Annoying Audience Habits- Page 2

[mc1227]

Posted: 8/22/12 at 7:02pm

I despise people who leave before curtain call. It is so disrespectful to the performers who have worked so hard to entertain you.

also, the people who try to unwrap their candies, cough drops, etc in an attempt to do it quietly. It just prolongs the process and noise. Just do it and get it over with!!!

[Playbilly]

Posted: 8/22/12 at 7:12pm

"Hey, you! Theater coot! If your blood sugar is gonna crash so badly that you can't wait until intermission or the curtain to open your hard candy...then STAY THE FUKC HOME!"

- Playbilly

Updated On: 8/22/12 at 07:12 PM

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 8/22/12 at 7:43pm

Playbilly, that's basically what I said (minus the profanity) to a woman who unwrapped her hard candy throughout Richard Kiley's death scene in the 1970s' revival of MAN OF LA MANCHA.

I said it after the show was over. She and her husband looked at me in shock for a moment and then she burst into tears. When she stopped crying, she AND her husband apologized profusely.

For some unknown reason, she'd had no idea she was disturbing other patrons.

I keep that in mind nowadays when I correct other members of an audience. Some people really don't know.

[Jane2]

Posted: 8/22/12 at 7:59pm

"But why people would need to rush out of a curtain call in New York escapes me. I assume most people there aren't driving."

they want to be the first: 1. To hail a cab 2. To get their car out of the lot. 3. To be on line at the coatcheck. 4. To be the first to buy a souvenir 5. To be the first out of the theater to avoid just standing there waiting to move. A plethora of reasons. I find that New Yorkers have to be first for EVERYTHING. They can't even stand to walk behind another person on the sidewalk, or to cross the street.

"Personally, I don't see what's so wrong with photos at the theatre before the show starts. I mean yeah during the show it's wrong, but before?"

Well, it is unlawful to take a photo inside the house at any time. Shooting the stage set is a copyright infringement. If people were permitted to take pictures of each other, it would be impossible to keep track of everyone doing it, and making sure they aren't getting the stage in the frame also.

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 8/22/12 at 8:17pm

I always notice the "people leaving before the show is over" phenomena at concerts, not sure about plays. But it always baffles me--pay all that money, go to the show, and then run out before the last songs simply because you don't have to wait five minutes to get out?

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 8/22/12 at 8:23pm

I agree. If it's a show I like at all, I'm staying for the very last note of the play-off music. (And even if it's a show I detest, I'm not leaving before the last curtain comes down. Why would I be rude to the actors?)

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 8/22/12 at 8:24pm

Point taken, Jane2. Obviously, I've been out of Manhattan for a long time (27 years).

Your post brought it all back to me...

[Jane2]

Posted: 8/22/12 at 8:27pm

hehe, sorry to be the reminder of the negative!

[jetts7]

Posted: 8/22/12 at 8:43pm

For some reason I hate when people fold a playbill and put it in their back pocket.

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 8/22/12 at 8:46pm

So do I, jetts7. I suspect it's because we treat the Playbill like a book, save it, etc.

***

Jane, that's okay. I need to be reminded of the difficulties of life in NYC. Otherwise, I'd just be green with envy every time I read here.

[broadwaydevil]

Posted: 8/22/12 at 8:51pm

For some reason I hate when people fold a playbill and put it in their back pocket.

Yes, for some reason that freaks me out too!

[Dollypop]

Posted: 8/22/12 at 9:00pm

Years ago I was working at the now defunct Airport Playhouse on Long Island. We had a special benefit performance of SOUTH PACIFIC mid-week and it was scheduled at an earlier time than usual. I think it was 7 PM. As I was working full-time in those days, I drove from work to the theater (and got stuck in traffic, as I recall) and made it just enough time to get into makeup and costume. I was starving and so was most of the cast.

Some of the audience members brought picnic dinners and as the show started, they opened up their foil-wrapped chicken and began munching away. Whoever made the potato salad used lots of onions in it because we could smell it from the stage: onions, fried chicken, celery sticks--everything could be smelled in that tiny theater. They were even opening cans of beer. Our stomachs were growling on stage and fortunately the theater wasn't mic'ed because the audience would've heard a veritable symphony of growls. One of the ushers went out and bought some cold cuts for the cast to munch on in the green room so we weren't completely famished by the time intermission came.

From that point on the theater maintained a policy of "No Food in the Theater"

[little_sally]

Posted: 8/22/12 at 9:42pm

I despise listening to the ice in people's cups (it especially happens at the top of the second acts). It's like everyone's playing Yahtzee.

Posted: 8/23/12 at 11:58am

When to see Freud's Last Session before it closed and a girl sitting in the center of the first row was texting throughout the whole show. Later at the talk back with the actors, she texted again and the actors pointed it out to the whole theatre.
Not to mention that at the same performance, another girl ripped pages out of her Playbill to spit her gum out. She then proceeded to dropped the ripped page with gum on the floor. Later, during the show, she was writing all over her Playbill. Now, this might just be me, but I was really annoyed by her.

[Insider2]

Posted: 8/24/12 at 8:54am

I don't know who is complaining about people taking picutres in the theatre (which IS illegal), but I would remind you that one of the most popular threads on here is that show curtains thread, which has hundreds of photos of show curtains (all taken illegally, I guess) and over 600,000 views.

And to the people who are bothered by people who put a Playbill in their back pocket ----- really??? Don't you have your own business to worry about? Seriously, get a life.

[chewy5000]

Posted: 8/24/12 at 9:55am

I just saw a show where someone's best friend was clearly in the audience, trying to drum up applause and inappropriately howling at the worst times.

But i really hate it when bouts of coughing come over the audience, usually during the really quiet bits.

[Patash]

Posted: 8/24/12 at 12:10pm

Number one for me is people who hum or sing along with the songs of musical revivals. Sure -- I paid all that money to hear THEM sing?

Number two is people who repeat every other line for their mate who can't hear.

[Dollypop]

Posted: 8/24/12 at 9:32pm

I've posted this in previous threads but the most uncomfortable experience I had in the audience was at City Center when I was sitting beside a woman who reeked of hard boiled eggs. I changed my seat during intermission.

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 8/24/12 at 9:38pm

And to the people who are bothered by people who put a Playbill in their back pocket ----- really??? Don't you have your own business to worry about? Seriously, get a life.

I can't speak for the other poster, but I was just describing a gut reaction. Although I'm not an autograph hound, I do save Playbills and think of each one as a kind of book describing the performance I saw.

I react to the destruction of a Playbill just as I react to the destruction of any book. But that doesn't mean I accost the offender or even think s/he is doing anything wrong.

[Comden Green]

Posted: 8/24/12 at 9:43pm

"I despise people who leave before curtain call. It is so disrespectful to the performers who have worked so hard to entertain you."

i heard one performer describe it as a "strolling ovation". funny.

[boggess]

Posted: 8/24/12 at 9:49pm

I saw Peter and the Starcatcher with my aunt. She sneezed quite a few times in a row, and the woman in front of us turned and gave her a dirty look, which I found amusing because the woman's daughter had not long before pulled out her phone during the performance.

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 8/24/12 at 9:53pm

This is all just between us, right? Well, don't tell anyone, but when I was in high school I worked at a theater with a very geriatric audience. For reasons that escaped me, the senior citizens were the worst about running out before the curtain call, even for shows they obviously liked.

So sometimes I would stand in the dark on the far side of the exit doors and hold them closed just as the rush for the exits began. Caused quite the pile up on the inside of the doors.

Now that I'm pushing 60, I think what I did was very foolish and I am lucky no one was ever injured. But I was 17 back then and full of righteous indignation over what I saw as rudeness to the performers.

No doubt there's some nasty karma in my future...


Updated On: 8/24/12 at 09:53 PM

[mc1227]

Posted: 8/25/12 at 11:40am

Gaveston, your heart was in the right place. I probably would have done the same thing at that age..

[darquegk]

Posted: 8/25/12 at 12:33pm

I hate the audience members who sing along with the show, or hum, but unlike a few of you, I don't mind the hooting, hollering, whistling and spontaneous applause that have become common in musical and comedy audiences today. I consider it proof that, even in today's world where encores are written into the show and audience response means nothing to the way the show actually progresses, something we do behind the fourth wall is actually reaching the audience behind.

And regarding "what happened to bravo?" Bravo, in as far as I understand it, refers to something very different than cheers, hoots or screams- it's an audience's way of saying "a consummate performance, from a master of the craft!" An extremely weighty, not to mention somewhat affected, pronunciation far different from spontaneous shows of appreciation and audience joy. Sometimes I wish Wagner had never made the pronunciation that the only sounds appropriate to theatrical audiences were applause, and the withholding of applause.

[Jersey Girl2]

Posted: 8/25/12 at 12:45pm

I hate when people leave their trash on the floor after the show. How hard is it to pick up the cup, playbill. . . and throw it in the trash as you leave.