Category Archives: Insight

THE ACTOR AND THE AUDIENCE

Pitchcoach-004-SeriousAudience In any pitch, presentation or interview before an audience the way you come across matters, usually more than what you actually say. You need to perform, something actors do for a living. This is what I learnt from one actress, Imogen Sage, when asked about dealing with an audience.

How do you handle nerves facing a live a audience?

Preparation is everything. Through constant repetition in rehearsal you become so familiar and so comfortable in the role that knowing your lines will be no problem, even if you are nervous. This means you can enjoy, rather than fear, the sense of occasion. This is something that actors live for.

How do you respond to a difficult or disappointingly small audience?

You do your job and give it 100%. You give everything and expect nothing in return.

Pitchcoach-005-ClappingAudience.

How does the audience effect the performance?

Perfomances do not exist in the absence of an audience. There is two way exchange of energy, with a shared sense of anticipation. As an actor you tap into this to be ‘in the moment’ and tune in to what kind of audience they are. As much as they are listening to you, you are listening to them.

“The theatre is the involuntary reflex of the ideas of the crowd”.

Sarah Bernhardt

 

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LESSONS FROM A PERFECT BEDSIDE MANNNER

HammersmithHospitalSculptureSome weeks ago, (for what turned out to be a very minor problem) I needed to attend the walk-in dermatology clinic at the Hammersmith Hospital. Managing to lose myself in endless corridors, I arrived late to find I was number 43 in the queue of other patients.

Not surprisingly, since illness is not defined by age or background or country of origin or demographics, the patients were a diverse group and, I assume, equally diverse as ‘patients’ -easy, difficult, resistant, uncommunicative (many not speaking English).

They shared, again I assume, some level of concern ranging from mild to extreme and fearful.

This is where an astonishing demonstration of the perfect bedside manner came in.

As my number  was called out, I realised that there was a single consultant only and that I was the 43rd of her diverse patients towards the end of a long day. In the ten minutes or so of consultation, I experienced something akin to a pitch, a good one.

BEDSIDE MANNERIn the first moments, she somehow ‘read’ me as an individual making the all important connection on introduction that reassured me about what might follow. In ancient rhetoric this is the appeal of ethos.

Her professional skill and expertise, her reasoning- logos- solved the practical problem.

But it was her emotional quality, the appeal of pathos, that even in the restraints of a ten minute doctor/patient meeting, inspired as well reassured this patient.