One of the most important skills that an actor will have to learn in their career is how to grab an audience’s attention and hold it for long periods of time. Being able to catch their attention is easy enough to do, especially if the actor puts on a big display to start with, but today’s audience, with their short attention spans, can be much more difficult to keep engaged throughout the show.
Thankfully, there are a number of methods that an actor can employ to keep their audience’s attention on them throughout the performance. Here we will look at some of those methods and how they can be used.
Humour
Of course, there won’t always be humour present in whatever play or act that is currently being presented to the audience, but if there is humour involved, then it’s vital that the actor try and use it as much as possible. Humour isn’t just about the content, but the way that the content is delivered.
A comedian that has great jokes but has no confidence on stage will not be able to sell those jokes very well, and it won’t take long for the audience to become bored with what’s happening on the stage. Learning how to take funny material and convey it in a relatable and fresh way is an excellent way of constantly keeping the audience engaged.
Body Language
Human beings are complex and rely on more than just words in order to understand what kind of message is being communicated to them. An actor will need to develop their natural body language in a way that’s both captivating and welcoming, allowing the audience to create a connection with what they are watching. It would never be entertaining to watch a person standing on a stage without doing anything at all except talking, so incorporating good body language can often make all the difference.
Add Mystery
Everyone loves a good mystery, and it remains one of the most potent ways of holding a group of people’s attention throughout, especially if clues are dropped here and there, but the mystery is never truly revealed until the end of the show.
Although it can be difficult to add mystery to a script that has already been written and may not call for it, it might be worth altering the script or working on something original to keep the mystery factor constant throughout much of the show, and can be as exciting as playing real money blackjack in Canada.
Make Use Of Props
Good storytelling can be done through words alone, but adding props to the show can elevate the experience for everyone watching. Props come in all shapes and sizes, and there’s almost always an opportunity where they can be successfully added to a show to make it that much more interesting. And it’s important to interact with the props as much as possible, rather than just have them in the background without ever really contributing to the story being told.
