around them safe. I’m talking about the MANY folks who come to the theater already waisted) and incredibly disorderly.

-       People violating the actor’s boundaries and consent by filming them naked while onstage, or flat out just filming at all when they shouldn’t.

-       Audiences shouting out inappropriate things during a show.

-       Coming in late and loudly disrupting what’s happening by loudly asking questions and trying to find their seat.

-       Throwing things onstage.

This is just a partial list, and it’s not even including the biggest thing – the fact that many shows get serious death threats and that NY Theater is, potentially, a target for terrorist attacks or mass shootings. I’m not saying this is an audience problem, but many of the threats have come from audience members who have seen or are coming to see a show, so I would feel remiss if I didn’t touch on it. I’ll never forget a few years ago when a car backfired in Times Square and sent everyone within a ten block radius into such a panic they literally fled into theaters, ran onstage mid performance, running over and through confused cast members to take shelter in dressing rooms. (Again, as a disclaimer, in an emergency, absolutely do what you need to do to be safe! This is not a criticism of those who went backstage seeking protection.) I remember working on a show that had received threats – having to get special ID’s and a full on pat down before I could even go backstage, looking out into the audience and wondering if there were any guns hiding in the bags I saw in the aisles and under seats…

But all that’s to say, in a world where increasingly more and more spaces are becoming unsafe, some of those instances have included audience members targeting shows and performers with threats. Yes, this is a different category that what I’ve been speaking about, and it’s certainly something that’s not unique to the theater, but it is something performers are afraid of both backstage and when they come out of the stage door, and I don’t want to ignore it.

Recently Patti Lupone made headline news when, at a talk back for her Broadway show COMPANY she stopped the discussion and yelled at a patron who was refusing to wear their mask correctly. As Lupone said on the Colbert show when asked about the interaction:

“What led up to it, and it’s what nobody covered in the press, was what she did when our Covid safety managers came down to tell her to put (her mask) on correctly. She took it off, waved it in the air, and then put it over her eyes. So she was mocking the mandate and mocking the Covid safety managers who get abuse every night…”

Lupone went on to say that they are continuing to have Covid cases within the cast. When Lupone told this woman to put her mask on correctly (the interaction was filmed and posted online) the woman snapped back: “I pay your salary!” And (I believe) something along the lines that she could do whatever she wanted – implying that, as an audience member, she in some way “owns” Lupone and the other actors.

I don’t know what the solution is, but something needs to be done. There have always been outliers, a bad egg here and there, but, I would say starting a few years before the pandemic, things began going off the deep end to the point where I, and many other performers are nervous getting onstage, not knowing, frankly, if the audience will uphold their part of the audience/actor agreement – namely, to keep us safe.

I think it would be a great thing to incorporate “how to be a good audience member” in theater programs, or when bringing special groups to the theater – but frankly, that’s most likely when those types of conversations already occur.

Perhaps it’s in making theater more accessible so it becomes a more frequent occurrence that folks become comfortable with, and aware of the “ways to behave” – but I don’t think it’s really that either. Often when someone is coming to the theater for the first time, or on a rare, special occasion, they’re the MOST well behaved person in the audience.

Does this unspoken agreement simply need to become flat out SPOKEN? Do we need to have it posted in every theater? Personally announced and agreed to by every ticket holder?

The theater should be a safe space – not one where you’ll never potentially be triggered, or come up against difficult subject matter, but one where we all say, “hey, something sacred is happening here – even if it’s just that we all need to relax and laugh for a while. I care about you, I respect you, I honor you, and I will keep you safe.”

If that’s too much to ask, I’m afraid for what the actor/audience relationship will be like ten years from now. As a performer I will uphold my end of the contract. I’m begging audiences – please just keep us safe as we will you…