Authors and Actors

     A few weeks ago, I saw a local troupe perform Beauty and the Beast. The cast was great and so was the acting. Sitting close to the front enabled me to get a great view of the performance, but it also was a little bit of a disadvantage. Because I knew practically every line in every song, I found myself ‘singing along’ where my lips were moving noiselessly. I thought I was being real discreet about it, until one of the actors told me after the performance that he saw me singing along. (Total disadvantage to sitting so close to the front!) However, I wonder if he noticed the little girl sitting next to me. She got me thinking about a similarity between actors and authors.  

      Actors and authors both want their audience to be engaged in the story, as well as enjoy it. This little girl was both engaged and enjoying the story. When the prince was transformed into the beast, she gasped and whispered, “What happened to him, Mommy?” Typical question children ask when something happens that they don’t understand. During Be Our Guest, movement out of the corner of my eye made me glance toward the little girl. She was her waving her arms around in the air, and it took me a few seconds to realize she was mimicking the conductor’s movements. She was trying to conduct the big dance scene being performed onstage. Later, as Belle was tending to Beast’s wound from the wolf fight, the little girl was leaning forward in anticipation, and jumped in her seat when Beast yelled in pain. I found it fascinating how engaged she was, I’d never seen someone that into a performance before. But my favorite reaction was what she did after the enchanted objects had defended the castle from the villagers. The enchanted objects finished chasing off the last invading villager, and the audience was clapping with delight, but that wasn’t enough for the little girl. She gave the enchanted objects an enthusiastic standing ovation. After the performance was over, she could hardly wait for her mother to collect her things so they could go out and get autographs.

      The similarity between authors and actors is they are both story tellers, they just have different ways of telling a story. We authors may not always get to see a little girl jumping when one of our characters yells in pain, or get a standing ovation when the main character’s home is defended from invaders, yet we do get the joy of seeing others liking our story so much, they want to act it out onstage for others to see and enjoy.