Late Again

And, once again I am late on the posting train. Looks like I'm not the only one who didn't get to it yesterday though. I have no excuse, I'm on the computer all day and night basically. Anyway, I'll make up for it now. This is a quote I found on the train on the way to work from my Conversations book, it is from an interview with Frank Capra who directed films like It's a Wonderful Life and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.

"Without an audience, a film is something in a can, something incomplete, like an unread book. It just lies there, dead. Do not underestimate the power and the ability and the intelligence of an audience. A thousand pairs of eyes and ears seem to react to stimuli much faster and smarter than any one pair of eyes and ears. This is what it is all about--the peope-to-people communication from the people on the screen to the people in the audience."

I liked this quote because it is exactly the same thing in theatre. In my Ideas in Performance class that I took last year, we talked a lot about this kind of stuff--mainly, why we do theatre. And among the many answers to that question is the recurring theme of the audience. Without it, there's no point. Capra puts into words the main reason anyone does any type of entertainment, and that is for the audience.

Be back later with my Wednesday post!