The audience is the most revered member of the theater. Without an audience, there is no theater. Everything done is ultimately for the enjoyment of the audience. They are our guests, fellow players, and the last spoke in the wheel which can then begin to roll. They make the performance meaningful.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the importance of the audience in the theater experience.
Viola Spolin highlights that the audience holds a central role in theater, as their enjoyment and presence validate the performance. The relationship between performers and the audience transforms the act of theater into a meaningful exchange, underscoring that without the audience, the performance loses its purpose and significance.
In practice
In a speech about the importance of art, this quote serves to remind listeners of the audience's role.
When student-actors see people and the way they behave when together, see the color of the sky, hear the sounds in the air, feel the ground beneath them and the wind on their faces, they get a wider view of their personal world and development in the theater is quickened. The world provides the material for the theater and artistic growth develops hand-in-hand with one's recognition of it and one's self within it.
Music is my way of taking my mind away from the game. When I'm singing, you don't got anything to worry about. Don't gotta worry about scoring however many points or winning the game. No matter how good or how bad you are, it's fun.
If you write for God you will reach many men and bring them joy. If you write for men--you may make some money and you may give someone a little joy and you may make a noise in the world, for a little while. If you write for yourself, you can read what you yourself have written and after ten minutes you will be so disgusted that you will wish that you were dead.
Individuality realized is the supreme attainment of the human soul, the master-master's work of art. Individuality is sacred.
Musicals are — particularly musicals — plays also, but musicals particularly are… the last collaborator is your audience, and so you’ve got to wait ’til the last collaborator comes in before you can complete the collaboration.
If what you want to paint is the emotive mood in all its strength... then you must not sit and stare at everything and depict it exactly as one sees it.
Art, like Nature, has her monsters, things of bestial shape and with hideous voices.
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