Chita Rivera and The Visit Stage Door- Page 3

[Patti LuPone FANatic]

Posted: 3/28/15 at 10:38am

I'm leaning towards seeing "The Visit" as one of my four (maybe 5) shows I'll see during the Tonys weekend. Aside from Miss Rivera, I'm interested in seeing Chris Newcomer and Matthew Deming (two former Mary Sunshines).

[TheGingerBreadMan]

Posted: 3/28/15 at 10:58am

I saw Ms. Rivera in concert recently and she was more than gracious at the stage door. It took about 30 minutes for her to come out (much shorter than some performers that I've met in the past) and she took her time to sign anything, have conversations with people, and was just the sweetest person I've ever met. (She even hugged me!)

It was evident that she really enjoys meeting her fans and does not mind sticking around for a while longer.

[pinoyidol2006]

Posted: 3/28/15 at 11:13am

I saw "You Can't Take It With You" twice. The guard at the stage door informed everyone that James Earl Jones doesn't sign or take pictures. The people at the stage door understood. There was no whining, no complaining, and no one shoving their playbill at him when he came out. People just cheered, and he said goodbye. No one was "imposing".

While I've heard of rude behavior at the stage door, there is a polite way to do it. If you respect the actors and their space, then I don't see anything wrong with it.

[HogansHero]

Posted: 3/28/15 at 11:47am

Darreyl, ask an actor of the stature where the gauntlet is a nuisance. It is a bother. It is also a bother to the general public, for whom sidewalks are a place to walk, not a place to require crossing the street to avoid a swarm of self-entitled people like you. I see you also feel entitled to make bootlegs of shows you see. Figures.

[uncageg]

Posted: 3/28/15 at 12:08pm

She is very nice at the stage door. After Drood I stagedoored to meet her and we had a very nice conversation and took a picture. I also got to tell her about the time she knocked me to the floor while passing me in the lobby of the Shubert Theater in Phila. During the intermission of the musical Platinum. Her daughter Lisa was in the show. She knocked my beverage out of my hand. I was on the floor and she extended a hand to help me up and had one of the people with her replace my beverage.

[darreyl102]

Posted: 3/28/15 at 1:23pm

Oh Hogan, what a wonderful little troll u are.

[ljay889]

Posted: 3/28/15 at 1:36pm

When I stagedoored in my teen years, I met her twice after A Dancer's Life. I asked for her to sign an original 1975 Chicago program, and she was visibly moved by looking at it and even showed someone from her entourage. I even got to speak to her about Gwen Verdon. This interaction with such a nice and lovely legend definitely made an impact on my teenage self.

That being said, if you don't like stage dooring, fine. You can't stop others from doing it. I doubt at her age Chita feels any obligation to do it. If she wants to, she will. If she doesn't, she's not obligated.

[HogansHero]

Posted: 3/28/15 at 1:40pm

Darr-no way you can accuse me of trolling. I did not start this thread, and certainly nothing I have said is extraneous to the thread. What you don't like is that I am challenging your beloved self-entitlement to take what you want, without regard to anything else, how offensive it is or how wrong.

[Patti LuPone FANatic]

Posted: 3/28/15 at 1:47pm

Nice anecdote ljay. I guess at some point, it becomes necessary to ignore the person you mentioned. I did something about it.

[Mike Costa]

Posted: 3/28/15 at 2:29pm

Hogan is right about this one and no, stage dooring does not have a long tradition, it was born with the message boards.

When I started on broadway there would be occasional FRIENDS of cast members waiting at the door or the occasional nut wanting an autograph. We all warned each other about the nuts and they were harmless.

In reality, Chita, Julie, Liza, Kristen, Joel, Cooper, Bernadette and all of them have heard it all before. They do not really care where you come from or how much you like them. They do not care that you saw them in Sweeney or West Side thirty years ago or your mother played the album at her wedding. Thousands of people saw that show and liked them.

Stage Dooring is driven by ego. YOUR egos need to interact with the star to let them know YOUR thoughts about them.
YOU think it may help Chita or whomever … but if you could actually help her you would not be standing outside on a sidewalk. You would be in an expensive office writing an email to her representative offering a million dollars or a week's stay in your vacation house in Bali.

Sticking a pen and a program in someone's face so they notice you is not right.
Applauding loudly at the end of performance is enough for all of us.
Control your ego, go get supper with an actual friend and let everyone in the show peacefully wander home without there needing to be a barricade. Yes, theaters now have barricades because of you.
Sounds ridiculous, right?

[GreasedLightning]

Posted: 3/28/15 at 2:33pm

Ok, you can argue and b*tch all you want - but it happens. It's going to continue happening. It's going to continue to get worse. While I respect your opinions, I don't understand why each and every single thread on this topic turns into an argument that will NEVER be solved. If it were a REAL problem, they'd ban the act altogether. Clearly, it's not - so it has become the "norm." Take it or leave it - but it isn't going to change.

[Mike Costa]

Posted: 3/28/15 at 2:46pm

Your reply is not making sense.
One cannot ban the act of citizens gathering on a public sidewalk.

We are just letting you know that people in a show would like to go home without meeting you as I am sure you would like to leave your job each day without greeting two hundred people.

It can all change quite easily if the mob is informed on message boards like this.
You realize that every person who walks out that door each night rolls their eyes before they push that door open to have to meet a mob. right?

Of course it can stop.


Updated On: 3/28/15 at 02:46 PM

[HogansHero]

Posted: 3/28/15 at 2:52pm

Greased-it is hardly "every single thread" but it does warrant repetition. I agree it will continue and perhaps even get worse, but there are people who might be dissuaded from doing this, if they are told how loathsome it is. Others (the self-entitled ones who stage door and make bootlegs of shows they see, because it's all about them) will not be influenced. Change is often slow but it happens. (Like Same Sex Marriage, and no I do not equate this with that.) Theatres are not going to forbid stagedooring; it is up to our culture to brand it as anathema. Paparazzi defend their actions too: stagedooring is nothing other than that (and stalking). It's tacky and presumptuous, and unlike its cousin bootlegging it is not illegal. Yet.

[South Florida]

Posted: 3/28/15 at 2:57pm

"Let's not forget at lovebwy was one of our first confirmed true racists here at BWW. So while s/he may not understand why people go to the stage door, at least s/he understands which race of people is superior to the other"

Jordan, you are such a little bitch it's incredible. BTW I'm rooting against all tattooed contestants on Drag Race, and I'm watching every week and I might post on your thread.

[Someone in a Tree2]

Posted: 3/28/15 at 3:04pm

I'm with Mike Costa (and by extension, Hogan) on this one. Stage-dooring IS all about the fans' egos, not the performers'. To me it's the same instinct that prompts an audience member to pop up in his seat at the end of a number to hoot and holler so his beloved diva will KNOW it was him applauding for her.

Folks have always behaved that way inside the theater (evident in all those Judy at the Palace performances back in the 50's), but this stage door thing really IS a new animal. The sense of ownership the paying public feels toward celebrity of any kind has turned more and more extreme over the years.

I'm with Mike-- I'd love to back it all up to the old days too (58-year-old curmudgeon that I am)-- if you love a performer, write a fan letter and hand it to the stage doorman.

[GreasedLightning]

Posted: 3/28/15 at 3:24pm

Ya'll seem to think that the only people attending Broadway shows are present on this board.

Breaking news: they're not. There's a big world out there. Go explore it!

Of course we can't BAN the act of gathering on a sidewalk. But what do you think stage door attendants and security personnel are there to do? If performers and theaters did not want stage dooring to happen, they could easily prevent it or at least tone it down. It's a PART of theatergoing, unfortunately. Listen - I don't stage door. I haven't in years. I'm just saying that flooding messages on here with your thoughts and opinions on the matter over and over and over again isn't going to do anything to solve the situation so I'm telling you to hold your breath.

I would hardly put bootlegging (a federal CRIME punishable by law) in the same family as STAGE DOORING. Jesus, do you listen to yourself? (Also - your grammar is atrocious).

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 3/28/15 at 3:43pm

I think it's weird someone so obsessed with Stephanie Block that he's referred to her as his "little girl" would call stage-dooring creepy, but whatever.

I'm kind of worried about Chita, though. If she's using all the energy she has left in the world to do this show, does she have people bathe her and feed her and stuff when she's not on stage?

[loliveve]

Posted: 3/28/15 at 3:54pm

Just a couple of thoughts: I don't think meeting a person at the stage door is an ego-driven action. In contrast, posting photos from meeting that person or photos of a signed Playbill on social media can be ego-driven actions (with a "hey look who I met!" attitude)

Speed- thanks for throwing in an actor's perspective!

[South Florida]

Posted: 3/28/15 at 3:57pm

I think it's weird that you know I ever called her my little girl.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 3/28/15 at 4:14pm

Yeah, it's so weird for me to read things on this board and retain them. So very weird!

[South Florida]

Posted: 3/28/15 at 4:23pm

No, I guess you're a really smart person to remember that without looking it up I envy you. What was the exact quote? Do you remember when it was made. Yes, I like to think of Stephanie as "my girl", she's my favorite Broadway star.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 3/28/15 at 4:31pm

You're a strange, strange man.
Googlin' it for ya!

[South Florida]

Posted: 3/28/15 at 4:42pm

Dunno PRS, I stand by everything I wrote in there. What's your point?

[Cupid Boy2]

Posted: 3/28/15 at 4:42pm

It's also quite interesting to note that someone against stage dooring would interrupt Sebastian Arcelus mid-conversation and request that he go outside of a venue to take a picture. To me, THAT is creepy. I guess South Florida is above his own standards of decorum.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 3/28/15 at 4:45pm

My point was that people who refer to broadway actresses who are not their little girls as their little girls might want to dial back calling people who stage door creepy.