Welcome to The Scene, your bi-weekly round-up of theatre news you may have missed.
In this edition, we talk about stage presence, that elusive quality that many theatre folks think can never be taught. Think again, theatre makers, because this issue’s Big Idea provides concrete tools and exercises to help your actors command attention through intention, focus, physical clarity and emotional truth.
Plus, we’re looking forward to new developments at The Scene, and we welcome your input! Take our survey to help us tailor future issues of The Scene to your needs. (And thank you, as always, for subscribing.)
So, raise the curtain and shine the spotlight as we dive into another thrilling week in the theatre world.
Welcome to The Scene.
Broadway’s original Grizabella says, “CATS were always meant to vogue.” by Betty Buckley, The New York Times | I was onstage for the first Broadway version of CATS. A new reimagining showed me something about the show I never expected. Read…
You Don’t Yell at a Broadway Show. But What if It’s Rocky Horror? by Rachel Sherman, The New York Times | The new musical is trying to calibrate just how much to rein in the audience participation that longtime fans are used to. Read…
Harry Potter Film Star Tom Felton Again Extends Run in Broadway’s Harry Potter and the Cursed Child by Andrew Gans, Playbill | Felton’s return to the role of Draco Malfoy has sent the box office soaring at the Lyric. Read…
Why Becky Shaw Sparks Laughs and Arguments by Raven Snook, TDF | Two-time Pulitzer finalist Gina Gionfriddo makes her Broadway debut with a revival of her 2008 dark comedy. Read…
Video: Rose Byrne and the Cast of Noël Coward’s Fallen Angels Discuss the Play’s Scandalous History by Gabby Macogay, Jeffrey Vizcaíno, Playbill | The Broadway revival of Coward’s groundbreaking play will run at the Todd Haimes Theatre until June 7. Read…
Pentatonix Singer Kirstin Maldonado to Join Cast of SIX on Broadway by Linda Buchwald, TheaterMania | Maldonado will take over the role of Anne Boleyn after Dylan Mulvaney leaves the show. Read…
Video: Cast of Joe Turner’s Come and Gone Discuss Doing August Wilson’s Favorite Play by Playbill | Taraji P. Henson and Cedric the Entertainer lead the cast in the Broadway revival.
Grammy Winner Pink Will Host the 2026 Tony Awards by Logan Culwell-Block, Playbill | Raise your glass for this year’s high-flying host of Broadway’s biggest night. Read…
Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Octet Movie Musical Sets Cast: Amanda Seyfried, Rachel Zegler, Tramell Tillman and More by Jazz Tangcay, Variety | The film adaptation is based on Dave Malloy’s critically acclaimed musical. Read…
Concord Theatricals Acquires Little Bear Ridge Road Licensing Worldwide by Meg Masseron, Playbill | Samuel D. Hunter’s play premiered on Broadway last December, starring Laurie Metcalf. Read…
Singing About the Dark Times: The Skin of Our Teeth as a Musical by Zachary Cohn, New York Public Library | Musicalizing the works of Thornton Wilder is not for the faint of heart. Read…
The Play’s the Thing: Shows Inspired by Shakespeare by Ally Varitek, Breaking Character | Check out this selection of brilliant and thrilling stage works inspired by The Bard of Avon. Read…
Playwright Edward Graczyk Has Died at 84 by Margaret Hall, Playbill | His play Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean famously starred future Oscar winner Kathy Bates and international superstar Cher. Read…
A student walks onstage and, before they say a word, you feel it. The room changes temperature. Heads lift. Attention gathers. Something sharpens. It is not always the loudest student, or the one with the biggest voice or the strongest belt. Sometimes it is the quiet kid who looks like they wandered into auditions by mistake and then, somehow, makes 200 people lean forward at once.
We call that stage presence.
Which is useful, right up until the moment you actually have to teach it.
Because once we start talking about stage presence, theatre people can become a little mystical. We say things like, “They just have it,” which is a wonderful sentence if your goal is to sound dramatic… and a terrible sentence if your goal is to help a 15-year-old improve. “They have it” is not instruction. It is a shrug wearing jazz hands.
The truth is, stage presence is not magic. It is not some rare theatrical birthright handed out by the gods of Broadway and withheld from the rest of the population. Stage presence is a set of observable, trainable behaviors that create the impression of confidence, clarity and connection.
Stage presence may be one of the most important things we teach, because it is not just about performance. It is about how a young person learns to enter a room with intention, tell the truth under pressure, connect with other human beings, and trust that they are worth watching. That is not a theatre skill. That is a life skill with better lighting.
First, let us define it:
Stage presence is the ability to command attention through intention, focus, physical clarity and emotional truth.
Notice what is not in that definition. Beauty is not in there. Extroversion is not in there. Popularity, natural charisma and being the kid who always gets cast are not in there either.
Stage presence is not “Look at me.” It is “I know why I’m here.” Students with stage presence do four things well:
They commit fully to the moment.
They direct their focus outward instead of collapsing inward.
They make clear physical and vocal choices.
They communicate stakes, even in silence.
That last one matters. A student with stage presence is watchable before the line, during the line and after the line. They do not simply deliver text. They inhabit action. They are not reciting information. They are trying to change something.
That is why stage presence often looks effortless from the outside. But what audiences are really responding to is coherence. The body, voice, mind and intention are all pointed in the same direction. It feels powerful because it is unified.
So, if you want to teach stage presence, teach them to focus on action, objective and partner – more specifically, how to do six very specific things:
1. Arrive with intention: The entrance matters because human beings are hardwired to read first impressions quickly. When a performer enters without a clear reason for entering, the audience senses uncertainty. When a performer enters with objective, energy and point of view, the audience locks in. Ask students three questions before any entrance:
Where have you just come from?
What do you want the second you enter?
What is the first thing you notice?
That is often enough to transform a vague entrance into a playable one. Students stop “walking on” and start arriving from somewhere.
2. Stand in their body: A surprising amount of stage presence is posture, grounding and breath. Not posture in the scolding sense. Not “shoulders back, young man.” More like this: Is the student physically available to the moment? Are they rooted? Are they breathing? Are they collapsing their chest? Are they holding tension in the jaw, shoulders or hands? Are they fidgeting because their body has no task? Students with weak stage presence often look like they are apologizing for taking up space. Students with strong stage presence look like they have accepted the radical proposition that they are, in fact, allowed to be there. That can be taught.
3. Focus their eyes: Eyes tell the audience where the mind is. A student whose eyes are vague, darting or inward disappears fast. A student with active, intentional focus becomes immediately more compelling. This does not mean staring intensely all the time like you are trying to win a hostage negotiation. It means looking with purpose. Seeing something. Tracking thought. Receiving behavior from a scene partner. Letting the eyes lead the event instead of floating randomly above it. Eye focus is one of the fastest ways to improve stage presence in rehearsal, and one of the easiest things to neglect.
4. Make choices big enough to read, truthful enough to believe: A stage performance must be legible. That is not the same as exaggerated. But students do need to understand that a choice can be emotionally honest and still too small to communicate. The classroom version of acting often happens at a scale designed for six feet away. The stage requires choices that can travel. This is where many students get confused. They hear “bigger” and start pushing. More volume. More gestures. More intensity. More fake. But bigger does not mean more frantic. It means clearer. A clean, specific action reads better than a dozen decorative emotions sprayed around the stage like confetti.
5. Listen visibly: Some of the strongest stage presence in a scene belongs to the person not talking. Watch any good teacher direct a scene and you will eventually hear some version of this sentence: “Nothing is happening to you when the other person speaks.” Brutal. Accurate. And Necessary. Listening is active. It changes the body. It changes the face. It changes breath. It changes timing. If a student learns to listen onstage in a way the audience can see, their stage presence rises almost immediately. Why? Because they stop performing at us and start experiencing the event in real time. Audiences can tell the difference. They always can.
6. Hold still when stillness matters: There is a kind of beginner actor energy that says, “If I stop moving, I will stop being interesting.” This is understandable and false. Unnecessary motion reads as anxiety. Purposeful stillness reads as authority. Stillness is not deadness. Stillness is contained energy. It is the decision not to spend physical capital cheaply. When a student learns how to be still while remaining alive, they begin to understand one of the central secrets of stage presence: Power is often quiet before it is loud.
This is where theatre education shines, because stage presence is not taught best through lectures. It is taught through repetition, reflection and playable exercises. Students have to feel the difference in their own bodies.
Here are some of the most effective approaches.
Have students enter the space one at a time with a simple assigned circumstance.
You are late and trying not to show it.
You just got wonderful news and are trying to keep it private.
You are looking for someone.
You need to apologize, but you do not want to.
You are entering a room where you know everyone is already talking about you.
The student enters, crosses and stops. No text.
Then ask the class: What did you understand? What made the entrance readable? Where did focus live? Was there urgency? Was there a relationship to the room?
This teaches students that presence begins before dialogue. It begins with intention.
Give pairs a bland line like: “You’re here.” Or: “I know.” Or: “That’s not what I meant.”
Then assign an urgent circumstance. Let them play action rather than emotion.
You need this person to stay.
You are trying not to reveal you are frightened.
You are asking for forgiveness without saying the words.
You are hiding good news because you do not trust the response.
Students quickly learn that presence is not in the line itself. It is in the need beneath it.
Put two students in chairs facing each other. One student speaks for 30 seconds about something simple. Breakfast. Their commute. Their dog. The other student may not speak, but must listen truthfully and visibly. Then switch.
The class observes what changes. When did the listener become compelling? When did they disappear? What physical habits got in the way? What moments felt genuinely connected?
This exercise is gold. It strips away the safety blanket of clever line readings and forces students to discover that presence can exist in attention alone.
Give a short monologue or speech. Students perform it once however they want. Then perform it again with one adjustment: no unnecessary movement. They may only move when the thought or tactic changes enough to justify it.
Suddenly, students discover which gestures were useful and which were visual filler. They begin editing themselves. They become more precise. Precision looks like authority. Authority reads as presence.
Have students play the same beat three ways.
Version one: film acting scale.
Version two: classroom presentation scale.
Version three: 500-seat house scale.
Then discuss what changed and what stayed truthful. This helps students distinguish between dishonesty and theatrical size. Many young actors need explicit permission to be more legible without feeling fake.
Sometimes, the fastest way to improve a student’s stage presence is to change the feedback.
Unhelpful notes sound like this:
“Be bigger.”
“Have more confidence.”
“Do more.”
“Be more interesting.”
“Own the stage.”
I know. We have all said some version of these. In fairness, rehearsal is fast and caffeine is finite. But these notes often leave students stranded because they describe the result, not the behavior.
More useful notes sound like this:
“Decide what you want before you enter.”
“Let us see the moment you hear that.”
“Keep your eyes on your partner longer.”
“Take your time before the line.”
“Stand on both feet.”
“Breathe before you speak.”
“Do less, but mean it more.”
“Your body changed before your words did. Trust that.”
“Stay with the thought after the line lands.”
“You do not need to show us the feeling. Fight for what you want.”
Now we are teachable. Now we are in the land of craft.
There will always be students who seem born with unusual magnetism. Fine. Let them have their mysterious sparkle. But do not confuse charisma with discipline, and do not let charisma become the unofficial grading rubric of your program.
Because charisma can carry a student only so far. Presence built on craft lasts longer. It survives bad days, nerves, difficult material, awkward casting and the deeply humbling experience of trying to play a 78-year-old judge when you are 16 and still have algebra homework.
Craft is what makes stage presence sustainable.
Success is not that every student suddenly becomes riveting in the same way.
Success is when the student who used to float onstage now arrives with a point of view.
Success is when the student who used to fidget learns to plant their feet and let silence work.
Success is when the student who used to deliver lines outward like paper airplanes starts actually speaking to someone.
Success is when a class begins to recognize watchability not as a personality trait, but as the visible result of intention and truth.
That is teachable. Every bit of it.
And maybe that is the larger lesson here. Theatre is full of qualities people like to romanticize. Talent. Timing. Instinct. Presence. We talk about them like weather systems. They arrive, they do not arrive, and all we can do is stand outside and report the conditions.
But teachers know better.
Teachers know that what looks mysterious is often just unnamed. What looks natural is often just practiced. What looks effortless is often just deeply understood. And what looks like magic in a student performance is very often the result of a teacher, day after day, asking better questions and insisting on clearer choices.
So, the next time someone says a student “just has stage presence,” you can smile politely and resist the urge to throw a script at them.
Because no. Not “just.”
They are focused. They are grounded. They are listening. They are pursuing something. They are telling the truth. They know why they are there.
And in a theatre, as in life, that will get our attention every time.
Olivier Awards 2026: Full List of Winners by The Guardian | Paddington: The Musical, Evita, All My Sons and Punch were among the winners at the Royal Albert Hall ceremony. Read…
High Society Revival Sets Complete Cast by Tanyel Gumushan, WhatsOnStage | The beloved musical, inspired by The Philadelphia Story, returns to the Barbican this summer. Read…
See Who’s Joining Jinkx Monsoon as Judy Garland in London End of the Rainbow by Logan Culwell-Block, Playbill | The upcoming performance will mark Monsoon’s return to playing the film icon after an impression on RuPaul’s Drag Race made her a challenge winner. Read…
The Old Vic to stage Glengarry Glen Ross with all-female cast by Alex Wood, WhatsOnStage | The new production of David Mamet’s classic will be directed by Patrick Marber. Read…
Rock Opera 1972 Sets World Premiere at American Repertory Theater by Logan Culwell-Block, Playbill | The Massachusetts company will also present Mexodus and a Diane Paulus-directed Rhinoceros in its 2026-2027 season. Read…
The Pitt’s Lucas Iverson and More to Join Wendell Pierce in Othello by David Gordon, TheaterMania | Simon Godwin directs the production at Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington, DC. Read…
Adam Pascal Will Play Jesus in Jesus Christ Superstar by Linda Buchwald, TheaterMania | Grammy Award nominee Mykal Kilgore will play Judas in this new production from Studio Tenn in Franklin, Tennessee. Read…
We’re always striving to improve The Scene, so take our survey and let us know what you’d like to see in future issues. More author interviews? More show recommendations? More regional theatre news? This is your chance to tailor The Scene to your needs!
Comments
Nothing yet. Say the first thing.
Sign in to join the conversation.