Recently, my son asked me to help interpret feedback that he received on a short film he submitted to a contest. Some comments were specific and useful, grounded in what he actually created and what a young filmmaker can realistically do. Others were far less clear. One in particular stood out:

“The performer does not speak, making it hard to judge their performance.”

That single comment raised more questions than answers. Was something unclear in the storytelling? Did the evaluator misunderstand the intention? Was dialogue expected? Instead of offering direction, it left him unsure what, if anything, needed to change. 

The Problem with Evaluator-Centered Feedback

That feeling was familiar to me as a theatre teacher. Every year, we submit our school shows to a series of competitions and receive written feedback from evaluators. Every year, we get a series of comments that leave students feeling like the evaluator arrived with a set of expectations and judged their performance for failing to meet them. Like my son, they were confused and left wondering what it all meant and how they could improve.

Why Clear Feedback Matters for Young Artists

I’ve been on both sides of this process. Before becoming a classroom teacher, I spent 15 years reviewing and producing new plays written by young artists. I’ve read and critiqued hundreds, maybe thousands, of plays and trained others to do the same. I learned how easily an evaluator’s words could encourage or dissuade a young artist.

The adjudicator-centered response, with unhelpful phrases like:

“I wish…,”

“I expected…,”

“I wanted to see…”

This was something I trained mentors to avoid. These statements don’t guide a young artist toward clarifying and strengthening their work. It is a basic misunderstanding of the evaluator’s role. They were expressing their personal taste rather than recognizing what the young writer was trying to achieve and guiding them with ideas, methods, and suggestions to do so more effectively. This requires evaluators to step into the artist’s shoes and respond in a way that clarifies their thinking, rather than replacing the artist’s vision with their own.

A Better Approach: “You May Want to Consider”

“You may want to consider”

This is a strong phrase I learned from working as a reader with Stephen Sondheim’s Young Playwrights, Inc. This introductory phrase offers the young artist a suggestion they can take or ignore as they refine their work. A direct statement about what an adjudicator sees or expects comes from a place of personal response. “You may want to consider” immediately turns the focus to the artist.

How to Use This Phrase

Let’s imagine we are writing a play critique in which the conflict between characters is not clear in the dialogue, and we want to suggest that the writer strengthen this section. An evaluator-focused statement might be:

“I wish you had made the conflict between characters more meaningful.”

Approaching this as a suggestion to the artist might be rephrased into:

“You may want to consider how much the conflict matters to each character. What would happen if one character lost the argument? How would that alter their life moving forward?”

The latter is more meaningful because it turns the artist’s attention toward improvement. They begin considering it right away. This also provides some context to the comment and removes the confusion that vague feedback can leave.

Another Approach: “How Was That?”

A similar approach can be used in the acting studio. When students finish a scene or a monologue, the first piece of feedback is a question that turns the attention to the student:

“How was that?”

They immediately focus on the performance from their perspective and tell me what they were thinking and feeling during the presentation. I learned from their answers why I might be seeing and hearing what I did. Then I can use that information to lead them into another idea or suggest a technique to address sticking points. I also try to be as neutral as possible in my observations. Rather than “I wish…”, give them exact feedback and follow up with a question.

How to Use This Phrase

Instead of saying something like, “I expected you to be standing still,” I might say, “On a particular line, I noticed that you were shuffling your feet. Is that something you were aware that you were doing?” This addresses the same issue but makes the student aware of it in an open, observational way. Similar approaches are demonstrated in videos of legendary acting teacher Uta Hagen working with students at her studio, or Stephen Sondheim coaching students at an acting studio in England.

How to Give Constructive Feedback in Acting and Theatre