Going Live!

For a while now I've been writing a personal diary about my adventures as an audience member of the performing arts.  Time to blog about it instead!  I range over a wide variety of classical music (loosely defined), dance, opera, and theatre performances every year.  I'll be blogging here at irregular intervals, whenever I attend any sort of a live performance.  I'll be writing partly information, partly critiques, of the events which I attend.  Hope you'll enjoy it!

My title: for some years while I was teaching at Elliot Lake Secondary School in Ontario, Canada, the school sponsored a monthly event called "Small Stage Live".  Students (and occasionally the odd staff member) performed sketch comedy, stand-up, scenes from plays, played acoustic guitar, sang, danced, you name it -- all in a casual coffee-house environment in the school's drama room. 

Since most of the performances I go to take place in larger theatres or halls, the title shift to Large Stage Live came pretty naturally to me.

Please note: I will not be blogging live from any events.  As a long-time audience member and a performer, I know very well that a large part of any successful performance is the energy which flows from the audience to the performer(s).  This may sound weird to anyone who has never sung, danced, or acted on a public stage, but every performer will tell you that when you are on the stage you can feel the audience's attention and involvement -- and you need to feel it.  Of course there is no energy flowing to the stage when the audience are bending over their smart phones!

So, my rant is this: in any live event, you need to get your head out of the twitterverse for an hour or so and focus on what's going on up there on the stage!

My first blog, either today or tomorrow, will be about the Theatre Ontario Festival which is wrapping up in Sault Ste. Marie this morning.