Bad Theater Behavior — Page 36

Wow Hunter, none of what happened to you tonight is okay! You probably should have told the house manager. I will never understand spending all of that money and then not watching the show...

The whole cell phone thing is completely out of hand.  I see people at the theater texting or whispering into them constantly over the most mundane nonsense as though every brain fart is of such importance that it must be shared immediately no matter the surroundings. 

I have only run into the bad smell issue that another poster mentioned once.  We had a man sitting next to us who honestly smelled like he had eaten straight cloves of garlic by the ton and was having acid indigestion to boot.  He kept belching.  Not loudly, but the stench was enough to scorch the nostrils and it went on all night.  I thought maybe I was oversensitive, but at intermission one of the older women sitting in our row mentioned that she literally felt that she was being subjected to gassing by garlic and stomach acid, so I was not the only one to notice.

Also, please deliver me from people who bring youngsters to the theater who have no idea how to behave in a theater setting.  Went to see The King and I with my mother and the group sitting in front of us had  an 8 or 9-year-old girl with them that sat directly in front of my mother - we were three rows from the stage.  First there was the loud talking like she was in her living room, which took the people forever to get her to stop.  Then she stood up repeatedly or stood in her seat, which was a distraction to anyone sitting behind her.  They could only get her to stop that for intermittent periods.  Then, there was the hair.  This girl had ridiculously long hair, which she started to stretch out as far as it would go over her head while running her fingers through it.  Then she would throw her head back and the hair would fly back over top of those of us in the row behind her.  At intermission, I switch with my mother to give her a break.  The hair thing really irritated me and the people that were with her could not seem to get her to stop.  I was tempted to grab a handful on her next head flick and tie it around an armrest.  At the end of the show, the older lady with the party turned around to us and said she was so sorry for the behavior, followed by "she is not related to us!"  Swell, but they did bring her to the theater and they should remove her from the theater when she gets to be that big of a nuisance.  For the price of theater tickets, no one wants to see some kid's hair stretched out in the line of sight and then thrown back on your lap!

Updated On: 10/24/18 at 02:18 PM

I was at Donna Summer a while ago and we were sat next to these college aged girls and their mothers in the row behind them.  They kept turning around to talk to their mothers and were obviously texting and taking pictures during the show.  The usher called them out on it once and while they stopped filming, they were still on Snapchat on their phone and never put it away.  Essentially, they were treating the whole show as an actual concert, as they were screaming DONNA periodically and also left to get drinks twice, though the show seems to lend itself to pretending it's a concert so I'm guessing that certainly didn't help.

Oh Lord, I have tickets to Lion King next Saturday and Im already dreading it... thanks AnythingGoes... lol

But what happens when you do let them know and it only escalates the situation?! Like my previously posted experience... the daughter was of legal age and was drunk, calling her out made her yell AND sing louder.
It was so distracting I couldnt enjoy the show anymore. Nightmare scenario.

Marianne2 said: "^ That's when you get up to let an usher know and let them deal with it. I know it sucks to miss part of the show, but if you are already distracted, it at least can hopefully make the situation better for the rest of the show. "

I feel like that would only work if you are on the aisle, we had four people to our left and four people to our right. Getting up to see an usher would have caused a further disruption to everyone else around that were already pretty bothered by the talking and singing.

This is interesting.  I wonder what the pet peeves were back in the day before electronics took over our lives.  Possibly, the rustling of newspaper print or billowing cigarette smoke, speaking of which, was smoking allowed in Broadway theaters at one time?  

dramamama611 said: "While that certainly sucked, drunks have happened forever. And any and everywhere. It happening at a theater isnt new, either. It certainly isn't indicative about people "nowadays".

"

Dmama, of course you are right that drunks have always been an issue. What has changed in my lifetime (thanks to the Cultural Revolution) is a lessening of our capacity for shame. When I was first going to theater in the 1960s, we only went after binding ourselves with sports jackets, ties, and what have you. I think most people cared not to embarrass themselves in public. During my first two trips to NYC (1971-2), I saw at least a dozen shows and encountered no rude behavior whatsoever; certainly nothing compared to what is reported from almost every performance today. And, oddly, tickets were relatively inexpensive.

Don't get me wrong: as someone who is almost always uncomfortably hot, I am happy to attend the theater in "business casual" rather than jacket and tie. But I do think as a culture we baby boomers grew up with an emphasis more on personal entitlement than herd conformity. And that's often a good thing, but maybe not so much when 1500 people are supposed to treat a performance with respect.

Another difference "nowadays" is the extreme amplification of almost all shows. When I was 12, Ethel Merman sang over a 30-piece orchestra with just a few general mikes in the air above her. But one had to sit quietly and LISTEN to follow what was said on stage. Rock concerts were replacing theater as the performance medium of choice, however, and we grew up with rock concerts amplified to an extent where no sound we made interfered with the performance. (I saw Springsteen at the Meadowlands in 1985; the speakers were 60' tall and no one in my party could hear at all for an hour after the show. We would not have disturbed our neighbors if we had played the "1812 Overture" on a boom box during "Dancing in the Dark".)

So while I agree there were always disruptive incidents, I think it's much worse nowadays. Why, I don't know. Nor do I understand why these things seem to be so much more common on Broadway than they are when I attend theater in Los Angeles. Unless it's that paying so much for a ticket engenders its own sense of entitlement.

Updated On: 1/27/19 at 02:55 AM

If you buy a snack at the concession stand, DURING the show is not the only time you have to open it.

But I do also take issue with the semi-hypocrisy of theatres selling concessions at all, unless they're in wax or cloth (which doesn't happen).

---

Updated On: 1/31/19 at 04:05 PM

LxGstv said: "Marianne2 said: "^ That's when you get up to let an usher know and let them deal with it. I know it sucks to miss part of the show, but if you are already distracted, it at least can hopefully make the situation better for the rest of the show. "

I feel like that would only work if you are on the aisle, we had four people to our left and four people to our right. Getting up to see an usher would have caused a further disruption to everyone else around that were already pretty bothered by the talking and singing."

 


A lot of these incidents seem to start during the first acts of shows. Find an usher or manager at intermission and get it taken care of then. Especially drunk people.

At DISASTER on Broadway we had 4 very drunk women sit about 3 minutes before curtain. They started singing immediately and when the curtain went up they continued talking and singing. We shushed them several times. After 15 minutes of it, I got up and made my way past 7 people to the aisle and got an usher and manager. They walked down, watched the women for about a minute and moved in on the other side of the aisle and removed them. From the theater.

I would rather miss a few minutes of a show than have to deal with bad behavior for an entire performance. It just amazes me how people come here and complain when they could have done something about it. Most theaters will not tolerate very drunk people. And it has been rampant this season.

 

---

Updated On: 1/31/19 at 06:32 PM

As for drunken or talking ignorant theater-goers, I would've gotten security in a minute.  But I also get the theater headsets for that specific purpose. I can hear okay. I use the headsets to drown out the peripheral noise around me like talking, candy wrappers, etc. I turn up the volume if I have to.  And if the singing went on, I'd be off getting the security staff.  I had to do that w/Kong.  Woman in front of me was videotaping Kong as he came out. And we were on the aisle in first few rows. I waited for intermission and got security who gave her the choice of leaving the theater or erasing the video. She dumped the video.

This past Wednesday at the Ferryman matinee, someone didn't fully turn off their phone, so the alert tone kept coming on...most likely for the arctic blast weather warning. It wasn't until intermission, that someone shut if off.   

Those Amber and other alerts will always come on even if the phone is silenced. The only way to stop it is to shut it off or put it on airplane mode.

I don’t know if I attract awful audience members or if certain shows attract them. Could also be the day of the week that plays a factor. But once again another horrible experience at a broadway theater.

Last night’s performance of The Lion King had a loud group behind us, constant talking and giggling during quiet times of the show, plastic bags shuffling for I don’t know what reason. We shushed and talked to an usher, but that didn’t do anything. The show was about to start the second act when we politely asked them to be quiet because the talking is distracting when they all got aggressive and confrontational.
They rudely started to one another saying “no one is talking, I don’t hear anything” “is my laugh and coughing bothering you?”.
The second act literally starts and they are still talking loudly “are the birds bothering you too” “you should ask them to stop as well”.
There was an usher witnesssing all of this, as well as actors right next to us as we were in the front mezzanine. Appalling behavior.
We say it again “you are literally talking right now, please be quiet” to which they all reply “you be quiet” around 3 or 4 times... in between every song someone loudly exclaimed “that was amazing!”.

I’m just baffled that this behavior would happen in a theater. Absolutely disgusting and quite frankly, makes me less interested in broadway, it certainly makes me not want to see certain shows, in the end it’s a lot of money to pay just to be annoyed and have a ****ty experience.

It sounds like an aggressive group.
I was at the Lyceum in front of a school group in the mezzanine. They weren’t aggressive, but they used the back of my seat and shoulders as a foot rest. I was so grossed out when the bottoms of ther boots kept resting on my hair.
I don’t think they were malicious but it was clear the students and their chaperones just did not know how to behave at a theatre. I would wager to say that most groups like these these are experiencing a broadway show for the first time (including the chaperones) and they are just clueless about proper theatre manners.