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Your role in our play…
You may wish to have a discussion
with your class about your upcoming LCT experience and their
role as audience members. Remind your students that theatre can
only exist with an audience. The actors onstage are affected by
your students’ energy and response to their work. The quality
of the performance depends as much on the audience as it does on
each of the theatre professionals behind the scenes and onstage.
Young audiences should know that
watching live theatre is not like watching more familiar forms
of entertainment: they cannot pause or rewind us like a
videotape, there are no commercials for bathroom breaks, nor can
they turn up the volume to hear us if someone else is talking.
Your students are encouraged to listen and to watch the play
intently, so that they may laugh and cheer for their favorite
characters when it’s appropriate. Sometimes the audience has
older and younger students mixed together and they may react to
the play in different ways. To ensure everyone’s enjoyment,
students are encouraged to respect those differences.
At the end of the play, applause
is an opportunity for your students to thank the actors, while
the actors are thanking them for the role they played as an
audience. |
