Building a Connection with your Audience

Actors will often say that a skill that they value in a scene partner is someone who listens. A great deal of acting is being present and listening and responding to what the person across from you is saying and doing. Learning to listen in the moment to an audience is a practice of respect and care. It helps us make sure that what we are trying to communicate is connecting with our audience. The following exercises should always be done with the permission and consent of the people you are working with. Just as we work not to judge ourselves in negative ways, notice and be aware of judgement that might arise when you are observing others. Can you be present and curious about someone’s behavior instead of judgmental?

Select something you are currently working on or would be interested in working on. Find a comfortable space to record yourself working through the piece.

For the second time through record yourself working through the piece in front of someone else.

Allow yourself some space before watching the two videos. Reflect on changes in your body movement and voice when you are doing the work by yourself vs. in front of another person or group. What do you notice about your movement and the way your body holds tension or engagement? Does your voice and the rate of your speaking change? Can you recall how you felt and what emotions came up between the two recordings?

This exercise should be done with respect and care for others. We never want to judge or put someone else down. We are simply noticing, being curious, and allowing ourselves to be open to what other people are sharing with us.

Go to a space where there is a higher concentration of people. As you observe and watch the people around you, notice specific things about what they are communicating.

How do they move their body, how does their voice change, at what rate are they moving or speaking?

Be as specific as possible in noticing and being aware. Check in with how the messages you are observing make you feel. What emotions come up in your own body as you notice and observe others?

Take a TV show or Film and turn the sound off. Watch the movements of the people on screen. What do you notice about their movements and what do you absorb about the story simply by the way they move? Be specific about what you notice in their movements and what they are doing.

Find someone you are interested in learning more about their life and history. Ask permission to record the process. Prior to the interview think about questions you would like to ask and have them prepared.

During the interview notice how you are listening. Do you allow the person being interviewed to finish their thoughts? Do you have the urge to jump in and speak or interrupt? Who speaks more in the interview, you or the person you are interviewing? Is listening and allowing someone space to process questions challenging for you? How does silence in the interview make you feel?

After the interview is completed let it sit for a day or so and then go back and listen. What do you notice about your questions? Observe the rate of your speaking, the pauses and silences allowed in the space, whether you interrupt the interviewer or allow them to speak. Is what you observe similar to how the interview felt while you were doing it, or are your surprised by what you hear and how you connected to the person you were interviewing?

Has this exercise brought up any new observations about the way you listen? And if so how might you integrate changes into your communication process moving forward?