Importance of the Curtain Call

Most people under estimate the power of a good curtain call. The last thing the audience remembers is the curtain call, and if you make it bad, they will remember. When I have assisted in directing musicals, I always take this responsibility to make the best. But how do you even do a curtain call right or wrong?

1. You need to pick a song in duple meter or quadruple meter. Usually audiences like the curtain call clap of "ONE-TWO-ONE-TWO". I always start it when I can, and you should to. You're clapping with the song, with the backup music for the actors. What more connection can you have? Don't be like the fools who put a slow ballade on or something in 3/4? Or the ones who plain don't have music during curtain call? Fools.

2. DON'T HAVE SINGING DURING THE CURTAIN CALL. There is nothing worse than having an idiot director who decides that everyone should stop clapping to hear this last little bit and then resume clapping. It's disorienting. People are already leaving when the actors start coming on anyway. It's just a waste of your actors' energy.

3. Make the curtain call at least medium length. Short curtain calls not only make standing ovations less likely to occur, but you don't give all of the parts their fair response of applause. And you have to really suck to not get a standing ovation professionally, so anything to make that worse is a bad idea.

4. Acknowledge the pit, tech crew, etc. so that people can appreciate their work too.

Now, here's a true "Corbin" curtain call. Acknowledge if you use this, or I will make you suffer.
Have each group of characters come out to their respective music. So a medley of all the memorable music themes you have had. Always make sure that the slow songs get sped up for this. Hopefully you can find the right tempo for songs in 3/4 so that the audience can still clap away if you are forced to use one. They come out from least important to most important. If you aren't doing curtain calls at least THIS way, you are doing them wrong probably. If you have a lot of doubling of parts, have everyone be their best one.

If you do curtain calls wrong, your play will close faster on Broadway. Guaranteed.