Never Mind the Audience

Someone gave me

Some good

Advice

Never mind the audience

It’s great because

It’s something you already know

But you never actually say

Never mind the audience

I asked the person

Giving me the advice

To elaborate

And, I’m gonna paraphrase,

But this is what they said

First off, never mind the audience

You have no control over them
Only yourself

All your life you hear people say

What other people think of you

Is none of your business

And that’s especially true

Of an audience

Secondly, an audience is not a thing

We talk about it like it’s one thing

One group of people

The same people

Going to every show

People who like the same things

And are always open to receiving theater

Smart, analytical people with taste

Who are going to think constructively about what they’re seeing

And respond with tact and graciousness

And that’s not true

There is no audience

There are just people

People who have bad days
And good days

Who got bad news

Right before coming to the theater

Or good news that’s distracting them

That’s making them want to get out of the theater

And rush home

So they can celebrate the good news

There are tired people

Who probably should have skipped out on theater that night

And gone to bed instead

And there are people

Who just don’t like anything

And yes, there are awesome people

Like the ones you always hope for

But it’s rare you get an entire theater

Full of them

And sometimes

Even when they’re there

They’re quiet

So never mind the audience

Don’t talk about planning seasons around

Or how you ‘know them’

You don’t know them

You may know some of them

You may even know a lot of them

But ideally, they’re constantly changing

And adding—no fast enough

And subtracting (sadly)—too quickly

And that’s a good thing

And if that’s not happening

--The adding, not the subtracting

You need to be focused on that

And not go around crowing about how well

You ‘know’ your audience

(Total disclosure—I was one of those people saying I know my audience.  That was why I got this particular earful.)

None of this is to say

That the audience doesn’t matter

They do matter

But it all goes back

To that idea of control

You can’t control them

You can only do your best for them

And if that’s not enough
You have to make peace with that

But if you go chasing after this mysterious ‘audience’

Trying to please them

By guessing what they—

—Again, there’s no ‘they’

‘They’ is not real

You can’t do anything with ‘they’—

You’ll end up exhausted

And sad

And dejected

And bitter

And probably without a theater company

So never mind the audience

Mind the play

Mind the actors

Mind the story

Mind the work

But not the audience

That was the advice

And I’ve rarely

Heard better