Parenting & Family Quote by Rue McClanahan

Matinee crowds turn acting into a live lab experiment, and Rue McClanahan is coolly admitting she learned to read the data. Coming from an actress best known for sitcom precision and razor-timed reactions, the line lands as both practical craft talk and a quiet flex: the performance isn’t “the show,” the audience is. Kids, she implies, aren’t trained in polite appreciation. They won’t laugh because a joke has the correct rhythm; they’ll laugh because it hits. They won’t sit still out of cultural duty; they’ll squirm if you lose them. That’s not condescension, it’s a standard.

The subtext is a small manifesto against adult theater’s social contract, where people often clap for effort, legacy, or the evening they paid for. Matinees strip that away. If “a great percentage” of the room is children, sentimentality and self-seriousness get exposed fast. McClanahan’s “I understand what they do respond to” isn’t about pandering; it’s about fluency. She’s describing a performer’s empathy as technique: knowing when to sharpen clarity, when to speed the turn, when to let a moment breathe without overexplaining.

There’s also an industry context humming underneath. Matinees were (and are) where touring shows, TV actors onstage, and family-friendly productions meet their most unforgiving demographic. Her point: kids aren’t a lesser audience. They’re the most honest one, and a pro learns to earn them.