Anyone ever experienced a major audience emergency/problem in the middle of a show???

Sort of random I bring this up, but during the end of the run of "Addams Family" back in December, right when "Let's not talk about any thing else but love" Started a bunch of audience members in the middle of the orchestra started getting up and sorta talking loud and running up and down the isles a little but to someone who was collapsed on the floor up at the back of the orchestra level. Once the show got out there was a bunch of ambulances and police outside the Lunt Fontanne... assuming that one of the audience members had a heart attack or something of the sort during the show. I'm pretty sure the actors noticed but kept going and didn't do anything about it and the show went on like normal with out a stop or a hitch. Anyone else ever experienced anything like this????

Yes. Many, many times. The worst was someone dying just before the curtain rose on the 2nd preview of "The Full Monty". A family had won tix for the show, all really dolled up - they were sitting in the 5th row, - the grandmother collapsed, someone in the audience started CPR, the stagehands brought out lights onstage for the EMS that came and continued working on her for a good 20 minutes in the aisle, (ripping the poor woman's clothes off), the rest of the family was ushered out into the lobby so they didn't have to witness the tragedy of it. The show actually went up about 9 pm. I honestly don't know how they performed that night. And most, but not all of the audience stayed. There were needles, gauze, medical stuff etc. still on the floor at the end of the show.

Updated On: 8/29/12 at 02:16 AM

I wasn't in this particular audience, but during a performance of Breakfast at Tiffany's in London, a person sat in the front of the upper circle projectile vomited over the edge of the circle, all the way down to the stalls.

kind of always afraid of something like this happening only because I'm an ER nurse and I feel obligated to help. I'd be afraid to make a scene yet wouldn't want to NOT be of service especially since I kinda know what to do (at least until the paramedics get there). Its different on a plane or at the store where its not a big deal to speak up but to possibly disrupt a show, or have a whole bunch of people watching me do CPR? Yeah tough one.

Still wouldn't stay seated, would help the person.

When Chicago was at Encores The Saturday matinee right before the second act was about to start someone in the audience yelled out "Is there a doctor in the house?"

A person in the audience was having a heart attack. I think it was about an hour before the show resumed. Found out later that the person passed away.

---

Also, an audience member choked to death during "Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks".

My partner experienced something similar a week ago, at the final Saturday night perf. of "End of the Rainbow.". A woman collapsed, a doctor was called, but the show went on without interruption.

During previews of the current production of The Best Man, a man seated on the aisle at the back of the orchestra went into seizures. Someone began yelling "Is there a doctor in the house?" and the actors onstage at the time (James Earl Jones and John Larroquette) stopped. House lights went up as several people ran to the man's aid. The show was stopped for 20 minutes while paramedics came and took the man away, his poor wife standing in shock at his side. For me it was impossible to refocus on the show after that. Very upsetting. And later I thought about how "safe" I feel in the audience of a Broadway theatre — as if real life temporarily didn't exist. I probably wouldn't have been so upset had it happened in another setting. (And I don't mean to make myself the focus here — it's just that I'm usually pretty quick-thinking and matter-of-fact about emergency situations, and this time I was frozen with emotion, which just made me think.) I still wonder about that man and his wife... : /

---

The other one that I just remembered was on a trip to London I saw a play that Alan Bates was staring in. I will have to look up what the play was but I think he played a priest.

The only thing I do remember is there was a scene where one of the characters attempted suicide but slashing his wrists. Blood was all over the stage. A man in front of us got up and no sooner out into the aisle and he passed out. Two ushers carried him up the aisle and the play continued during this.


Just looked online I can't find this play in his credits now it is going to bug me who the actor was. Anyone have a clue what other British actors around the same age as Bates who also did film work this might possibly be? I want to say the play was in the mid to late 1980s.

---

Updated On: 8/29/12 at 09:38 AM

I saw a performance of Bonnie and Clyde and right when Laura Osnes started singing "Dying Ain't So Bad," everybody in the front row center stood up, saying that there was an emergency or something. So Laura leaves the stage (you could hear her say through her mic 'there's an audience emergency..." and things like that.) So they stop the show for like 10 minutes and apparently this older man had a heart attack but i'm not really sure what happened. But he left the theatre and the show resumed.

A few times. At the last La Cage revival, my friend and I saw the EMT people coming in because they had to use stairs to get up to the balcony, which was where the emergency occurred, apparently. There was a stream of flashlights and you could see them in the shadows. (The actors kept looking toward them, too.)

BEFORE a show (I seem to recall it was Beauty Queen of Leenane), someone passed out or fainted and the ambulance came and took them away.

"I wasn't in this particular audience, but during a performance of Breakfast at Tiffany's in London, a person sat in the front of the upper circle projectile vomited over the edge of the circle, all the way down to the stalls."

Well, you can hardly blame him can you? I'm surprised there wasn't more projective vomiting during THAT show!

I keep thinking of ones as the day goes by.

At North Shore Music Theatre in Beverly, MA. there was a fire that destroyed the theatre one of the first shows after the theatre was rebuilt was Jesus Christ Superstar. Right near the end of the show Jesus is on the cross they had the smoke effect and all of a sudden the smoke alarms went off.

Since this was soon after the fire of the theatre most people pretty quickly exited the theatre to torrential rains, thunder and lightening. We actually ran to our car as did most people. The cast was still in costume and next thing there is Jesus in his little loin cloth which in the rain started to look like a really soggy diaper. I rolled down the window and asked Jesus if he wanted to get in the back seat but he said friends had a van he was heading to.

At that point we decided to not hang around. I started the car and as I was leaving in the rear view mirror the last image I had was Jesus holding up his soggy diaper and running.

Fun times.

---