Who do you love? THE AUDIENCE!

As I was working with young people, training them for performance, audience awareness had to be a part of the training.

We would do dances on stage: Look Upstage! Step Stage Right! Step Stage Left!

As we worked scenes and blocking, I would hop up and demonstrate positions that would open up actors to greater visibility on the proscenium stage.

"The audience wants to see *these* cheeks," I would say, pointing to my face, "not *these* cheeks!" as I turned around and pointed at the butt cheeks.

Lots of giggles. And they learned.

The short hand shout out of "Wrong cheeks!" would prompt the actor to re-orient, adjust, move to share more with the audience.

They learned.

"You are a sunflower!" I would say, "And the audience is the sun! Ever so subtly you move, you lean, you orient to the sun!"

They learned.

I taught them that without the audience there is no theater. "Who do you love?" I would challenge them.

The shouted response: "THE AUDIENCE!"

The audience, I taught them, wants to like you, wants to love you. Share your character, your voice, your energy, your play, with the audience and they will love you and appreciate you and give back your energy ten-fold.

Who do you love? THE AUDIENCE!