Bad Audience Behavior

This topic needs a resurface. It's amazing what bad the audience can do. I don't have very good stories, but i
have a few:

- At Phantom, there was this woman and I think her daughter, and before the show started they were having a Playbill fight, and the mother kept turning her head from side to side, which got annoying.

- This one is my dad's. When he saw The Producer's, there was a guy in a weelchair that needed to get through, and they are all there standing patiently on the sides, and this man with two cups of water comes barging through, with no consideration.

- At Pillowman, a woman unwrapped some gum in front of me before the show. Wasn't distracting, but still.

Okay, enough about my experiences. What are some of yours? I love threads like this.

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Hookbucks: You have it worse than I do.

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Just countless people eating hard candies and unwrapping things too! It's just so distracting!

Last night I went to a production of A Clockwork Orange and during the scene where Alex sees his parents for the first time after being released from jail and they're just blowing him off? Obviously this is a serious scene, right? This group of people near me, who had obviously been drinking WAY too much or just found something ridiculously funny, kept snickering and covering their mouths so they wouldn't laugh too loudly. I wanted to go over there and smack them.

Well, this wasn't the WORST thing ever. But I kind of wanted to go bop the kid on the head.

At spelling bee a couple of weeks ago, I was doing standing room and this boy a few rows below me kept yelling-not toooo loud, but loud enough "throw me the m&m's!" during "My unfortunate Erection". His parents quieted him after like, the 3rd time, because they were sitting on the other end of like 5 kids. But it was like he thought we were at a Pep rally or something.

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Updated On: 10/22/05 at 02:08 PM

I always love these threads.
My worst was at a recent performance of Fiddler. Ten minutes before the show started the guy next to me spread a dish towel across his lap and began eating a tuna fish sandwich. I was in disbelief, but couldn't work up the nerve to say something. It was really smelly.
What can you say?

I think I've mentiond this one here before- my worst was at Wicked: 1) one parent w/2 kids sharing only two seats total, their third seat was rows back, mom won the lotto for two tix and then bought a random third tix off someone on the street so that they could all three enter the theatre, but planned to have them all three just sit in their 2 seats, and then 2) she and the children kept talking about *nonsense* all during Act 1 (I don't mean talking like a kid asking a question about the show talking, I mean talking as in I heard all about the pool at the hotel, where they sat when they saw Chitty, etc.).

She ignored the looks and shushes of me and others around her, so during intermission I got an usher on her for breaking the one butt per seat rule, and then they were quiet through all of Act 2.

Saw some woman barefoot at Rent. There's no excuse for that ever, it's just so white trash. I'm surprised someone with no class like that could afford the $90 theater ticket, let alone think it's an appropriate environment for them.

Now, hard candies, sometimes are necessary. I HAVE to see a show tonight for a class and I have a really bad cough. I never see shows when I'm sick, because I think it's just rude for everyone involved, but this is a necessity (I have to give a detailed review of the production that's worth 20% of my grade). I put off seeing it through the worst of my cold, but tonight is the last performance and I'm still slightly sick. I'm bringing peppermint Lifesavers in my purse to suck on should my cough start to bother me. I actually put thought into my choice, the peppermint Lifesavers are quieter knocking against your teeth than cough drops and the wrappers aren't very loud either.

Am I wrong in thinking that other audience members would rather me quickly unwrap the candy (to suck on, not crunch) than spewing my germs everywhere and disrupting the whole performance with my coughing?

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Cell phones should be turned off except for physicians or doctors!

aces, that's why they say in playbills that you can leave your cell phone/pager at the coat check. Ushers can come get the doctor or whatever in the audience in case there's an emergency.

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MF- uncalled for

when i went to see Brooklyn there was a SRO people fight during the entire show. it was horrible.

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Caroline do you mean a fist fight?

1) At Beauty and the Beast, the lady behind me kept going into a plastic bag to get something.

2) A guy on the Hairspray tour who sat a few rows back, he began to clap to a beat at something while the whole audience was quiet, and all I did was simply look back to see who it was and turned my head back around, and I heard the guy go, "Excuse me..." like he was pis*ed off at me.

I don't think I've ever been to a show where there wasn't a latecomer.

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