The Improv Life: Don’t Betray the Audience’s Trust

  
This guy has no problem committing! 

Disgusted Audiences are Hurt Audiences

Don’t judge your choices on stage. Every time you judge a choice, you’re saying, “I don’t trust myself. Therefore, you in the audience should not trust me either.” We don’t want to lose the audience’s trust. Once we lose the audience’s trust, it’s hard to get it back.

And it’s pretty simple to see why; why would you trust someone who can’t trust themselves? If you don’t believe in what you’re doing, why would you expect a group of strangers to do so as well? Instead, scenes lacking commitment will elicit disinterest, pity, and disgust. 

I don’t know which one is worse. Whereas disinterest is the audience not caring about what you’re doing, pity is the audience feeling bad for you and wanting to help you but not knowing how. Disgust is pity + anger; you’re pathetic state is stirring the audience’s wrath, and you shall have it. 

Disgust is probably the worst of the three. Disgust comes from a place of disappointment: the audience had expectations for you—a fun Friday night, people performing to the best of their ability, really trying—but you failed to deliver them. In terms of trust, a disinterested audience may have had a low level of trust, a pity audience had mid-level of trust, and a disgusted audience had high levels of trust. 

Disgusted audiences are hurt audiences. “I gave you blind trust and you violated it by not giving your all.” The audience’s pain comes from the anger of being betrayed. A betrayed audience will lash out in anger and disgust. There is a reason it hurts when one of your heroes is caught up in some torrid scandal (Hulk Hogan, Pete Rose, Lance Armstrong); our trust has been betrayed when we expected so much out of you. 

Don’t betray the audience. Believe in yourself, and so will they. Validate the audience’s implicit trust in you by giving your all. Commit to everything, every choice, emotion, and intention. Trust is built on commitment, so commit to the audience and they will commit to you. Trust is a beautiful thing if you’re willing to work hard to keep it. 

#improv #audience