Most people are looking for an audience.  It may just be an audience of one (your spouse, your best friend, siblings, etc) but we all want someone to take notice of us.  We’re all looking for some form of validation.   It’s one of the reasons Facebook is so successful.  We want to share our lives with others; when we get a new job, get married, have children, go on an amazing trip or share some sad news.

For the life of an artist, the audience plays a key role.  Whether you are a painter, musician, actor, director, or in my case, writer, you look forward to the day when you are sharing your work with an audience.  When I write a new script (or do re-writes on an old one), I look forward to the anticipation of sharing that work.   For example, after I finish a new play, the best feeling for me is sitting in a room full of actors/readers and hearing for the first time the words of the characters come to life.  I just sit and watch everyone’s reactions.  The same feeling is true when I finish writing a screenplay and I hand it off to trusted friends, producers or directors to read. What will they say?  Will they like it?

Presenting your work to the public is one of the reasons why artists do what they do.  First and foremost, you must love what you do because the rejection can be crippling.  You must live and breathe for wherever your art takes you.  It must be about the work.

I am about to present to the public, Mercy & Love, a new play around the Easter season.  It performs this Sunday March 29 at the Stone Church.

It is a play built around a large group of volunteers.  Last night, we had a practice and ran the play for a few selected audience members.  I barely watched the play, and focused my attention on the audience in attendance.  Did they laugh?  Will they cry?  Will they get it?  When I heard a laugh, I jumped for joy.  When I saw people wiping their eyes, then I knew that my words, the music, the actors on stage, had affected them.  It’s a funny thing, I started Mercy & Love back in January, but seeing it last night with an audience for the first time, the play became something new for me.  That’s what an audience can do – they can infuse and transform your work to something more than you imagined.

I’m about to do re-writes for a couple of screenplays of mine (Play Ball, Who is Molly Steele?) and look forward to seeing what producers/directors will feel about them.  It may just be an audience of one or two, but I’m eager for their reaction.  I have just finished writing a new play called OverTime, which will play at the Toronto Fringe Festival this summer.    In less than two weeks time, I’ll be having a first public reading of this play with actors. I will be watching closely at each actor as they read their parts and react to the material.

Artist live to create and once we create and feel the work is ready, we share.  And then, it becomes all about the audience.