Last Tuesday at Blast, I witnessed the liveliest, cheering-est, most spontaneous audience for a touring show that I've seen in Cincinnati in almost eight years of reviewing touring shows here.

        Everybody was glad to be there. The excitement in the air was tangible. The audience was giving back, which invites performers to give more. Live performance is a give-and-take, and performers feed on an audience's energy.

        It wasn't until I saw it happening that I realized how rare an event it is — here. I go to theater in other cities where audience excitement is a matter of course. It's part of the entirety of the experience.

        Earlier this month, I went back to Playhouse in the Park to see Gypsy again, because Pam Myers was giving a once-in-a-blue-moon performance as Mama Rose. Seeing it once wasn't enough. I purposely returned for a weekend performance, figuring the audience would be especially alive when nobody had to go to work the next morning.

        I was shocked to find the audience near-comatose. Polite, restrained, largely unresponsive until they rose to their feet at the end for what seemed a sincere standing ovation. (Sometimes at Broadway in Cincinnati shows, the obligatory Standing O seems more an opportunity for people to gather their belongings than a joyous response to a thrilling, communal experience.)

        There's nothing harder for a performer than working for an audience that doesn't give back. A few days later I cringed when I bumped into some cast members who remarked how much better Gypsy's audiences were in St. Louis — and audiences elsewhere in general.

        Cincinnati theater audiences are the dirty little secret that Cincinnati artistic directors don't talk about publicly because nobody wants them to get ouchy.

        But more than one artistic director has remarked how strange it is to have a roomful of people sitting quietly, passively in their seats, waiting for a show to begin.

        You can't have a great theater town without a great audience, people who are eagerly awaiting whatever is about to happen.

        Let's become an audience that does its part:

        • Remember, it's live. They know we're out there. It's not just about candy wrappers and coughing, it's about connecting. That means be alert, involved and responsive.

        • Theater isn't for unwinding. Television is for unwinding. Theater is an adventure where, if you're lucky, you get wound up. Live performance deserves the same energy we happily bring to other live performances like football, baseball — even pro tennis.

        • Be ready to be delighted. A friend of mine just came back from New York and told me how much she loved the audiences because they were all so glad to be there. The audience at The Producers were near-ecstatic because star Nathan Lane's ongoing polyps problem wasn't forcing a night off. In fact, audiences were ecstatic at each Broadway show she saw.

        Be jazzed when you go to local theater, too. Why have you bought the ticket? Of all the choices you could have made, you've opted for live theater. Wear your expectations on your sleeve.

        • You're there to laugh, or cry, or be shocked or thrilled.

        If what you've seen doesn't move you, move straight to the artistic director. All of them are always readily found in the lobby after a show. Tell him or her what you thought and why. Be part of the process. Directors are eager to hear what you have to say, and it can only make the process, and your experience, better.

        I'd like to hear what you have to say, too. What have been your experiences as an audience member in Cincinnati theaters? Call or write. There's contact info at the end of this column.

        An unlikely duo: Several years ago, playwright David Johnston adapted the opera The Impressario, setting it at Andy Warhol's Factory. During his research, he became “really, really” intrigued by transvestite Candy Darling.

        A couple of years later while researching another project, “I ran across Dorothy Day and became obsessively interested in” the Catholic worker-activist.

        Then, about 18 months ago, Mr. Johnston was called to grand jury duty. “I was trapped watching all these criminals and I started having dreams about Candy Darling and Dorothy Day being trapped together and having to deal with each other before either can leave.”

        Those dreams, several drafts later, became Candy and Dorothy, a thinking person's laugh-out-loud comedy, which won Mr. Johnston the first B.W. Morris Memorial Playwriting Residency at University of Cincinnati against some stiff competition from established playwrights, including past winners of Humana Festival slots and the Rosenthal New Play Prize at Playhouse in the Park.

        Candy and Dorothy will have a staged reading at 7 p.m. Monday by Theatre of the Mind at Ensemble Theatre (1127 Vine St., Over-the-Rhine) Mr. Johnston will be there for a post-performance reception and discussion. Tickets $5.

        C&D goes on to a free lab production Nov. 29-30 in College-Conservatory of Music's Studio Theater. Reservations required; call the box office at 556-4183, beginning Nov. 26.

        The Andy Warhol superstar and the social reformer might seem to be polar opposites at first glance, but, ventures Mr. Johnston (who admits to being in his mid-30s), “there are great similarities.

        “They are both fringe characters. At some point in their lives they both transformed themselves into something they hadn't been, and they were both outlaws, not interested in society's expectations, only in following their own paths. I find them both infinitely contradictory and fascinating.”

        Mr. Johnston is enjoying his two-month residency here enormously. After “sitting alone in a room with a play for a year and a half, I needed actors, I needed people to collaborate with.” The CCM drama students couldn't be more eager and enthusiastic, he adds.

        Too, the residency is “a break from my three or four day jobs” in New York, he says, laughing. Wedging in writing time “can be brutally hard, but I'm not complaining, nobody told me to do it. I crawl out of bed at 6 a.m. because I choose to.”

        For reservations and information about Monday's reading, call the ETC box office at 421-3555.

        Also on this week's schedule of staged readings, A Bag of Groceries by Phil Paradis will be read as part of Cincinnati Playwrights Initiative's series at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday at the Aronoff's Fifth Third Bank Theater.

        Mr. Paradis says the dramatic comedy focuses on four people who meet in an inner-city park. “It's about cross-cultural communication, prejudice, race, human relations.” Ted Weil directs. Tickets $5 at the door.

        Arts meeting: It looks like the planned town meeting for the arts is taking shape for the first week of December, details to come. Everyone interested in taking an active role in local arts advocacy — organizer Cathy Springfield reports response so far has been gratifying — is still invited to call Xavier University's Student Life office at 745-3205.

        Festival tidbits: The Midwest Black Theatre Festival, slated for April, has postponed unveiling its schedule until January, but some related events are starting to surface.

        It looks like New Edgecliff's spring production of Slave Shack, about emotional breakdown and racial confrontation in the corporate world, may be an official collaboration with festival founder Don Sherman directing. Michael Shooner, New Edgecliff artistic director, is hoping to cut loose briefly from producing duties to get back on stage in the drama, which would be happy news for local theater fans. (If you saw him in The Woolgatherer or The Weir, you remember him.)

        The new Queen City Off Broadway is also planning a festival tie-in, reserving April dates at Upstairs at Carol's for a revival of Athol Fugard's powerhouseabout South African race relations Master Harold . . . and the boys.

        Tickets for blood: Give blood and take a friend to the theater for free! Playhouse in the Park hosts its sixth annual community blood drive from 8:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Saturday.

        Donors will receive a buy-one, get-one-free coupon for select performances of A Christmas Carol or playwright Pearl Cleage's intriguing look at the Harlem Renaissance Blues for an Alabama Sky. This year you have to schedule an appointment in advance. For more information or to schedule an appointment, call Julie Driehaus at 345-2242, Ext. 241.
        Contact Jackie Demaline by phone: 768-8530; fax: 768-8330; e-mail: jdemaline@enquirer.com.
       

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