onstagepittsburgh.com: I’m a theater-goer from the 20th century, when standing ovations were a rare occurrence. Then, a smattering of claps greeted an overlong or frankly boring effort, and a spontaneous burst of applause graced a production that managed to entertain and even deliver a morsel of truth to chew on, but no one received a standing ovation unless an audience was brought spontaneously to its feet. Now, standing ovations happen at every production that I attend, anywhere, Broadway included. Standing O’s have become meaningless.
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I have a vivid memory of having a conversation about this with my middle school theatre teacher. She had just come back to Idaho from seeing a bunch of shows on Broadway. I do not know why it came up but we got talking about how audiences in Idaho always give standing ovations and they do not do that on Broadway. And now I am sitting here thinking about how that conversation did not age well. Because now I feel like even broadway audiences always stand after shows. I spent this summer seeing a lot of shows and every single time there was a standing ovation at bows. I agree that it has become meaningless. I now find myself preparing for them before bows happen. I collect all my objects and make sure there isn't anything on the floor I could step on which is crazy. I will say I had a crazy experience in Hadestown, when Andre De Shields entered for the first time everyone stood up and there was a standing ovation about 3 minutes into the show that lasted forever. Those are my favorite moments and they are so rare.
I’ve never really thought about how more common standing ovations could be a bad thing. I always did think it was odd that virtually every show I go to gets a standing ovation, when a “standing ovation” is supposed to be the result of an incredible performance. I just thought it might be a result of the public wanting to be generally nicer, but by becoming more common, standing really does lose its meaning. In my experience, though, standing ovations aren’t going away–they’re just evolving. Now, when people have an incredible theatre experience, they give standing ovations right in the middle of shows. I’ve seen this happen twice, both very recently. Once, I saw it secondhand through videos of Cynthia Erivo’s rendition of Gethsemane from Jesus Christ Superstar at the Hollywood Bowl. Audiences routinely delayed the performance after that song to give a minutes-long standing ovation for that one song. Another “modern” standing ovation I got to experience live when I saw Gypsy on Broadway with Audra Macdonald. After she sang Rose’s Turn, the audience (myself included. It was truly the best theatrical performance I’ve ever seen and it was absolutely INCREDIBLE) rose to its feet and clapped and whooped.
So I guess I wouldn’t necessarily say that SOs are gone forever. I’d just say that they’ve changed their timing a bit. If an actor performs something ovation-worthy, they’ll know, because the audience will just rise to their feet in the middle of a show.
I have been noticing this change in theater audiences for a while now. I first noticed this change when I was around 15 years old, when I took my questions to my director and mentor and asked her what she thought about how every show that we produce gets a standing applause. I talked to her about how I thought that our students were good and were always progressing, but I was confused as to why audiences were standing at every single show. For me as a performer when I was a kid, I remember standing ovations being rare, and that when a show did get a standing ovation, it meant that we earned it and deserved it, it meant that our show meant something to our audience. Nowadays, it feels like a standing ovation is required instead of earned, taking all the meaning and importance out of standing ovations.
I never thought about standing ovations when I saw a show. I feel like (as the author said) the vast majority of the shows I've seen in recent years have had the audience members jumping to their feet the second the curtain closes. There were some exceptions to this though, there was a show I saw a few years ago that had some offensive undertones and overall was not the best experience. I feel like other audience members agreed because the claps felt short, quiet and almost nobody was on their feet. I think standing ovations are so special because it truly makes the people behind the production feel appreciated, however I do completely understand how giving almost everything a standing ovation can take away from the magic of it. I think there are so many shows out there that fully deserve it, but I also do agree that it shouldn’t be the default thing the audience does once the show ends.
So I get where the author is coming from in a lot of ways, the line “the audience stands dutifully and claps” especially standing out to me. What immediately came to mind for me was the reason behind why people stand to give their apostles at the end of a show more often now. I think the landscape of live entertainment as a whole is changing and with that audience behaviors are changing as well. As we continue to move to a more digital world, live entertainment goes from the only option of consuming performed content to a special occasion. This article is written by an acting professor here at CMU and I think for a lot of us, consuming live entertainment is the norm, however this is not the case for the vast majority of individuals. I think the act of standing and giving applause makes audience members feel more involved and I think that is something to be celebrated.
I thought this was a really interesting perspective, and to be honest, I agree. I think that part of the new standing ovation norm deals a little bit with psychology, in fact that that if other people are standing, you should stand to. Also, depending on your seat, if someone is standing in front of you, you may miss the entirety of the curtain call. The standing ovation has become a common practice with live performance, and I think it should be dialed down a bit. An audience can be respectable by sitting and clapping; they are still providing the production with a round of applause. I agree with the article when stating that standing ovations should be saved for the show that really makes you feel and stand out to you, and that will be different for everyone. A standing ovation is one of the greatest compliments a performer or a show could get, so why waste that on a mediocre show?
I have discussed this issue with friends many times. At my high school, any time we watched one of our peers perform on stage everyone always stood up. I often went back and forth with my friends discussing wether or not this was a good thing because it was commending and supporting our peers, or a bad thing because it allowed people to go up on stage unprepared and still expect a standing ovation. At the end of the day, I feel like when you’re performing for a large audience, especially when that audience is paying to see the show, the show you’re putting on is for the audience. The audience should not feel an obligation to make the actor/team feel good about themselves, instead the actors/team should focus on earning that standing ovation. And, I feel that when a show actually earns its standing ovation, those moments mean so much more and really inform the performers of what audiences like and what they arent.
This was a really interesting article to read, especially because I have definitely noticed the fact that it seems like every show I see, no matter where I am, gets a standing ovation at the end from the entire audience, regardless of what the show was or how good it was. I usually find myself not really wanting to stand, but I mean, everyone else is, and what I definitely don’t want to be is the only person in the audience who is not standing. I feel like I can pretty confidently say that in a given audience, I’m probably not the only person whose primary concern is not sticking out as the one person not standing. It’s not exactly a psychology hot take to say that human’s don’t really want to stick out. I think this article’s perspective of the performer and audience relationship being lost is a really interesting one, and not something I really expected to ever see.
I really get the point of view the author expressed in this article. Often, when attending theatrical performances, my first instinct hasn’t been to stand, but I find that as people around me begin to stand, I follow suit just so that I can still see the performers as they take their bows. Whenever I worked shows in high school or around my community back home, this phenomenon would also repeat. Whatever quality of the show, people would always stand to applaud. I definitely agree that the significance of a standing ovation seems to have been lost over the years. Unfortunately, I’m also not sure if there’s a way out of the current situation, given that how an audience reacts to theatre is often informed by the people attending the show around them. Circling back to what I said earlier, I stood because I felt I had to, not because that particular performance was excellent.
Honestly, standing ovations have just become the norm to do at this point. They aren’t special anymore. I remember seeing my first musical, and during bows only the leads got a standing ovation, everyone else got claps, vs going to any show now and everyone gets a standing ovation. While I am not saying ensembles don’t deserve them at all, they just lost their entire special element, which was to praise the leads for an excellent performance, which I disagree with but that's where we are now. I do think everyone deserves an applause as it shows an appreciation, I don’t think everyone should get a standing ovation unless they truly stand out. Also, typically it’s one person thats starts the ovation, so it seems to me its an issue of theatre etiquette taking a turn, rather than becoming a norm. It’s going to be very interesting to see if it ever goes away or if this is here to stay.
I completely agree with this article. I'm not quite sure when it happened, though. I think it was before my time, as I feel like in my high school experience, most of the shows ended in standing ovations. It does kind of negate the experience of earning a standing ovation, as you can go from a performance that you know isn't great, to some of the best work that you've ever done, and get what may feel on the surface like the same reaction. However, for me at least, I feel like I can still usually tell the difference between a good standing ovation and a perfunctory standing ovation. When it's some work that's usually amaze people, there tends to be a bit of tension in the air before people start applauding, and when people start applauding, too, it's more enthusiastic. I'm not saying that by any means this justifies applauding with the standing ovation to everything, but I will say that to me there is a difference in energy that is apparent between when you have earned it and not. for nothing else, though, I would love for this trend to end so I can stop having to worry about stowing all of my belongings to stand on my feet for a mediocre production.
This is something I never fully acknowledged until now. There were times where I have stood during an applause only because everyone else around me has but I didn’t see the need to. Even though I understand the work that goes into creating a show, that isn’t entirely a good reason to give a standing ovation. While a show could have played out well, I feel that I should have really been invested to give a standing ovation. One time my high school theatre took a field trip to watch a play at VCU, when the show was over my friends around me were giving a standing ovation but then afterwards told me they almost fell asleep. While I did enjoy the performance, there definitely were times where my mind wandered and I lost focus on the show. Looking back on this now, it really just shows that standing ovations are now used to give people a pat on the back rather than really sending the message that they pulled off their show flawlessly.
This article was super interesting because I see alot of theater and I haven't really thought about how normal it has become to give standing ovations after every performance I see even if I personally didn't LOVE the show. The peer pressure of it all is I think why so many shows have standing ovations at the end. I think no a days people will feel bad if they don’t stand for the performers and if one or two people stand then the entire theater will join in out of pressure or respect. And there are always a few people in the audience who feel bad when nobody stands so they do causing that chain reaction. You never wanna be the person sitting down when everyone around you is standing up. Though many of the shows I have seen recently I believe do deserve a standing ovation, it's interesting to think about how many shows Ive seen that I stood up for even if I didn't fully love it.
I have seemed to notice that it is just kind of common courtesy to stand at the end and applaud which is weird since I had always understood it as standing and applauding when it was genuinely good and some things are just not standing ovation worthy, even if that sounds terrible to say. This article was interesting and it really comes down to peer pressure. Once one person stands it feels like everyone else has to stand or it’s going to seem mean or disrespectful. It also depends on the people because I have seen people stand out of pity then others followed in suit just to follow the herd. To me I think we should bring back standing ovations when something truly deserves it because it’s such a special thing to get one and not now that it’s becoming common place to do it it’s losing the meaning it originally had.
nat m
I can understand the author’s argument, as I definitely see that standing ovations happen at every single performance. However, I think you can still tell how a performance went based on how the standing ovation happens. If the entire crowd, or a majority of it, stand up immediately, then there was an overall positive impact that the piece achieved. If it is a slow rise of people, then the standing ovation is likely more forced. If small groups of people stand up, it means that either the piece was only really impactful to those few, or, even worse, they previously knew the piece or performers in said piece. It can be disheartening to know that this previous sign that a show was truly amazing, the standing ovation, may no longer deliver the same significance. However, times change, and I believe there are still ways to express your love for a show or that it was not your favorite experience.
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