Marvelous! You ran the gamut of emotions from A to B!
We've all been there.
You go to see a friend in a show, and have to stay and chat afterwards. What to do? I've heard some people say, "I always have to be honest. I owe it to them." This is misguided, in my opinion. I say if you don't have anything nice to say, then lie your head off. Who's it gonna hurt?
Anyway, whatever you do, here's an arbitrarily-ordered list of ten things you should at the very least NEVER say to a friend after a performance:
1. Wow! (pause) You did it!
2. A really interesting piece.
3. You were so adequate!
4. I thought the rest of the cast was great. What did you think?
5. It must have been so embarrassing to wear that costume.
6. You worked so hard on this!
7. I've never seen your hair like that before!
8. Did they just offer you the part or did you have to audition?
9. This is by FAR the best thing I've ever seen you do.
(Meaning everything else was crap.)
10. Oh ... you!! (kiss, kiss)
What you SHOULD say:
You were absolutely wonderful! (So you're not telling the whole truth. You think you're going to be struck by lightning? The gods have better things to do.)
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Comments
SO TRUE! I am going to print this out and put it up on the wall in my office, because so many of my co-workers make comments like, "Wow, you worked so hard on that speech, I'm surprised it turned out the way it did...." which is such a slap in the face.
HA! Good one! Why do I get the feeling we could turn this into 100 things not to say?
Here's one for ya: "Suzanne your Examiner blog today was just riviting!"
And I mean that in all sincerity!
I always hate to here, "Congratulations."
hear
sorry
I am going to make copies of your article and insert them into the program of my play.
thanks sooki. too f'ing true.
my fave has always been: "well, good work on clocking another weirdo"
A friend of mine used to have a great line: "If that's the kind of show you wanted to do, you sure did a good one!
I love all of them. We should have a contest, yes? In fact, I think I'll include these in a new article: "More things not to say to a friend after a performance." Thanks, gang!
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