Dear Mr. Maven,

A friend of mine saw your show at the Steve Allen Theater a few nights ago.

In conversation, he often used the word “subtle” to describe both your humor and presentation. He also remarked that at one point, you cautioned the audience that you were not going to burst into flame!

I’m wondering if you would share a few of your discoveries about the ability to affect your audiences, particularly American audiences.

Are modern audiences more difficult to engage than those of ten or twenty years ago? What difficulties, if any, do popular television and movies’ bombast and frenetic pacing create for you? How much mood (or perhaps “mental shelter”), these days, must you first establish for your audience, so that your dramatic material might better pierce the senses?

Thank you very much for your time and your thoughts.

Best,

Vince Hancock

In the United States, the biggest hurdle in working for live audiences is that so few of them have ever attended a live performance of any kind, let alone a show like mine, so they don't always know how to behave/react. This was surely different fifty or more years ago; in the past twenty years, there's been little change in that regard.

I've always believed that part of my job is to educate the audience in that regard -- to teach them their role in our relationship.

Yes, due to the frenetic style of most modern movies and jump-cut television, audiences are used to a fast pace. But if you perform with conviction you can set your own pace and bring them along.