Helping The Audience Out

Because Highwire produces shows in multiple different venues, we often attract an audience not super familiar with improv. I love this because of our goal to bring improv to different areas of Baltimore and expose new people to the art form.

I recently noticed one thing that separated these kinds of audience members from regular fans of improv – they didn’t know what to do at the end of a scene. A sweep edit often elicited no reaction from people without a background in improv.

I tried something when I hosted this weekend to alleviate this. I simply told our Saturday audience at Fells Point Corner Theatre – a really fun crowd at a great venue by the way – to applaud when they saw someone run across the front of the stage to end a scene.

You know what? It worked! Even though only one of the three teams used sweep edits regularly, they went first and got a good response at every edit point. This set the tone for the night. The second team did short form, and we closed out with a musical team so the audience had a better sense of when to reward the performers. But they had a good start coming off that first set.

I am generally against over-explaining inside baseball to audiences. No one cares what a Harold or Decon is if they aren’t a performer. And even if they are, they probably already know or will figure it out quickly. But audiences unsure of what they signed up for might need a little nudge.