Unless the audience LEAPS to its feet at the end of a performance, a standing ovation is rendered meaningless. I’m always embarassed for the performers when audience members grudgingly rise to their feet only because those two dozen people up front won’t sit down.

In the good old days, standing ovations were reserved for truly unforgettable performances. Those ovations triggered encores. So it’s the fault of the audiences, not the performers, that encores aren’t real anymore. We did this to ourselves.