Play anywhere you can, in front of all different audiences. Build a crowd, a name for yourself...then you can have your pick between shows.

If there are twelve clowns in a ring, you can jump in the middle and start reciting Shakespeare, but to the audience, you'll just be the thirteenth clown

This approach was radical in 1938 when the play was first produced. Audiences were accustomed to realistic plays that often elaborately emphasized the specific details of time and place and, for Wilder, lacked the quality of universality and theatricality.

There are so many pockets of places around the country where I play at tiny little towns, and the audiences in general there are so much more appreciative than big city audiences.

You're not a slave to those test audiences.

We need audiences. Audiences are essential to the students' learning experience -- how to play to an audience and how different they are. Theater is meant to be performed. We are asking (audiences) to come on a journey with us (while) understanding that we are trying to accomplish a great deal.