Normally I’d make this into a guest blog, but since she doesn’t have a blog yet (as soon as she makes one, I’ll provide a link, hint, hint), I thought I’d do something a little bit different.

Edit:Brandi now has a blog called The Mayhem of Writing, which I recommend you check out.

So here is the first part of her post, which involves stage fright and a horrible audience.The second part about making mistakes can be found here.

My biggest fear has always been public speaking, and all through my high school years I did my best to avoid it. I tried every trick Google would find for me, but nothing prevented that sense of utter panic when I stood in front of an audience. My last resort was immersion: maybe the only way to get over my fear was to put myself in a situation where it couldn’t be avoided. So I decided to try out for the school play.

I worked in the sound booth on most of the plays, so the director and I were familiar with each other. Let’s call her Ms. D. She was surprised to see me at auditions, but wished me luck. Ms. D was famous around school for being a harsh teacher and an almost impossible director, but I never anticipated how truly cruel she could be.

The day of auditions I walked in, nervous but confident. Well, I was confident until I learned that each student would read the lines in front of everyone, not just the director as I had thought. Instantly I started to shake, my palms began to sweat, and I had to fight the urge to vomit. Not wanting to be rude, I waited for the current reader to finish before I stood up to leave. I was disappointed and ashamed of myself, but I just couldn’t bring myself to stay. Immediately, Ms. D pounced. She asked me if I was leaving and then, when I nodded, called me a chicken. Turning my back on the group I took another step, fighting the urge to cry. She led the group in clucking at me the entire time it took me to leave the room –probably less than a minute, though it felt like an eternity to me. She later apologized, but “I’m sorry” can’t undo the kinds of scars she left on my self-confidence that day.

Now, for people who haven’t had stage fright, it’s absolutely terrifying. I’ve had a really bad case of it once in university and a few smaller cases early in my career.

If a professional speaker gets stage fright and tries to quietly leave after you’ve paid to see them, then the audience has a legitimate case to be annoyed. If however it’s an informal occasion, like a party, an impromptu toast, a company outing, or in this case an audition for a play, the audience should be respectful and considerate.

This audiences behaviour, especially as it was started by a teacher, was absolutely disgraceful.

A Good Audience

When people are speaking in public, they have certain obligations, and responsibilities. What people forget, is that the audience has some responsibility as well.

As a member of the audience, you should try to pay attention to the speaker. This means listening quietly, giving polite applause at the end, and not heckling. If the speaker is boring or doing a bad job, then quietly sending a text message, looking over your notes or documents, or “quietly” whispering to your neighbours is not polite, but not too bad.

A hostile audience ignores any sense of responsibility, actively ignoring the speaker, talking loudly amongst themselves, talking on the phone, and as in the case of Brandi, actively heckling the speaker.

Dealing with Poor Speakers

There are many different kinds of poor speakers, there is the boring speaker, who drones on and on. The gibberish speaker, who doesn’t know what he’s talking about or says it in such a way that it’s gibberish. The rambling speaker, who isn’t organized and doesn’t know when to quit. The frightened speaker, who has a bad case of nerves. And finally the angry or hateful speaker, who is insulting to the audience. There are other types but these are generally the worst.

With the first three types of speakers, the boring, gibberish and rambling speaker, the best thing for the audience to do is politely wait for the nightmare to end. If you are really bored or lost, go outside for a breath of fresh air and come back in a few minutes. If you start talking loudly to your neighbours or the phone, make a lot of noise or anything else, it will likely just distract the speaker and make it take even longer.

If you know the speaker, you may want to offer some advice afterwards on ways to improve. But try to be nice.

With the angry or hateful speaker, how the audience reacts depends on how long they’re speaking for, and what they’re saying. If they just act angry and its a short speech, feel free to ignore him. If its actually hateful, stand up and leave, or demand the person sit down. If they’re the keynote speaker, my advice is to leave.

For the poor guy suffering from stage fright the audience should be sympathetic, especially if the person isn’t a professional. When a speaker has stage fright, seeing the audience ignoring him or actively looking hostile, can just make it worse. If however the audience is watching respectfully, and if a few people smile or look encouragingly at the speaker, it can help build up their confidence and help them recover.

What you should not do in most of these cases, is heckle or embarrass the speaker, especially if they’re an amateur. It’s tough to speak in front of a crowd, and few people are professional speakers. So, try to listen politely, don’t be a distraction, and once the speaker reaches the end clap politely if not enthusiastically.