Entrance Applause — Page 2

"For me, it's any time a performer makes their entrance and the audience has enough respect for the show not to break the mood by applauding a star's mere presence."

I think it depends on the show, AC, and whether it has been staged to allow for entrance applause. For obvious reasons, I find it more appropriate in a musical comedy than in an Albee drama.

I think the biggest TOTAL entrance applause I ever heard was for the original production of FOLLIES. I saw it at a Saturday matinee shortly after it opened and the theater-party ladies around me were reminiscing about Ethel Shutta's performance in the Ziegfeld Follies of 1919 (or whenever it was)!

All the principals received generous entrance applause when they arrived for the cocktail party, and then each woman received another hand during the parade for "Beautiful Girls." Even though I was a teenager and didn't know who anybody but Yvonne De Carlo was, it was impossible not to get caught up in the excitement (and to appreciate that that particular cast represented a sizable chunk of theater and film history).

Updated On: 1/7/12 at 09:56 PM

It always seems to me like "Yay, they showed up for work!"

Yes, I was going to mention Private Lives as well - not as an example of "good" entrance applause, but as one of how stupid the phenomenon often is. The night I saw that show (and no doubt most other nights, as well), Anna Madely received rapturous entrance applause by virtue of being blonde and the first person seen onstage, which was apparently enough to get her mistaken for Kim Cattrall. The slight confusion in the air right afterwards was pretty funny, though.

*shrug* I don't want to begrudge people their happiness in a theater, I guess, but I'd rather applaud once my favorite performers do something.

Anna Madely received rapturous entrance applause by virtue of being blonde and the first person seen onstage, which was apparently enough to get her mistaken for Kim Cattrall.

Same thing happened when I saw it, and on most nights, I'm guessing. And then when Cattrall made her entrance, the applause was earth-shattering--the audience had to correct their earlier mistake, of course.

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When Kristen Chenoweth made her entrance at the first preview of PROMISES, PROMISES, the show stopped for about 5 minutes.

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Entrance applause has to be anticipated for a recognizable star.

I saw SEMINAR recently, and I thought that the director handled the anticipated applause for Alan Rickman very nicely. The scene changes in the show occur during diminished lighting. Rickman made his "entrance" during one of those scene changes - and the audience immediately recognized him and applauded (while the lights were still dim). When the lights came up they were ready to continue with the scene.

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I'm kind of borderline on this one--sometimes it feels appropriate and sometimes not. I will say that when I saw O'neill's Anna Christie with Jude Law this summer, it was pretty great that the director seemed to have purposefully avoided entrance applause in the way he staged Jude's entrance. It seemed an appropriate nod of respect towards the work rather than the actors in the work.

Judy Garland entering from the back of the house at the Palace in 1967!

"That's your opinion. I don't share it."

Yes, I know, AC. That's why I prefaced my remarks with "I think...".

Done properly--I think--entrance applause can be an important part of the connection between star actor and audience. (It has nothing to do with the character, obviously.)

But if one looks at this thread and others re audience behavior, it seems our theater conventions for audience behavior are breaking down all over. I suppose that's inevitable now that people mostly watch TV, go out to the movies infrequently, and go to professional theater only on the rarest occasions, if at all.

My pet peeve among declining conventions in live concerts: I'm all for applauding the beginning of a number associated with the performer (Liza singing "Cabaret", say). But audiences nowadays seem to applaud the beginning of every song that they even vaguely recognize--which seems an extreme form of the self-congratulation AC mentions above.

This clearly comes down to personal tastes. I have mixed feelings on this subject.

I agree with Gaveston that rather than being primarily an opportunity for self-congratulations on the audience's part, it can validly be similar to curtain applause, a wave of love to a performer whom you admire, collectively experienced with other members of the audience in a feel good moment. To me there's nothing wrong with that; in fact it can feel damn good. I don't see it as gratitude for someone showing up to work but as an honest reflection of the admiration one has for a performer based on past work.

On the other hand, I have always found it more suitable for musicals and lighter plays than for serious dramas and tragedies. In the latter it seems jarring to me. I'm not sure if I can intellectually justify this distinction, but nonetheless to me in a lighter work or a musical it feels perfectly in keeping with the spirit of things, but in something more serious, it feels like an intrusion; why I feel this is more troubling than laughter or intermission applause I'm not sure I can rationalize; perhaps the whole idolatry thing just seems incongruous to a more serious subject matter - of course with a new play one may not know how light a work one is watching when a star makes an entrance, although there's usually some inkling.

Updated On: 1/8/12 at 03:05 PM

As usual, I agree with Henrik.

I just want to add that entrance applause is no more inherently artificial and disruptive than applause after individual numbers. (Note the word "inherently". I agree with posters above that it is uncomfortable when a few people in the audience try to force the entrance applause.)

There's a reason we don't applaud until the end of an act of a realistic drama, but applaud at frequent intervals during a musical comedy. The latter isn't really trying to create an illusion of representation. Musicals are by nature presentational and entrance applause is just an acknowledgement of one aspect of the "show".

For John Gallagher Jr.'s & Michael Esper's last in "American Idiot," Michael got a huge round of applause, about 2 minutes or so, when he was introduced at the beginning of the show but then Stark Sands (who wasn't leaving yet) got only a a handful.

Since John didn't really have an opportunity at the beginning of the show for an entrance applause, he got huge applause right before he sang "Whatsername" at the end of the show. I felt that that was too much and a bit awkward. The keyboardist had to keep playing the same notes while the applause went on before John could continue with the song.

Normally I'm fine with entrance applause in musicals since you applaud throughout the show anyway, but the one time it annoyed me was Follies in DC. The guy next to me clearly wanted to applaud someone (I assume Elaine since Bernadette's entrance is pretty obvious), but since we were in the mezzanine I guess he hard a hard time making them out and so every time anyone entered during the opening he'd start with an awkward, is-this-her slow clap, then the people around him would get confused thinking they missed the star and start awkward-clapping and it slowly spread until the next person came out. The end result was the non-principles getting what felt like "Umm...I guess you're worth applauding for?" applause which, to me, seemed worse than just silence.