Bad Theater Behavior

[uncageg]

rjm, that is the one that really gets me, when people yell "I'm trying". Just had that happen with a middle aged man at a show. When you have been sitting there texting and going online, you can't tell me you don't know how to to turn your phone off!

[haterobics]

Enjoyed this tonight (which Audra McDonald retweeted):

Just an FYI- if you think we can't see you texting during a show you are wrong.

— Sutton Foster (@sfosternyc) July>https://twitter.com/sfosternyc/statuses/484383528025853952">July 2, 2014

[Mr Roxy]

If you can not learn how to turn it off,you should not own one.It ain't brain surgery.

[KathyNYC2]

For me(obviously a dinosaur), I have an IPHONE which I probably use for about 2% of it's capability. I don't use an IPOD attached to it or listen to music. I use it for my phone and texting, etc..

SO a few weeks ago, I was checking my phone at intermission of Casa Valentina and I am checking my messages. And I am hearing loud music coming from somewhere and I realize it's my phone. Obviously I had hit something and music was playing. I tried turning off the phone but the music continued. I freaked and ran up the aisle and into the lobby and yelled for someone to help me turn off my phone. It was totally embarrassing but I didn't care. Fortunately two people came to my aid (and politely did not laugh at me, though I probably deserved it). I got a lesson in IPhone use and will hopefully never experience that again.

[LizzieCurry]

To avoid this kind of thing, you can always leave headphones plugged into your phone just in case. That way if music does play, it'll at least be nearly impossible to hear, unless your volume is all the way up.

[pacificnorthwest]

Several months ago, on a theater-filled long weekend, I saw “Rocky,” on a Saturday night. This is more or less what I wrote to my friends afterwards. Seems appropriate for this thread:

My seat was up in what was more or less the last row (some half-rows behind us), squeezed between a large pre-teen boy and, to my right, a couple who'd make Homer Simpson seem like a well mannered, intelligent human being. As said couple were removing their large coats and bags that they'd piled on my seat, assuming no one would be sitting there, the man told me they were from Philadelphia and I'd have to excuse him if he got too excited. OK fine. That wasn't the problem. The wife asks me if I’ve seen other shows and I tell her, yes, many, four so far that week. Which ones, she asks. I say, “On Thursday I saw "All the Way," about LBJ…” "Don't know anything about it. Go on, next," wife says. Then I saw "Bridges of Madison County"… "Don't know anything about it. NEXT," she demands. I knew there was no point in telling her the name of that day’s matinee, A Gentleman’s Guild…, but I did, and her response was the same flat don't-know/not interested, followed by a much more excited, "Have you seen Mamma Mia?!"

So Rocky starts and husband starts fiddling with his not-turned-off-as-required cell phone. An usher immediately is behind him telling him to put it away. Then comes the food and drink. They start ripping open packages of something, cookies, I think, making as much noise as possible. The family seated to my left does the same thing, making quite a clamor opening a bag of candy. The poor boy next to me was clearly embarrassed as people turned and glared at them all.

Throughout all of this, I am squeezed just about as tight as I've ever been between two seatmates at the theater, my legs cramping up….

So then hubby and wife on my right start talking to each other. Suddenly I hear the usher again behind them, "TAKE YOUR FEET off the seats and STOP TALKING."

I looked over and, yes, indeed, wife had her legs stretched out on top of the empty seat in front of her.

I moved down to one of those empty seats at intermission – there were a half dozen in sequence empty. It was better, but I could still hear the couple tearing open junk food. And then, a couple of minutes into the best part of the show, as the stage moves and fight begins, hubby taps me on the shoulder and wifey is freaking out because she's dropped something. I have NO IDEA what she was trying to tell me she dropped and I saw nothing. I thought she was trying to say it was her Playbill, and I told her there were stacks of them all over the place, and turned back to the show.

By far the worst experience I’ve had with fellow theatergoers. So I guess that makes me lucky.

[bfreak]

Do you recall what day you went? I was there for the Tuesday night performance, and while I don't recall anything it would be funny if it was the same show.

[sorano916]

I saw Newsies on Monday night from the front row of the mezz. I've sat there before so I knew it was tight. However, the lady next to me complained from the moment she got to her seat. She even decided to put her leg on & over the railing to stretch during the first two scenes. She was wearing sandals and was bopping her leg so much to the beat that I was afraid her shoe would fall into the orchestra. I was hoping an usher would come down and yell at her but they didn't, so I gave her side death glares and she finally got the hint. However, right before Seize The Day, she decided to take out her ticket and examine it. She then whispered loudly to his husband "It doesn't say anything about the seating limitations." Luckily, during intermission, she & her husband was able to find someone to switch with.

[Jersey Girl2]

I saw an actor grab a phone from a guy in the front of the theater once and toss it backstage.

[pacificnorthwest]

Hi .... it was a Saturday night. April, I think. :)

[FutureGM]

Being an usher myself, I always get a bit miffed when I attend a show and their ushering staff does nothing. For instance, I attended a show last week and there were quite a number of things going down that would never happen at my own theatre.

1. The picture taking, sweet baby jesus, the picture taking. I do not understand why people seem to think that this is ok. It is also highly dangerous for the actors. But the ushers did nothing. There was even a point an actor gave a death stare to one of the offending parties; luckily it worked for what was happening on stage.

2. The stage. The stage is sacred ground. People should not be getting all touchy feely with the stage. However, when an usher is laying against the stage, it makes it very difficult to enforce those rules at other theatres.

3. Phones in general. 2 incidents this particular evening. This night was an evening where there was an emergency broadcast text happening. The issue here is that these texts do not care if your phone is on silent, it will go off with the irritating sound whether you like it or not. Several times this happened and sometimes during quieter scenes.

The other was a woman sitting directly behind me (I should mention that I was sitting in the 3rd row center). Her ringtone was the opening bars of Born to Be Bad. How do I know this? It rang 16 times during the first act. At intermission, I had had enough. (BTW, this same actor did his death stare in my general direction because of this phone, it was that loud). This woman went to the restroom (or something, she left her seat at intermission), upon her return, I wanted to make sure we didn't have the same problem during act two, so, I turned around in my seat and as nice as I could be said, "If your phone goes off one more time, you will be picking up the pieces of your phone in the street." I turned back around (the gent sitting next to me gave me a high five) and I assume she turned it off because it did not go off again.

That was one of the worst experiences; I usually have better luck. I try very hard at my own theatre to enforce our rules, so I get a bit saddened when other theatres don't take their jobs as seriously.

[Sutton Ross]

Holy God, I'm SO sorry for your experience! It sounds like a nightmare. Can I ask you what theater or at least what town this was in?

[LizzieCurry]

FutureGM, was that the night of the flash flood warning in NYC? Because I saw The Book of Mormon that night and I heard at least 4 emergency alerts go off in my general area. (The worst part is this happened before and during "I Am Here For You," which is rather quiet.) The staff tried their best to figure out who it was, because at first none of us could tell if it was a phone or what.

[annabelle3]

I heard that something happened at the matinee performance of "Violet" yesterday and that Sutton Foster said something to an audience member (in a way that was described as very classy). It sounds (from vague tweets) that it might have been something about a cell phone, which is no great shocker. I wonder if anyone knows the details of what happened or where I could find out the whole story. I just love this show, absolutely love Sutton, and am super curious. Thanks in advance.

[Alix]

Not sure that this fully explains whatever happened, but I saw this earlier today... (And Sutton retweeted it.)

Violet says "We'll wait" Billie says "What the hell is that?" So many ways to say the same thing... TURN OFF YOUR CELL PHONE in the THEATER!

— Audra McDonald (@AudraEqualityMc) July>July>https://twitter.com/AudraEqualityMc/statuses/487245225056686080">July 10, 2014

[annabelle3]

Thanks, Alix. Yeah, I saw that earlier, which was what made me realize it had to do with a cell phone. Before that tweet from Audra (with Sutton retweeting), all we had was Sutton tweeting "Well, that was a first" and then some fans saying that someone in the audience had been disrespectful and that Sutton had handled it in a classy manner. Still, I wonder what the details are... I wonder if someone was just texting or taking pics, or if someone's phone rang (or rang repeatedly), or if someone was actually speaking on their phone during the show, and what exactly Sutton said. I'm just such an obsessive fan of the show... I wish I'd been there so much yesterday to see what went down. I trust Sutton though - I'm sure whatever it was, she handled it amazingly and beautifully, just like she always does.

[Sutton Ross]

When I went to Violet a cell phone, the same one, kept going off in the mezzanine. The ushers there seem really nice but they are not diligent at all. At Circle in the Square, the ushers were very lax too. They should talk to the incredibly awesome, aggressive, angry ushers at Hedwig. They got sh*t done.

[mikem]

When I saw Lady Day the Saturday night before the Tonys, a cell phone went off during a quiet moment and Audra said (completely in character), "What the hell was that?" It was a perfect response and got a lot of applause. Has anyone else been to a performance of Lady Day where that happened?

[brdway411]

was at BOM tonight doing SRO tickets. Got to the theater in time for curtain and was all settled in our spots. I noticed there were 4 vacant seats directly in from of us. Well, about 20 minutes in to the show the 4 people for those seats arrive, they were loud and very disruptive. They finally got set and proceeded to pull out 4 take out contains of smelly fired food. Seriously WTH. Then in act 2, the one couple decides they are bored and start making out through most of the second act. Then started taking to the other couple that was with them to find out what they missed while making out. It was so distracting, and how can you pay that much for tickets and A, be late, B, make out, C, it's BOM, how can you be bored.

[Sutton Ross]

That's crazy that they were allowed to be that late and the ushers allowed them to bring in outside food. They must have seen them take it out. They were probably late because they were waiting for that food! Jesus Christ. People from Dogpatch USA should absolutely stop attending the theater.

[Cupid Boy2]

The ushers at Violet are perhaps too nice and accommodating; I was there on Saturday and when I arrived I was told that another patron had requested to take my seat to sit with her party. The usher had allowed her to do so, and I thought it was incredibly unprofessional of her to give away the seat I paid for without seeking my consent first. While I did end up getting moved up a row, it still left a sour taste in my mouth.

[brdway411]

We are subscribers of Roundabout and we have great house seats. If that had happened to us I would have been LIVID. We pay a lot of money for our seats. I want my seat.

[Sutton Ross]

I'm a subscriber too and I would have laughed in that usher's face, kicked the woman out and took MY seat. How is that even legal? The Violet ushers are way too passive to the point of annoyance.

[brdway411]

Saw Just Jim Dale last night and I love his Shut off your cell phone song thing at the beginning of the show. I wish more shows would do it. Or something like Kinky Boots does. More shows should adopt this sort of thing. Didn't hear one phone all night.

[LizzieCurry]

https://twitter.com/thewillswenson/status/489546827323015169

When someone's phone rings or they text or take photos during my show, I wanna go to their work and distract the **** out of them.


Is it the Imperial staff or is it just that the LM cast just way more outspoken than most? I've probably asked this before...

[Brian07663NJ]

Was at Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts in Virginia this past weekend listening to Fantasia being played by the National Symphony Orchestra while watching the animation on a screen over the orchestra. The woman seated next to me kept commenting to her friend "wow, this is fantastic. wow this is amazing. How do they do that? How do they manage to play and match the music to the animation?" Her friend quietly said, "I'll tell you after the show." brief pause and then the dumb #itch proceeds to explain how a 20 foot tall multiplane camera creates animation - while the orchestra is playing!! I still do not know HOW I remained silent...

Then during intermission the "explain-er" proceeded to have a conversation with me and asked who my favorite performers are, what my favorite musicals are...and she says "Wow...you know you are really showing your SWISH?"